The Christophers: The Guidance of Padre Pio
Fr. Ed Dougherty, M.M.,
he Christophers’ Board of Directors
_______
“Pray, hope, and don’t worry. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” This is the advice Saint Padre Pio gave to his spiritual children in the many communications he had with them throughout his life. What an amazing privilege it must have been to have known Padre Pio, the great Italian saint of the 20th century who bore the stigmata. More amazing still is that Padre Pio extended the invitation for all Americans to be his spiritual children on the condition of keeping and practicing the faith.
Padre Pio expressed this invitation to an American soldier named Joe Peluso who paid him a visit during World War II. Peluso had received a letter from his mother while he was stationed in Italy. She encouraged her son to seek out Padre Pio, though she did not know what part of the country he lived in. When Peluso asked his chaplain, the chaplain laughed and pointed to a nearby mountain and said, “Padre Pio lives right on that mountain.”
So it was that Joe Peluso was able to visit Padre Pio regularly throughout the next ten months that he remained stationed near the Capuchin Friary of Our Lady of Grace in San Giovani Rotundo. Sometimes he would eat with the Capuchins, and he once made a trip to Rome to replenish Padre Pio’s stock of religious medals that he gave to those who came to see him.
When Peluso asked Padre Pio to be a spiritual father to himself and his entire family, Padre Pio agreed and then said, “Joe, when the war is over and you return to the United States, tell the American people that, for those who would like me to be their spiritual father, my answer is yes. I accept all Americans as my spiritual children. I only have two requirements – that they lead very good Catholic lives and that they regularly receive the sacraments.”
Joe Peluso went on to share this story throughout the remainder of his life, and it has been recounted and disseminated many times, leading Americans from all walks of life to turn to Padre Pio for his intercession. Regarding his ministry to American soldiers, it is said that he was very generous and fatherly in how he offered advice, sometimes even patting a soldier on the head like a child and saying, “Be a good boy,” to send him on his way.
Padre Pio’s background of growing up in humble circumstances in the Campania region of southern Italy prepared him for meeting all people in the simplest of ways and turning the most basic interactions into profound experiences. Associated with miraculous events and intercessions during his lifetime, he bore the wounds of Christ on his hands and feet for 50 years. A few days before his death in 1968 at the age of 81, those wounds completely disappeared.
Through stories told by so many people who had the privilege to know Padre Pio in his lifetime, so many more have come to implore his intercession and to call him their spiritual father, continually fulfilling that wish he expressed to intercede for the souls of the people of our nation.
We celebrate the Feast of Saint Padre Pio on September 23rd, so may he intercede for our nation in a special way on this day so that more people will come to share in the beautiful devotion to his memory and his wish to guide us to the healing power of Christ.
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