Letters to Padre Pio..a story from Uganda

In 1949, a Comboni missionary of my acquaintance, Fr Ercole de Marchi was sent to Arua in Uganda. In his first letter to me he told me he was unhappy that he had been unable to do anything for the mission, for just as he arrived he had come down with a fever and was seriously ill. Further letters revealed that his illness was getting steadily worse. I was very pained to hear this because I knew with what fervour and joy he had returned to the mission, so I wondered how I could help him and suddenly the idea of writing to Padre Pio came to me.

I wrote my first letter to Padre Pio. It was fairly simple, with words that concentrated on the essentials. I asked that he offer Mass for the complete healing of Fr Marchi and that he would be able to resume his missionary activity. Almost immediately I received the following handwritten response from the Fr Guardian of the monastery We have received your letter with the offering for a Holy Mass, Padre Pio thanks you, prays for your intention and sends his blessing.

I was a bit disappointed, at the least I would have expected a couple of lines from Padre Pio himself with some advice for Fr Marchi, at that time I knew too little about Padre Pio and what happens at San Giovanni Rotondo. (He received thousands of letters per day).

I sent the response from San Giovanni Rotondo in a letter to Fr Marchi, exhorting him to write to Padre Pio himself about whatever was close to his heart. My letter reached Uganda on August 9th. The next day Fr Marchi wrote a detailed letter to Padre Pio, to which he never received a reply. Yet on the same day he sent the letter to Padre Pio he was delivered from the fever and from all illness and was able to resume activities for the mission.