Padre Pio Saint Pio ~ Priest, Stigmatist, Mystic
Padre Pio was born Francesco Forgione on May 25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, Italy to Grazio and Maria Giuseppa Forgione. He was baptized in the church of St. Ann in Pietrelcina where he would later serve the altar. When he was five years old, he had made the decision to dedicate his life to God and took on penances to prove his dedication. His family was quite devout, but Francesco’s connection proved deeper. As a child, Padre Pio could speak to divine beings, including his guardian angel.
At the age of 31, Padre Pio began to experience a painful stigma. This stigmata remained until a few days before his death at the age of 81 in 1968. The wounds bled every day for 50 years which is why you see bandages on his hands.
Padre Pio had the ability to read hearts, an advantage few confessors have. This charism (”freely given gift' from God”) allowed him to know when someone was being deceitful or simply had forgotten a serious sin during confession. He could tell the penitent what they did and when. Because of this, many came to him for confession, and he was known to spend many hours a day in the confessional.
He founded the House for Relief of Suffering in 1956 in Sab Giovanni Rotondo Italy. It is a private scientific research hospital. It is known as one of the best scientific research hospitals in Europe.
Padre Pio also healed people, including a woman suffering from sciatica and a girl with an ear infection. Another mystical gift is that Padre Pio was able to be in two places at once, also known as bi-location. He also had visions and battled with demons. His favorite prayer was the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, composed by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.
Padre Pio died on September 23, 1968, of a heart attack at Our Lady of Grace in San Giovanni Rotondo. He was beatified on May 2, 1999, and canonized on June 16, 2002, by Pope St. John Paull II. He is the Patron Saint of civil defense volunteers, adolescents, stress relief, healing, and suffering.
St Martin de Porres
St Martin de Porres was born in Lima Peru, the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and an African, or possibly Native American, slave girl. The father abandoned the family when Martin was only a child, leaving the mother to raise her children in abject and despised poverty. When Martin was 12, his mother apprenticed him to a surgeon barber to give him a trade, but Martin was already spending hours in prayer, and he had other ideas about his future.
When he was 15, Martin asked to join the Dominican Priory of the Holy Rosary in Lima. However, Peruvian law held that the descendants of slaves could not be accepted as full members of religious orders. The most that Martin could hope for was to be servant to the order. However, so great was Martin’s hunger for God that he accepted that position. He did the manual labor of the brothers, cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, cutting hair and tending to the sick and the injured, all the while enduring the taunts and jeers of the brethren who had not yet completely grasped the idea of Christian charity. His cheerful humility and sweetness of temper won all hearts, and many of the brothers approached the “servant boy” asking for spiritual direction, as they saw his holiness, wisdom and deep charity. By the time he was 24, his Prior was ready to ignore the law to accept Martin as a professed brother of the community.
Martin spent his entire life at the Priory, working in the infirmary and devoting himself to prayer, the Blessed Sacrament and the care of the poor of the city of Lima. As his reputation for sanctity spread he was able to raise money to start an orphanage for the poor children of Lima. Martin was known for ecstasies that lifted him into the air, for bilocation, for his ability to pass through locked doors and solid walls, for his miraculous knowledge and instantaneous cures. He did not eat meat, and his charity extended to animals, with which he had a remarkable connection. He was a friend of St Rose of Lima, and St Juan Macias.
Martin died in 1639. He was canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. He is the patron saint of mixed-race people, barbers and public health workers. His feast day is November 3.
Saint Therese of Lisieux
Saint Therese of Lisieux was a Carmelite Nun, called the Little Flower. She had an early and lifelong struggle with Tuberculosis and lived in a cloistered life of obscurity.
Both Therese’s parents, Sainte Marie Azelle Martin and Saint Louis Martin were canonized saints.
Born in 1873 in Alencon, France, Therese grew up in the care of her loving sisters following the death of their mother. Although she was sickly, Therese fought to overcome her sensitive nature. In doing so, she discovered the transforming power of love.
Therese’s “little way” was conceived through her humility and charity and for doing small and menial things with great love.
“Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love?’ she wrote. “Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers ae every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.” Ste. Therese Lixieux
Therese tried to conceal her illness, continuing her daily work until her health declined. She died at the young age of 24 on September 30, 1897. Her Feast day is October 1.
Therese was canonized in 1925. On October 19, 1997, Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church; the third woman to be so recognized in light of her holiness and the influence of her teaching on spirituality in the church.
Shortly before she died, she wrote: “I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth”.
Therese left behind her memoirs, under obedience from her godmother Pauline, who was the Prioress of their Carmelite convent. In 1898, Therese’s autobiography L’histoire d’une Ame (Story of a Soul) was published.