And the title of today's talk, our great Saint Padre Pio had a vision of his two mothers,
and this was literally minutes before he died.
But what was he talking about here?
We can investigate this a little bit.
Hello friends who are following Padre Pio, on this channel we bring you a glimpse into
the incredible life of our great Saint Padre Pio who is capuchin friar, mystic, a tremendous
miracle worker.
So do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and to find out more about what his intercession
could do for you.
We'd like to thank our protected child of Padre Pio patrons for all of your support,
because you are the ones who make these videos possible, and we do ask everyone to pray for
them that Padre Pio will really bless them.
We have a series of Lenten videos, a selection of videos of Padre Pio designed to assist
everyone making a slightly better lent.
So to see these videos, just go to the video description just below here, find the link,
click on the link and it'll take you through to the Lenten videos.
Now in today's story, we know that Padre Pio, the Saint of Pietrelcina was one of the greatest
saints of the 20th century.
And he was certainly a godly man who fought against evil against the devil, even had physical
fights with the devil.
And he carried this stigmata, the wounds of our Lord on his hands and his feet in his
side.
At his funeral, there were more than a hundred thousand people present that came from all
over the world.
But did you know that he had a mystical vision?
And this was literally minutes before his death.
Earlier that day, Padre Pio had celebrated his final Mass with great difficulty.
And that was the 22nd of September, 1968.
And then when our great Saint was leaving the church, he'd physically, he literally
collapsed and had to be assisted out by his Franciscan brothers.
And they took him up to his bedroom and he laid down there.
But from now on it was just a matter of time, just some hours before his death.
At around midnight, Padre Pio made his final confession and he also renewed his vows to
the Franciscan Order.
But at this stage, he was just so weak that he could barely even speak.
At this point, Padre Pio had the capacity only to repeat the words, Jesus, Mary, Jesus,
Mary, while holding his rosary.
So his rosary right up until the end.
Then later, now it was around 2:30 AM, his health improved slightly.
As we know, our Saint had lived through so many, many supernatural experiences in his
life.
Now he perceived that something special was happening around him, that no one else could
see.
He had some sort of a vision.
In response to this vision, he said, "I see two mothers, Maria."
And then he stopped, and that was it.
He died moments later.
Now we may ask, what exactly did he see?
Are we able even to make head or tail of what was going on here?
Who were these people?
The two mothers, how do we explain them?
Well there are various possibilities, one is that he may have been saying, he was seeing
the Virgin Mary, his spiritual mother, as well as his natural biological mother.
So both of them may have arrived to escort him to heaven.
Can't be sure.
But the church of course can also be considered, in some way to be our mother.
So was he seeing this motherly nature of the church in some symbolic way?
It is really not clear what this is about.
Though, if we were to speculate, it is highly likely that his final words, Maria or that
is Mary, he would have been referring to the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the mother
of God.
And yet then again, his biological mother was also called Maria.
She was called Maria too.
So could he have been seeing her?
That's a matter of speculation.
Well, whoever the two mothers were, doesn't it seem appropriate that the man whose life
was just so full of the supernatural, the stigmata, et cetera, for him to end his earthly
life here with this mystical vision.
So perhaps it was heavenly persons arriving to take him home.
Just on a slightly different note I've heard that at the death of a Saint, they are subjected
to a final trial, because it's in the devil's interests to defeat them at that point because
then their whole life's work can fall over.
So the Saint needs to make one tremendous final act of allegiance and faith in God.
And isn't it also why when we say the prayer of the hail Mary prayer, it ends with the
words asking her to pray for us now and at the hour of our death, because it's such an
important moment to be resolved right then, to commend oneself to God, to our lady, to
the saints.
And then next time on this channel, we'll be having another tremendous story, inspiring
story about Padre Pio.
So please do join us for that story.
Also a reminder that we do have our Lenten selection of videos in order to help everyone
make a slightly better lent, various videos about Padre Pio and they change every week.
So you can go back next week and see a different selection of videos of Padre Pio related to
lent.
We thank you for watching and please do join us next time, and if you do want to become
a protected child of Padre Pio patron, then you can see the video on the in screen (singing).