Saints of the Season: Padre Pio

After celebrating his feast day, Tina Mayeux found her devotion to the Padre Pio rekindled and encourages others to become his spiritual children.

There are many reasons to love the fall season: cooler temperatures, colorful falling leaves, football, and the coming of the Holidays. However, I think that one of the best features of this season is that we celebrate an abundance of wonderful saints’ feast days during the fall months. Some of these amazing holy heroes include Saints Thérèse of Lisieux, Francis of Assisi, John Paul II, and Teresa of Avila, along with many others. I love that as we enter the season of reaping and harvesting, we remember the outstanding witness and lives of these blessed souls, who have gone on to their eternal reward and are rejoicing with God in heaven.

At the dawn of the fall season, we celebrated one of the most profound witnesses of love and suffering, Saint Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio). He remains one of the most outstanding examples of humility, obedience, and acceptance of God’s will in modern times and serves as an inspiration to all of us on our earthly journey. Even though his feast day has passed, I have continued to reflect upon his inspiring example and powerful intercession with God, and have found myself calling upon him to help me with my needs and prayer requests.

It may seem that, as mothers carrying out our duties from day to day, we have little in common with Padre Pio, and his spirituality is far beyond our humble efforts to become holy. After all, Padre Pio himself said that he never committed a mortal sin and, in fact, could not remember having ever offended Our Lord! This measure of sanctity is reserved for a select few of God’s chosen souls and seems unattainable by most. Though our lives may not parallel that of this holy saint and most of us likely will not receive the incredible spiritual gifts that he received in his lifetime, we can place ourselves under his protection and patronage by asking him to receive us as his spiritual children. Padre Pio said that, like the Little Flower Saint Thérèse, his mission to help souls would continue on until the end of time. Through his intercession, miracles have occurred, and we can be confident that if we ask for his prayers and protection, he will act on our behalf.

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Two of the most essential facets of the spirituality of Padre Pio were obedience and charity, virtues which we can strive to practice in our daily lives as wives and mothers. In the married vocation, we can grow in obedience and charity toward our husbands and model these virtues for our children.

Another essential element in the spirituality of Padre Pio is his acceptance of suffering. He said that suffering is a gift because when we expiate our sins, we receive forgiveness from Jesus for them. He also said that suffering also obtains the grace of conversion for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in need. According to Padre Pio, suffering means not only physical hardship endured by the sick, but it also pertains to the difficulties of the poor and sinners and those who are suffering in spirit. Whatever trials we may be encountering in our lives, we can be assured that Padre Pio will come to our aid if we only ask his help.

Padre Pio himself endured much physical, moral, and mystical suffering during his time on earth. He was united with the sufferings of Christ to such an extent that he received the gift of the stigmata, along with numerous other exceptional gifts. He is a saint who understands us in our sufferings and trials and can help us through them.

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Padre Pio is a saint who understands us in our sufferings and trials and can help us through them. #catholicmom

Even though we may not receive such gifts as the stigmata and bilocation as Padre Pio did, we can imitate his love and devotion to Jesus and Mary. One of the most important ideals to strive for every day, according to this holy saint, is to do the will of God and be good Christians, really and truly loving God and obeying his commands. It sounds simple, but practically applying this ideal to our daily lives can often be difficult and involves sacrifice and self-denial. Imitating the lives of great saints like Padre Pio and asking for their intercession can help us to achieve these holy objectives.

It is tempting to seek out acceptance and validation from the world based on our successes and achievements. However, what we can learn from the life of Padre Pio is that, as Saint Teresa of Calcutta put it, “God has not called us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful.” We can see that all of these great, saintly minds really do think alike in this respect. In their wisdom and humility, they value the grace of God and salvation above all earthy and human achievement, and they encourage us with their words and lives to place all of our trust and hope in Jesus as they did.

Padre Pio’s life was essentially hidden, but he rose to the heights of sanctity in his life and is recognized as one of the greatest saints of our time. Let us ask Padre Pio today to adopt us as his spiritual children and to teach us the way to grow in obedience, humility, and love of God.

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