Today, we celebrate the feast day of Padre Pio, one of the most popular saints in the Catholic Church. Padre Pio was born to a family of farmers in southern Italy in 1887. As a youth, he became a Capuchin Franciscan. His life at the monastery was interrupted by a stint in the Italian army in WWI and a bout with tuberculosis. In 1918, after celebrating mass, he had a vision of Jesus and developed the stigmata on his hands, feet, and side. He became a celebrity, with busloads of people coming to him for confession each day. There are a good number of people who have reported cures and healings after praying for the intercession of Padre Pio. Padre Pio saw Jesus in the sick and the suffering. His canonization by Pope John Paul II in 2002 was one of the largest crowds to attend a canonization. The Pope stated this about Padre Pio at his canonization: “The life and mission of Padre Pio testify that difficulties and sorrows, if accepted with love, transform themselves into a privileged journey of holiness, which opens the person toward a greater good, known only to the Lord.” It is interesting, that on the day we celebrate the feast of Padre Pio, we hear about Jesus sending out his apostles to be missionaries to the world, giving them authority over demon, to cure diseases, to heal the sick, and to proclaim the kingdom of God. Padre Pio lived out this mandate in the call God gave him and in the way he answered that call.
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