“PADRE Pio, on the evening of Aug. 5, 1918, while hearing the confession of a seminarian, saw a ‘celestial person’ who held in his hand a sort of a weapon like a very long, sharp-pointed steel blade and which seemed to emit fire. The person hurled the weapon with all his might ‘into his soul.’ The Capuchin friar felt he was dying.”
The agony lasted uninterrupted until the morning two days after. This was the phenomenon of the transverberation that “inflames the heart with ardent love to prepare a soul to a profound and intimate union with God.”
“Padre Pio’s heart did not rot.” This revelation was one of the information I gathered from literature, given during an exhibit of memorabilia on the life of the saint at a mall about two months ago.
I was one of the thousands who venerated the uncorrupted heart of Sto. Padre Pio last Oct. 11. A heart to heart talk with a holy and saintly soul is rare in these modern times. I wondered what could have been the cry of the heart of Filipinos aside from the common petition for physical healing. Would the 52 percent, living in the poverty line, ask for alleviation from the challenges brought about by inflation and the rising cost of living? Would they have prayed to win the lottery making them an instant billionaire?
A pilgrim confided to me that she was there for healing of a heart condition and she also wanted to implore for the healing of her son who is into drug addiction.
In that literature that features the life and the divine gifts of Padre Pio, I also learned that on the morning of Sept. 20, 1918, while he was making his thanksgiving after mass, he was overcome with a “languor” similar to a gentle sleep. In this state, there appeared to him the same mysterious person he saw on Aug. 5 but this time his hands, feet and side were bleeding and he said to him, “I unite you to my passion.”
When the vision of the person vanished, the Capuchin friar realized that his own hands, feet and side were bleeding too.
“The visible stigmata of Padre Pio never healed nor was there any infected tissue around the gaping holes. From his side alone he lost a cup of blood a day. Equally inexplicable was the heavenly fragrance that his wounds emitted.”
“A doctor examined the body of Padre Pio after his death and he verified that the wounds of the stigmata had vanished without leaving a scar. For Cardinal Cerrado Ursi, those wounds were ‘instruments of Providence to draw countless sinners to purify their souls.’”