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Chapter Five

“A Holy Priest, a Perfect Victim”

A Mysterious Illness

Fra Pio was plagued by a variety of ill-defined physical problems from the very beginning of his novitiate. He suffered from intestinal irritability and attacks of vomiting so intense that he was sometimes unable to retain food for weeks on end. Once, for a space of six months, he was forced to subsist largely on milk. He suffered from spasms of violent coughing, was tormented by headaches, and frequently ran high temperatures. Several times he was sent home to try to regain his health. Repeatedly, Fra Pio seemed to be reduced almost to the point of death, only to recover just as suddenly. His superiors, with the help of medical consultation, tried unsuccessfully to pinpoint the cause of his physical afflictions.

In 1908, while Fra Pio was studying at the friary of St. Egidio at Montefusco, physicians made a devastating diagnosis. Noting the weakness of the twenty-one-year-old patient, coupled with his severe respiratory symptoms and his fevers, which were most severe at night, they diagnosed him with an active case of tuberculosis of the lungs, a disease that exacted a tremendous toll among the overworked and undernourished peasantry of southern Italy at the time. The diagnosis of this contagious, life-threatening disease indicated that Fra Pio would have to remain outside the friary indefinitely.

Orazio (who was home at the time) and Giuseppa were not satisfied with their son’s diagnosis and took him to Andrea Cardone, a young doctor in Pietrelcina. Cardone, who boasted of a doctorate in medicine (as many practitioners in southern Italy at the time could not), was said to have been a brilliant physician who, even in his nineties, kept abreast of the latest medical advances. Cardone took issue with the diagnosis of tuberculosis, but, just to be sure, he convinced Pio’s parents to send him to specialists some sixty miles away in Naples, who confirmed that the friar was not suffering from any form of tuberculosis.

However, the doctors in Naples were not able to say what was wrong with Fra Pio. Cardone was convinced that his illness was a case of chronic bronchitis aggravated by his ascetic lifestyle. He recommended a period of rest and “abundant nourishment” in Pietrelcina. After a short time, Fra Pio seemed cured and was able to return to community life, assigned to the convent at Montefusco, eighteen miles south of home. His mysterious illness, however, was to plague him off and on for the next decade, and it very nearly derailed his vocation.

Until 1909, his health did not prevent his progress toward ordination. Fra Pio received minor orders on December 19, 1908, and two days later was ordained to the subdiaconate. The next month, he was ordained a deacon. But now Fra Pio was in a state of near-total collapse. His stomach could retain nothing, and, judged by his superiors as too ill to remain in a community, he was sent home to complete his studies in moral theology under Don Giuseppe Maria Orlando, a professor in the seminary at Benevento.¹ Orlando, seventy-eight years old, was said to be subject to periods of “mental derangement,” but very intelligent and very pious. In this way, Fra Pio completed the studies necessary for ordination.

During this period, Fra Pio kept in constant touch with Padre Benedetto, and his letters from this period suggest that he was in very low spirits, depressed by his poor health and inability to live in a friary. He seemed to have cherished a desire to be ordained a priest and then die. Even in Pietrelcina, he seems to have been constantly ill. In March 1910, he complained to Padre Benedetto of continuous fever, especially at night; a cough; pains in his chest and back; and profuse sweating. In April, he was confined to bed. In May, he was suffering from chest pains. In July, he insisted that these pains were so bad as to render him speechless at times.

“If Almighty God in His mercy desires to free me from the sufferings of this body of mine, as I hope he does, through shortening my exile here on earth,” he wrote Padre Benedetto, “I shall die very happy.”² In another letter, he confided: “The notion of being healed, after all the tempests that the Most High has sent me, seems to me as only a dream, even madness. On the contrary, the idea is very attractive to me.”³

Fra Pio was afraid, however, that his illness might be a punishment from God on account of unconfessed sin. He told Padre Benedetto:

For several days my conscience has been continually troubled over my past life, which I spent so wickedly. But what particularly tortures my heart and afflicts me exceedingly is the worry about my uncertainty as to whether I confessed all the sins of my past life, and, more than that, whether I have confessed them well…. Dear Father, I need your help to still the disquietude of my spirit because — and you must believe me — this is a thought that is destroying me … I should like to make a general confession, but I don’t know whether that would be good or bad. Please help me, O Father, for the love of our dear Jesus.⁴

Troubled that these conflicts and doubts could exist in a heart “that prefers death a thousand times to committing one sin,” Pio declared, “I would like to make a bundle of all my bad inclinations and give them to Jesus so that he might condescend to consume them all in the fire of his divine love!”⁵ Yet, through it all, Fra Pio was resigned to the will of God: “I do not know the reason for this, but in silence I adore and kiss the hand of the One who smites me, knowing truly that it is [God] himself who, on the one hand, afflicts me, and, on the other, consoles me.”⁶

Meanwhile, Padre Benedetto was working to make it possible for Fra Pio to be ordained. On July 6, he informed Fra Pio that all the necessary dispensations had been obtained and that the day of his ordination had been tentatively set for August 12. It would be necessary, however, for Fra Pio to journey to Morcone in mid-July to learn the ceremonies involved in exercising priestly ministry. He would also have to go to go to Benevento for his final examination.

And so, on July 21, Fra Pio, along with one Padre Eugenio of Pignataro Maggiore (Capuchins were supposed to travel in pairs), journeyed from Pietrelcina to Morcone. As soon as he arrived at the friary, Fra Pio was seized with cramps and started to vomit, and the next day, Padre Tommaso, the old novice master, wrote to Padre Benedetto to tell him that he was sending Fra Pio home. A sympathetic Padre Benedetto wrote Fra Pio immediately after his return to Pietrelcina, saying that he would authorize Don Salvatore Pannullo to instruct him on the rubrics of the Mass. “Your sufferings,” he added reassuringly, “are not punishment, but rather ways of earning merit that the Lord is giving you, and the shadows that weigh on your soul are generated by the devil, who wants to harm you.” He exhorted Fra Pio to remember that “the closer God draws to a soul, the more the enemy troubles him.”⁷

“That Beautiful Day of My Ordination”

The day of Fra Pio’s ordination was set for August 10, 1910. His father and brother, both living and working in Jamaica, Long Island, New York, were unable to come, but twenty-three-year-old Fra Pio boarded a horse-drawn cab, along with his mother and “Pati,” and bounced over what passed for a road to Benevento, where, in the cathedral, he was ordained a priest by eighty-three-year-old Archbishop Paolo Schinosi. After a light lunch, which Pio — now and forevermore to be known as Padre Pio — presumably was able to hold down, the little party returned to Pietrelcina, arriving home at 5:00 p.m. They were met on the edge of town by the local band, which had been hired by Giuseppa Cardone, Michele’s wife. The band accompanied Padre Pio to his home while, along the way, cheering townspeople showered him with coins and candy. At the house, his mother put on a great feast. Through it all, Padre Pio sat with his head bowed, blushing with emotion. “That beautiful day of my ordination” he would always recall as a day on which he felt as if he were in heaven.

As a souvenir of his ordination, Padre Pio passed out holy cards on which were printed words he intended as the theme of his ministry:

Jesus, my life and my breath, today I timorously raise thee in a mystery of love. With thee may I be for the world the way, the truth, and the life, and, through thee, a holy priest, a perfect victim.⁸

Four days later, at the parish church of Our Lady of the Angels in Pietrelcina, Padre Pio celebrated his first public Mass. The sermon was preached by Padre Agostino, who described the triple mission of a priest as the altar, the pulpit, and the confessional. Actually, at that stage, Padre Pio was authorized to perform only one of those functions: celebrating the Eucharist. He had not taken — and never would take — the courses required to obtain a license to preach, and so far Padre Benedetto, the minister provincial, was unwilling to grant him the faculty to hear confessions, partly because of Padre Pio’s health and partly because he did not think the young priest had the proper theological preparation because his studies had been interrupted so frequently by sickness.

“I Tremble from Head to Toe with Fear of Offending God”

Although he was allowed to wear the Capuchin habit, because of his physical inability to remain in any of the friaries, Padre Pio was allowed by his superiors to function temporarily as a secular priest on the staff of the archpriest Pannullo. Even at Pietrelcina, however, his health continued to be unsatisfactory. Over the next few months, he suffered severe attacks of asthma accompanied by pains so severe that he felt as if his back and chest were about to explode.

The young priest spent much of his time at Piana Romana, where his father, home on vacation from America, constructed a little cabin for him, and, as Padre Pio recalled years later, “There … I would remain night and day, breathing the pure fresh air. It truly became a small chapel for me where I performed all the practices of piety and said my prayers.”⁹ Often Padre Pio would sit beneath an elm tree to pray his Office and commune with God. Gradually, his health began to show some improvement, but not enough for him to return to community life.

There, in his rural retreat, Padre Pio reported to Padre Benedetto that he was frequently the subject of assaults by the devil. These attacks seem to have taken three forms: temptations against purity, fear of unconfessed sin, and a conviction that he was wicked. During the Easter season of 1911, he wrote: “Even in these holy days the enemy tries with all his might to induce me to acquiesce to his wicked designs, and, in particular, this malignant spirit tries with every sort of fantasy to tempt me into thoughts of uncleanness and despair.” Far from being titillated, Padre Pio was horrified, reporting, “I tremble from head to toe with fear of offending God.”¹⁰

Padre Pio’s longtime friend Mercurio Scocca suggested that this mysterious illness was due to sexual frustration. When, however, Scocca proposed that his friend could cure himself by marrying or just giving in to sexual desire, Padre Pio picked up a pitchfork, swung it at his friend, and chased him out of the barn.

Padre Pio was so determined to avoid occasions of sin that, like many religious of the time, he avoided even innocent, perfunctory physical contact with women — even his relatives. One night he was sitting by the fire alone with his sister-in-law Giuseppa Cardone, who was nursing her infant son. When she fell asleep with the baby at her breast, Padre Pio, concerned that the infant would fall, called out to her, but could not wake her up. So as not to have to touch her with his hands, he took his breviary and clobbered her on the head with it. “My God, it’s a good thing you became a monk!” Giuseppa exclaimed.¹¹

Padre Pio said that Satan was “constantly representing the picture of my life in the grimmest possible way.” He wrote, “Our common foe … wants me to be damned at all costs and is constantly putting before my mind a horrible picture of my life and, what’s worse, he craftily sows thoughts of despair in me.”¹² In June 1911, he described himself as in such terror over his sins and his helplessness to save his soul that he was on the point of being “reduced to ashes.” He was terrified by the thought of being punished by God for sins unknown to him, of being condemned for his sins before he entered religious life. This anguish contributed, to a great extent, to his physical illnesses. In fact, in 1939, Padre Pio would tell Padre Agostino, “My illnesses [in my youth] stemmed from this spiritual oppression.”¹³

Padre Benedetto frequently had to remind Padre Pio that God is gracious. “The fear of the sins that you have committed is illusory and a torment caused by the devil,” he counseled. “Let go, once and for all, and believe that Jesus is not the cruel taskmaster that you describe, but, instead, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world and intercedes for our good with ineffable groans.”¹⁴ He assured the younger priest that his trials, both bodily and spiritual, were prompted by the devil but permitted by God so as to cause him to grow in holiness. Padre Benedetto wrote: “I see clearly that [the Lord] has chosen you to make you close to him, even without merit on your part. Now you can be sure that he wants to take perfect possession of your heart … to transfix it with pain and love like his own.”¹⁵

In other words, to be close to Christ, one must suffer with Christ. Padre Benedetto elaborated in another letter:

You want to know what Jesus wants of you? The answer is simple. He wants to toss you, shake you, pound you, sift you like grain until your spirit arrives at that purity and cleanness that he desires…. Nonetheless, do good and desire that the Lord free you from these temptations, and also pray to this end…. You must not fear that the Lord will leave you at the mercy of the enemy. He will permit him to molest you only in such a way as serves his paternal designs for the sanctification of your soul. Therefore, be strong and cheerful in heart.¹⁶

In still another letter, Padre Benedetto counseled:

Hearing that the storms are raging more fiercely consoles me because it is a sign that God is establishing his reign in your life. The temptations are a sure sign of divine predilection, and fearing them is the most certain proof that you do not consent to them. Be of good cheer and do not be discouraged. The more the foe increases his violence, the more you must abandon yourself in the faithful Lord, who will never permit you to be overcome. As it is written, “God is faithful and will not permit you to be tempted beyond your strength…” Is not Our Lord good beyond our every thought? Is he not more interested in our well-being than we are ourselves? When we think of the love that he bears us and of his zeal for our benefit, we must be tranquil and not doubt that he will always assist us with paternal care against all our enemies.¹⁷

Continually, as Padre Pio poured out his soul in anguish Padre Benedetto consoled him with verses from Scripture and with reminders that physical and moral sufferings are God’s way of making him pure and holy, more like himself. “I exult,” wrote Benedetto, “in knowing with certainty that the fury is permitted by … the Celestial Father to make you like his dear Son, persecuted and beaten to death on the cross! The greater the pains, the greater the love God bears you!”¹⁸

“I Feel My Heart Throb in Unison with the Heart of Jesus”

Padre Pio also had his consolations. He realized that the only way to overcome his temptations was to place them in the hands of Jesus. “All ugly fantasies,” he wrote, “that the devil introduces to my mind vanish when I abandon myself to the arms of Jesus. Therefore, when I am with Jesus crucified — that is, when I meditate on his afflictions — I suffer immensely, but it is a grief which does me good. I enjoy a peace and tranquility which are impossible to explain.”¹⁹

Although he was suffering, nevertheless he often experienced periods of intense holy joy. He wrote to his spiritual director:

From time to time Jesus alleviates my sufferings when he speaks to my heart. Oh, yes, my father, the good Jesus is very much with me! Oh, what precious moments I have with him! It is a joy which I can liken to nothing else. It is a happiness that the Lord gives me to enjoy almost only in suffering. In such moments, more than ever, everything in the world pains and annoys me and I desire nothing except to love and to suffer. Yes, my dear father, in the midst of all these sufferings, I am happy because I feel my heart throb in unison with the heart of Jesus. Now, imagine what consolation is infused in my heart by the knowledge of possessing Jesus with certainty.

It seems clear that, while there were times when Padre Pio felt forsaken and rejected and even doubted his salvation, at other times he possessed the certainty of God’s love for him. He continued in his letter to Benedetto: “It is true that the temptations to which I am subjected are very great, but I trust in divine providence so as not to fall into the snares of the tempter. And, although it is true that Jesus very often hides himself, what is important is that I try, with your help, always to stay in him, since I have your assurance that I am not abandoned, but toyed with by Love.”²⁰

Truly, God seemed to be playing a game of hide-and-seek. The oscillation between extreme exaltation and violent desolation is a common experience among mystics. Both Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa of Ávila spoke of a “game of love,” in which God seems, by turns, to hide and then return to the soul. At times, Padre Pio was “almost in paradise”; at other times, he felt as if Satan was about to snatch him out of the hands of God. Padre Benedetto assured him continually that this was a normal part of spiritual growth, at least for someone so mystically precocious.

As Padre Pio grew in faith, gradually he was able to rise above the temptation to worry that he would give in to the devil and lose his salvation — at least most of the time. To the very end of his life, he never felt that his salvation was entirely secure. Far from being of the “once saved, always saved” school, he felt that the possibility of being lost remained as long as he lived. Toward the end of his life, when they were walking together, Padre Pio horrified his friend Pietro Cugino by asking him, “Tell me seriously, do you think I’ll be saved?”²¹

Realizing, therefore, his helplessness and inability to save himself, in moments of spiritual desolation, Padre Pio learned to cast himself into the arms of Jesus. His letters to Padre Benedetto in the summer of 1911 reveal a growing confidence in resisting the temptations of the evil one. That August he wrote:

The attacks of the devil continue, as always, to afflict my soul. Yet, meanwhile I have observed for some days a certain spiritual joy that I am unable to explain … I no longer have the difficulty I once felt in resigning myself to the will of God. I even repel the slanderous assaults of the tempter with such ease that I feel neither weariness nor fatigue.²²

In September, he wrote Padre Benedetto:

Jesus continues to be with me, and ability to repel temptations and resign myself to God has not left me…. Doing this is growing easier. Marvel, then, at such a token of the sweetness and goodness of Jesus, that comes to such an evil wretch as me. And meanwhile, to what can I liken such amazing grace? What can I render to him for such benefits? How many times in the past, if only you knew, I exchanged Jesus for some vile thing of this world!²³

“A Victim for Poor Sinners and for Souls in Purgatory”

Padre Pio’s spiritual commitment went further than merely accepting suffering for his own good. During this period, he offered himself to God as a victim for the salvation of souls. As we have seen, he was familiar with the concept of the “victim of divine love,” and in the prayer card from his ordination, he had expressed the desire to be a “perfect victim.” A few months after his ordination, on November 29, 1910, he wrote to Padre Benedetto:

For some time I have felt the need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for souls in purgatory. This desire has grown continuously in my heart until now it has become a powerful passion. I made this offering to the Lord on other occasions, imploring him to inflict me with the punishments that are prepared for sinners and for souls in purgatory, even multiplying them upon me a hundredfold, so long as he converts and saves sinners and quickly releases the souls in purgatory…. Now, however, I wish to make this offering to the Lord with your authorization. It seems to me that this is what Jesus wants. I’m sure that you will not find it difficult to grant me this permission.²⁴

Padre Benedetto’s response was an unqualified and enthusiastic assent. “Make the offering!” he advised. “Extend your arms on the cross and offer yourself to the Father as a sacrifice in union with the loving Savior. Suffer, groan, and pray for the sins of the world and the miserable ones of the other world [that is, the souls in purgatory].”²⁵

Two years later, in a letter to Padre Agostino, Padre Pio further defined what it meant to be a “victim of divine love,” writing:

[The Lord] chose certain souls, and among them, despite my unworthiness, he also chose me, to assist in the great work of the salvation of mankind. The more these souls suffer without any consolation, to that extent are the pains of our good Jesus made lighter. This is why I want to suffer increasingly and without comfort. And this is all my joy. It is only too true that I need courage, but Jesus will deny me nothing.²⁶

Some years later, again writing to Padre Agostino, Padre Pio further elaborated on his mission: “With your prayers assist this Cyrenean who carries the cross of many people, so that there might be accomplished in him the words of the Apostle, ‘I make good and complete what is still lacking in the Passion of Christ.’”²⁷ Padre Pio identified himself with Simon of Cyrene, the man who was forced to carry the cross to Calvary after Jesus collapsed under its weight. Like Simon, Padre Pio did not imagine that he had chosen this mission himself. He was certain that he had been chosen by God to be a victim, to help Jesus bear the cross.

Even by the time Padre Pio asked Padre Benedetto’s authorization for his self-oblation as a “victim of divine love,” he had received signs in his body which led him to believe that the Lord had accepted his offering.

“Fiery Red Spots”

On the afternoon of September 7, 1910, Padre Pio appeared at Pannullo’s office and showed the archpriest what appeared to be puncture wounds in the middle of his hands. When questioned about them, Padre Pio told him that he had been praying in Piana Romana when Jesus and Mary appeared to him and gave him the wounds. Pannullo examined the hands of his protégé and insisted that he see a doctor. The first physician he consulted diagnosed the phenomenon as tuberculosis of the skin. Padre Pio then went to Andrea Cardone, who vehemently rejected his colleague’s diagnosis. He observed on Pio’s hands, both on the palms and back, wounds about a half-inch in diameter. Although they apparently did not bleed, the wounds seemed to extend all the way through the hands. Apart from the fact that they were definitely not of tubercular origin, Cardone could not explain them.

The wounds, which Pio tried to conceal, were a source of great embarrassment. Besides the doctors and Archpriest Pannullo, the only person to whom he showed them was Mercurio Scocca. He concealed them even from his mother, who noticed that something was wrong and remarked that he was moving his hands as if he were playing the guitar. But Padre Pio successfully evaded her questions and hid the lesions under the long sleeves of his habit.

A few days after seeing Dr. Cardone, Padre Pio went to Pannullo and said: “Pati, do me a favor. Let’s pray together and ask Jesus to take this annoyance away. Yet, if it is God’s will, [I] must yield [myself] to do his will in all and over all. And, remember, since this is for the salvation of souls and for the good of the entire world, [we] must say to Jesus, ‘Do with me as you please.’”²⁸ The two men prayed, and the wounds went away — for a season.

Padre Pio said nothing to Padre Benedetto about his stigmata at this time. However, a year to the day after their first appearance, the wounds reappeared, and only then did Padre Pio feel comfortable in telling his superior about the wounds:

Yesterday something happened, something I cannot explain or understand. In the middle of the palms of my hands there appeared a small red spot the size of a small coin, accompanied by a strong, sharp pain in the middle of the red spots. The pain was most intense in the middle of the left hand, so much so that I still feel it. Also I feel some pain in the soles of my feet.

This phenomenon has been going on for almost a year, yet recently there has been a brief period of time in which it has not occurred. Please do not be upset that I have not mentioned it to you before. The reason is that I was too darned embarrassed to tell you about it. If you only knew the great effort I had to make to tell you about it!²⁹

In later years, Padre Pio downplayed these early manifestations of the stigmata. When Padre Raffaele D’Addario conducted a series of interviews with Padre Pio in 1966 and 1967, Pio — who was then in his eightieth year and in decline — had at first forgotten all about the earlier phenomenon, declaring that the stories about an earlier stigmatization were false and that “everything happened at San Giovanni Rotondo.” When shown his own letters of fifty years before, the old man’s memory was refreshed, and he recalled that, while praying in his cabin in Piana Romana, “in profound meditation and ecstasy, more than once I noticed fiery red spots in the palms of my hands, accompanied by extremely sharp pains that lasted several days. [I noticed] puncture wounds in my side as well. But it was only at San Giovanni Rotondo that they appeared in permanent form and with an issue of blood.”³⁰

From the moment he received the letter describing the marks in Padre Pio’s hands, Padre Benedetto was determined to have him return to community life, at all costs.