Before anything bad happens

Just before Christmas we took a trip to one of the Islands in Romblon to have a few days of prayer. The place we stayed in was a garden resort up in the hills with cabins and a good  restaurant, very peaceful and conducive to ‘rest and relaxation’. Often when we travel, there are Divine Appointments made and this was no exception. Our host, a successful businessman shared his testimony with us as a storm rolled in which would lengthen our stay by 2 days as ships would no longer be able to dock at the port due to the size of the waves. 

His story began with another storm, in Manila some years before, where he became captive to the weather and floods and was unable to go to work. It was during this time that he reflected on his life. Although hard working, healthy and materially successful, he had no time for God. He hadn't been to church since his wedding, decades earlier and it occurred to him that he ought to get himself in good standing with God, as he put it “before anything bad happens”. A pragmatic businessman indeed! He followed through and as the floods permitted, he went to church with a shopping list of sins and made his peace through the sacrament of reconciliation.

Soon after, a crisis did indeed present itself. His son had an accident wake boarding; an ill fitting helmet left him with a skull fracture. A simple operation was needed and whilst in recovery they noticed an infection in the bone had developed which made things more serious. A second operation was conducted to replace that area of the skull. After this, his son was becoming forgetful and it was clear that something was still wrong. A friend suggested that he seek St (Padre) Pio’s intercession. He googled Padre Pio to find out who he was and also identified a shrine dedicated to him near the hospital and began a series of visits to pray for his son. 

After one of those visits he returned to the hospital and found his son’s bed gone:- he had gone in for a third surgery. At that moment he noticed a strong smell of flowers in the room aka the odour of sanctity (often noticed by devotees of Padre Pio during his bilocations). The operation was a success and his son regained all his faculties on recovery. 

Whilst God is relentless in His pursuit of each and every lost soul, it is only when he opened his heart to God and turned his life around that he was able to tap into the new and true life in God. In this case, it also enabled him to handle the crisis in his son’s life as a man of faith rather than relying on his own strength. This became a precursor to another miracle for his son’s healing. It was a wonderful introduction to the might of the intercession of the saints in heaven and God’s provision in our lives when we pray in faith.

Padre Pio diverts a bombing Mission

 

"Pictured, Father Pio and North American Protestant pilots who converted to Catholicism after seeing the Saint fly alongside his planes."

·

“When the planes were near the target, they saw a monk in the sky with his hands raised, diverting the planes. When the bombs dropped, they fell into the woods, far from the village.

Without any explanation, the planes had changed their course.”. Everyone wondered who was that monk the planes obeyed. Someone told the general that in San Giovanni Rotondo there was a monk who performed miracles. Then he decided, as soon as the war ended, to verify who was the monk they had seen in Heaven. After the war, the General went to the Capuchin Convent with some pilots. Upon entering the monastery , he met several monks and among them he immediately recognized that the monk who had stopped his planes was Father Pio.

The priest approached and when he approached, he said, "So were you the one who wanted to kill us all?" "Enlightened by the eyes and the words of the Father, the General knelt before him." Everyone was in awe, and the General and his fellow pilots converted to Catholicism"

“Woman, Why do you besiege me?”

A woman from San Giovanni Rotunda watched her sick husband go from bad to worse and sink rapidly towards death. In great distress , she ran to the monastery to get Padre Pio to pray for his recovery but could not get past the crowds.

She could not wait in the long line for confession to see him so prayed interiorly that Padre Pio would help her husband who , at any moment might die and leave her alone to bring up their children.

When she saw Padre Pio move to the altar to celebrate Mass she dashed over there but was engulfed in the crowds again, she tried going to the right, then the keft but could not reach him. So she prayed interiorly again, filled with anguish that wrenched her heart, because of her husband’s condition.

When Mass was over she managed to squeeze through into the corridor he would use to return to the monastery and continued to pray again. Padre Pio came along and stopped by her saying “woman of little faith, why do you beseige me and bombard me with your prayer? Do you think I am deaf? You have already told me what you want 5 times, from the right, from the left, in front, behind, I get the message ! Go home , everything is alright” Full of joy, she thanked him and ran home to find her husband in perfect health.

The Trap

A trader from Genoa had to visit Foggia to negotiate an oil sale. One of his friends who knew he had been away from the church for a long time planned to lay a trap for him. He asked him to make a detour to San Giovanni Rotunda to deliver a letter to Padre Pio, hoping that his friend would meet the priest. He agreed and went to the monastery to deliver the letter and wait for the reply. 

When Padre Pio saw him , he approached him and asked “what do you want ?” He replied he was just waiting for a reply to the letter. “Ah Yes the letter” Padre Pio replied “But what about you, Don’t you want to go to confession ?”

The man admitted that he had not practiced his religion in a long time. Padre Pio asked him “how long since your last confession ?” I was 7 years old said the trader. The priest looked at him as though he saw into his soul and said “how long do you intent to live this disgusting kind of life ?” 

In a flash the man saw how his life had been lived without God, repented, went to confession and was filled with Joy. He stayed on another week and attended the Mass each day.

Padre Pio …. Give me a sign

Aure Caviggioli, an antique dealer from Monte Carlo, had been away from the church for a long time. One day he went to the Rome-Termini station and without knowing why, bought a ticket for Foggia. During the journey he dozed off and when he woke up he became aware of a strong perfume but could not identify its source.

On his arrival in Foggia , he took the bus for San Giovanni Rotunda and checked in at the hotel. Next morning, on his way to Padre Pio’s Mass, he was aware of the same perfume he had smelt on the train.

During the celebration he was fascinated by the priest’s presence. He wanted to get near but the crowd was dense. The next day, thanks to some brothers, he was able to get close to Padre Pio who asked him, “what do you want?” Caviggioli was embarrassed for a moment and then remembered that one of his grand-daughters, living in Switzerland had a brain tumour, so he recommended her to his prayers. Padre Pio advised him to go home because the child had been cured. The cure had in fact been immediate and complete, so much so that the doctors would not take their fees as they concluded that they had done nothing in this case.

This excited Caviggioli’s curiosity and he went back several times to San Giovanni Rotunda to meet Padre Pio and make his confession to him. But a certain fear held him back. Two years passed and he decided to make Padre Pio a gift of a painting of the Virgin Mary carrying the child Jesus, the work of a sixteenth century painter. A friend who came to look at it asked Caviggioli how much it was worth. He answered that it was worth millions! But during the night Padre Pio came to him in a dream and looking at him very severely said “What are you talking about ? you paid only 25,000 lira for that painting!” When he woke up , the antique dealer recalled that in fact that was the price he had paid for it to a Jew who had been deported during World War II.

When Caviggioli went to San Giovanni Rotunda he presented the painting to Padre Pio who asked him “what did you dream last night , you rogue ?” and burst out laughing.

However, even on this occasion Padre Pio would not hear his confession. Back in his hotel, alone and looking at the monastery he cried out “Listen Padre Pio, give me a sign that I may know when to come to confession” To his utter amazement, he had hardly finished the sentence when Padre Pio appeared before him, took him by the hand and then disappeared. Caviggioli was filled with fear and quite stunned by this. Next day the priest heard his confession and apologized for having scared him by appearing at his hotel !

Called in his Sleep

A young engineer from Bologna who had been away from the church for years, dreamt one night of Padre Pio. The friar gazed at him for a long time and then disappeared after saying ‘It is fortunate for you that you could sustain my scrutiny’ The man had never heard of Padre Pio at that stage but was intrigued and made enquiries about him. He had a great desire to meet him and at the same time felt his conscience pricking him. He wanted to come out of his situation but did not feel he had the inner strength to do so and sank back into his lethargy and eight years passed by.

It took a catastrophe to shake him out of his apathy. An earthquake shook Bologna. He decided to visit Padre Pio and took a train to San Giovanni Rotondo, but after several kilometers he felt ill and had to return home. He wrote to Padre Pio to explain and he replied telling him to be patient and carry out charitable works until the right moment came along to visit.  Eventually he did visit and when he saw Padre Pio at the monastery he recognized him as looking exactly as he did in his dream 8 years earlier and fell to his knees weeping and blurted out “ I have known your reputation for holiness for 8 years” Padre Pio responded ‘what good has it done you, you have lived as you wished’ Change your life my son’

This time he accepted his advice , went to confession, received absolution and returned to Bologna a  new man and gave witness to God’s grace through Padre Pio.

An opera singer ‘s conversion .. a Padre Pio Story

A famous Italian tenor, Beniamino Gigli wanted to meet Padre Pio. He arrived in San Giovanni Rotondo in a luxurious car with a uniformed Chaffuer. When Gigli was introduced to Padre Pio, the priest gave him that searching look of his which went to the heart of things without being influenced by appearences. He went up to him and said point blank “ you call yourself ‘Gigli’ like the Lily which is a symbol of purity but you are a sullied lily because you are cheating on your wife and have a secret relationship with another woman” You call yourself ‘Beniamino’ which means beloved of God but God does not love you at all because of the state of your soul” One can imagine how upset the tenor was on hearing what Padre Pio had read in his soul which others had chosen to ignore and confronted him with the responsibility. Beniamino however had the strength and humility to accept this brutal indictment and changed his ways, broke off the extramarital affair and until his death became a faithful friend of Padre Pio.

Healer of Souls

This week the relic of the Incorrupt heart of St (Padre) Pio was at Manila Cathedral on its way around the country.  Crowds, too numerous to count braved the weather in long queues to venerate the relic.

He is very much loved; a saint for our times as he was such a contradiction to the ways of the world.  It seems that his incredible gift of being able to read souls was matched only by his capacity to suffer; with both the stigmata and enduring the constant attacks of the devil. Perhaps that was the price of such a gift in that he had to suffer in order to set his penitents free from bondage, to obtain for them the gift of conversion.

One wonderful story, told by a lady who confessed to him, was about a hidden sin she had. She went to confession to him and after she had finished he asked if she had anything else she wanted to tell. She said ‘no’ and he asked her to return the next day. She confessed other sins and was asked if there was anything else ; again she responded ‘no’ and was asked to return the next day. On the last day, he mentioned the date and time when she had an abortion, and then he told her what her aborted son would have been had he lived, the destiny that was lost when his life had been extinguished. That revelation showed her the gravity of the sin and she was repentant and reconciled with God.

St. Pio reveals to us the gentleness and mercy of a God so much offended but always willing to forgive at the slightest opening of a repentant heart.

The wonderful thing about our saints though is that their mission does not end in death, it is ramped up a notch; the miracles abound all the more when they are born into heaven.

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.

Don't feel sorry for yourself anymore !

A woman I was acquainted with who lived at San Giovanni Rotondo, had suffered badly from rheumatism for some time. One day, with great exertion, she dragged herself into church to go to confession to Padre Pio. After confession she lamented over her pains and asked Padre Pio to help her. 

He gave no answer. She was offended and said 'Ah Padre Pio, don't you have any compassion for me ? I suffer so much. Include me in your prayers! Before he closed the grates of the confessional, Padre Pio said to her 'Don't feel sorry for yourself anymore' 

 A bit disappointed and also a bit offended, she left the confessional, but she had barely taken her first steps when she observed to her amazement, that she had no more pain and could walk easily.

Padre Pio's own words about confession.

"It is a tremendous responsibility to sit in the tribunal of the confessional."

"God runs after the most stubborn souls. They cost him too much to abandon them."

After a day of confessions: "Oh the souls! if you knew how much they cost!" 

"The sight of so many souls who wish to justify their evil ways pains me, exhausts my brain, and tears at my heart."

"Before reproaching a soul, I suffer it first. But it is not I who act, but He who is in me and above me."

"Sin to confession to sin without repentance is a deception of conscience; in essence a sacrilege."

"Among you I am your brother, on the Altar I am your victim, in the confessional I am your judge."

"Confession is the purification of the soul." 

Confession should be made no later than every eight days."

"Do not dwell on sins that have been already confessed. Jesus has forgiven them."

"Place a tombstone on the confessed sins, just as the Lord has done."

"I want to help Jesus in the tremendous task of man's salvation".

"The mercy of God, my son, is infinitely greater than your malice"

Death to Life ... a Padre Pio story

One Sunday morning, 26 years ago, my wife and I were planning to go on a picnic to a local beauty spot. After we finished our dinner, Ann went into the sitting- room with a cup of coffee. The two older children, Michael and Nichola, and I started to prepare a picnic hamper.

At this point Ann was pregnant with twins. While we were making the picnic hamper we heard a scream from the sitting-room. I ran in to find Ann lying on the floor.

A few years before that, Ann had miscarried a child. I thought it was something to do with this happening again. We called a doctor. By the time the doctor came Ann was completely stiff, her eyes were rolling in her head and her mouth was twisted up to her ear. The doctor got a pair of scissors to cut the clothes off Ann and gave her several injections. The ambulance came and took her to the local hospital.

A team of doctors and nurses examined her while I sat in the waiting-room. They came to me and said: "Mr Mulrine, your wife has no more than half an hour to live. She either had a massive brain haemorrhage or has a tumour of the brain. We just don't know but we feel that's most probably what it is. " They said: "If you wish, we can keep your wife alive by ventilator until the unborn children reach the age of 38 weeks, which is about two-and-a- half months away. If you don't sign the forms, then your wife and two unborn children will die within the next half-hour."

I signed the forms and they told me to go in and say goodbye, she might or might not hear me. I went in but she was just like an animal, there was blood coming from everywhere; she was completely distorted. Then they took her away and put her on the life-support machine. She looked as if she was lying peacefully after that.

That night I went down to visit my mother and my mother- in- law and I was handed a little relic leaflet of Padre Pio by my mother. That was the first time I ever heard of him. I shoved it in my top pocket. I then went back up to our house to make arrangements for the children to be looked after. I went, after that, to arrange for time off work. The man we had bought our house off had roses everywhere in the front garden and when I was passing them I thought, 'I will take those roses to Our Lady's altar.' But I sort of laughed at it and walked away.

Eventually I was walking through a place called William Street where there's a beautiful flower shop. The window was full of roses. Once again I got this feeling that I should take flowers to Our Lady's altar. So I went in and bought some and took them up to the chapel. As I was putting the roses on the altar, the stems of the flowers caught the little leaflet I had been given. It was sticking out of my pocket and it fell to the ground. I lifted it up and knelt down and said the prayer on it, which was a prayer Padre Pio would have said for people looking for his intercession. It said everything you would have liked to have said but didn't know how to say. From that time on I had a great prayerfulness about me, which I never had before.

Ten or 12 days passed and Ann was still the same. One night I was sitting down beside her with the little leaflet and I said: "Look, if you're going to do something for me, give me a sign." I asked Ann to squeeze my hand and I swore she did. I sent for the nurse and the doctor but they told me I was clutching at straws, there was no chance at all. They said she was clinically brain dead. But they said there was a specialist coming down in a few days and he would talk to me and put me more clearly in the picture.

Eventually this doctor came down and told me what I had been told before. He said: "Your wife either had a massive brain haemorrhage or has a tumour and we have no intention of doing anything at all because your wife is clinically dead, only the machine is keeping the children going." Another five or six weeks passed. All this time I was going to Our Lady's altar with roses and praying to Padre Pio. They then asked me could they move my wife to hospital in Belfast and I said: "Yes."

One night in Belfast I was sitting beside my wife's bed when one of the nurses said: "Mr Mulrine, would you mind leaving for a while?" It was about half past one or two o'clock in the morning. I went down to the end of the corridor and I started saying the Rosary. I got up after the first decade and walked towards Ann's bed but something pulled me back. On the last decade of the Rosary I looked up the corridor and I saw this figure coming around the corner and I ran towards it and said: "Excuse me, you're looking for me."

I had never met the man in my life, I didn't know who the man was; don't ask me why I said that. He said: "I'm looking for a man called Mulrine." I said: "That's me." The man's name was Michael Murray and he and his wife ran the Padre Pio Centre for Northern Ireland. He said: "I got a phone call about half-an- hour ago from a lady who said for me to take the glove of Padre Pio to Sean and Ann Mulrine in the Royal Hospital." This was a brown mitt that Padre Pio would have had over the bandages, over the stigmata on his hands. We went up to Ann and he said to me: "She might hear you talking, tell her what it is." So I told her. We put the glove of Padre Pio on Ann's head. Despite all the tubes, she moved her hand, she grabbed the glove, she brought the glove to her face, blessed herself three times, brought it to her stomach and blessed her stomach with it. She then just fell back into the bed again. This was the first movement we had seen. After that, Michael and I sat and he told me some things about Padre Pio. Then we left. I went to my room. Next morning I went to Ann's bed again but she was moved and the bed was gone. I thought they had taken her to take the children out. The nurse came to me and said: "The doctors have read the reports from last night and they've taken her down to surgery for exploratory examination."

They removed part of the crown of her head and put a camera in to see what was there. They came to me after the operation and said they had seen several of the major vessels in the brain and they had burst. There was a large amount of congealed blood in the centre of the brain and it could not be sucked out. They said: "We don't know how the event last night happened, we can't understand it, she's clinically dead." That night I went into my room and I couldn't go through the door for the overpowering smell of roses. It was years later that I was told that this was the invisible presence of Padre Pio.

To cut a long story short, Ann came out of the recovery room, they put her in bed and she opened her eyes and started to talk and move. They took her off the ventilator to see how she would do. They called it a fluke. They said: "We don't know how this has happened." Ann got so well that she was eventually brought back to Derry, where the babies were born just a week after she arrived. She just went from strength to strength. She never looked back and she and the two boys were released from hospital on 23 September, which was the anniversary of the death of Padre Pio.

Eventually we went out to San Giovanni in thanksgiving and we met Father Alessio who was Padre Pio's secretary and nurse. He is dead since. He asked could he investigate Ann's story as part of the cause of Padre Pio. They investigated for four or five years or more. When they asked for the doctors' personal opinions, they all said it was beyond medical science how she is today.

As a result, for the beatification we were asked to meet the Pope and present flowers from the people of Ireland. And for the canonisation I was also invited to go up to the Pope with the presentations. We take the trips out now in thanksgiving. We never make any fuss about it. We don't say it was a miracle. We say it was a grace given by God through the intercession of Padre Pio.

Sean runs the Padre Pio Centre for Northern Ireland, which is affiliated to the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo

Urgency of praying for souls in Purgatory

( a padre Pio story)

“One evening, while I was alone in choir to pray, I heard the rustle of a suit and I saw a young monk that stirred next to the High altar. It seemed that the young monk was dusting the candelabra and straightening the flower vases.

I thought he was Padre Leone rearranging the altar, and, since it was supper time, I went to him and I told him: “Padre Leone, go to dine, this is not the time to dust and to straighten the altar”.

But a voice, that was not Father Leone’s answered me”: “I am not Padre Leone”, “and who are you? “, I asked him. “I am a brother of yours that made the noviciate here. I was ordered to clean the altar during the year of the noviciate. Unfortunately many times I didn’t reverence Jesus while passing in front of the altar, thus causing the Holy Sacrament that was preserved in the tabernacle to be disrespected. For this serious carelessness, I am still in Purgatory. Now, God, with his endless goodness, sent me here so that you may quicken the time I will enjoy Paradise. Take care of me.”

I believed to be generous to that suffering soul, so I exclaimed: “you will be in Paradise tomorrow morning, when I will celebrate Holy Mass”.

That soul cried: “Cruel!” Then he wept and disappeared.

That complaint produced in me a wound to the heart that I have felt and I will feel my whole life. In fact I would have been able to immediately send that soul to Heaven but I condemned him to remain another night in the flames of Purgatory.”

War against Self-Interest

Padre Pio commented once that “only a general knows how and when to use one of his soldiers” There is as wide a variety of men and strategies as there are battles to fight. 

I suspect the Celtic part of my ancestry led me to embrace the idea that you can get a lot further in battle with an axe and a kind word than you can with just a kind word but I am also inspired by the diplomacy and patience of an Englishman, William Wilberforce who stood valiantly against slavery for most of his life, completing the task of its abolition across the whole British Empire just three days before he died. 

The key to success for this great man of God was that he not only had a clear vision of what was right and wrong in the sight of God but also he knew why his opponents (almost everyone at the time) could not see it. As he put it in one of his speeches “...how self interest can draw a film across the eyes, so thick, that total blindness could do no more; and how it is our duty therefore to trust not to the reasonings of interested men, or to their way of colouring a transaction...”

He knew and made allowance for the weaknesses of man. Self-interest can justify absolutely anything in the mind of the one who wants it badly enough. Anyone can produce a litany of reasons for pursuing whatever he desires; he justifies what he wants so he can have it regardless of whether or not it is right. 

Wilberforce knew it and patiently made the blind to see, lifting the film off gradually through prayer, words and deeds until the nation understood, through a gift of grace, the horror of slavery and the ugliness of their own selfish hearts.

The same is true in the smaller details of life and this is where it becomes personal. What are the motives behind our daily decisions, choices, and speech? Do we give reasons for our actions to justify them or are they pure enough that there is no need to qualify them?

Every human heart is the battlefield and it’s only the amazing grace of God that can win the day as it enlightens individual hearts, heals the blindness of self-interest.

Whatever kind of Christian soldiers we are, whether savages or diplomats, we must hold our place in the line and with the weapon of prayer we will overcome.

Telegrams to Padre Pio… a story from Austria-

Shortly before Easter 1950, I found out that a dear friend of mine who lived in Innsbruck, had suffered a heart attack while visiting her sisters in Vienna; she was in hospital hovering near death. I wondered what I could do. Whenever I have asked myself this question on similar occasions, I have always felt the entirety of my wretchedness and my inability to offer real help.

Of course I can pray. To be sure, we never pray in vain, even if we are conscious of the weakness of our own prayers. But in these kind of cases we need powerful prayers; so I sent the following telegram to San Giovanni Rotondo. “Padre Pio, we very much recommend to your prayers Mrs N.B who is seriously ill in Vienna, so that she may improve, have priestly assistance and go back home”

Almost immediately I received the response from San Giovanni Rotondo “Padre Pio prays for the sick woman, sends his blessing and his best wishes” My friend recovered from her heart attack almost immeditely and her health improved day to day, she was also visited by a priest and was able to go back home to Innsbruck.

And thus all 3 things I had asked for in my telegram, at a moment when, humanly speaking there was no hope left, were granted to the letter.