Padre Pio's Angels

The television series UNSOLVED MYSTERIES occasionally runs a story on Padre Pio, the beloved Italian Franciscan who, for 50 years, bore the wounds of Christ on his hands, feet and side, and who was canonized in Rome in 2001.  The story tells of a miracle attributed to the intercession of Padre Pio; a little American girl, Vera Marie Callendra, was dying due to a bladder disease.  After doctors removed her bladder, her mother brought her to Italy to be touched by the Padre.  Shortly after returning home, doctors found a new bladder growing inside Vera Marie, who is today a healthy adult.

Many people do not realize that in addition to his other spiritual gifts, Padre Po frequently communicated with angels.  Quite often, for example, the Padre would read or speak in languages he didn’t know.  When asked how he could do it, he said that the angels translated for him.  Several of his fellow monks often heard voices singing in beautiful harmony, but could not identify the music’s source.  Padre Pio would explain that the voices belonged to angels, escorting souls into heaven.  One of his assistants had a habit of oversleeping, and frequently was awakened by a loud knock on his bedroom door.  But when he opened the door, no one was ever there.  One morning he apologized for his ongoing tardiness to Padre Pio, and the elderly monk admonished him: “Do you think I will continue to send my Guardian Angel to awaken you every day?  You’d better buy a new clock!”

Padre Pio believed that people could ask their own angels to go to someone else to help or intercede.  He encouraged his friends to send their angels with messages to him if they could not reach him any other way. Once a young mother, terrified over her infant’s failing health, asked the baby’s angel to carry a request for prayers to Padre Pio.  Within minutes, the baby shivered—as if something had touched her—and soon was sent home by mystified physicians from the intensive care unit.  The Padre did remind people that not everyone who prayed for a physical healing---even with true faith—would receive it.  But they would all receive peace. 

Although Padre Pio is now in heaven, his help continues.  Recently, one woman, Doris, was asked by a friend to pray for her—the friend was undergoing tests to see if her cancer had spread.  Doris asked Padre Pio to intercede for her friend, and received an inner thought that her friend would be fine.  On the morning of the tests, both women met at mass.  “I intended to walk my friend out to the parking lot afterwards,” Doris said, “but I was distracted.  By the time I got out there, I saw her car backing up.”  There was a man sitting next to this woman in the car.  At first Doris assumed that it was her friend’s husband (although why had he not been at mass?)  “But when the car changed direction, I saw the man’s face,” Doris recalls.  “He had a beard and her husband doesn’t.”  The man turned around, smiled directly at Doris and put his hand up.  It was Padre Pio…

“Later my friend confirmed that she had been alone in her car, at least she thought so,” Doris says.  “And her tests were fine.”  Doris was not surprised.  Each day she thanks God for the gift of Padre Pio.  To find out more about this amazing saint, go to www.padrepio.com