We've all viewed Padre Pio's life from the outside in a tremendous degree.
We've seen miracles and all sorts of incredible happenings of Padre Pio.
But what about his spirituality, viewing all of these things from the inside, so to speak.
What was Padre Pio's connection to Our Lady?
That is what we are going to be having a look at particularly today.
Hello, friends of following Padre Pio and welcome to our channel.
On this channel, we read through a series of very short stories, we investigate the
incredible life of our great saint Padre Pio, who was a Capuchin friar, a tremendous mystic
and incredible miracles like we cannot believe.
Do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and also to see what his intercession
could do for either you or for someone you love.
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Now in today's talk, the source of the talk is from the book, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina,
the first congress on the studies of Padre Pio's spirituality.
And this particular talk is taken from one given by Father Bernardino of Siena, who was
a Postulator General of the Order of Capuchins.
So it's a pretty higher position and he's speaking from that authority.
And father Bernardino, as we have already seen, he tells us that Our Lord's life was
just incredibly and intimately connected with his mother's life with Mary Our Mother's life.
And this was, of course, while he was here on the earth.
But we want to investigate just how close was the link and did this link also extend
to after Our Lord's life on this earth.
Now from the very first day when Our Lord was born, Mary The Mother and Saint Joseph,
they both had to flee to Egypt until safe conditions returned.
So just imagine that, with a baby, literally days old, having to flee on the back of a
donkey to a foreign country, a different language, trying to make a living to survive there,
but she did not waver.
That was her commitment to Our Lord, right from the beginning.
And then Our Lady for the next 33 years, she was able to contemplate Our Lord and to ponder
and to internalize every word and every move that the God Man that Jesus made while he
was on this earth.
The apostles just had three years.
And during those three years, we see the miraculous change.
So imagine 33 years, the incredible change that must have happened in Our Lady.
And she also knew Our Lord's thinking so intimately.
You can see this in the example where she told at the wedding feast in Cana, "Do whatever
he tells you."
And by this, she was kind of preempting his first public miracle.
Because Our Lord said, "My time is not yet here, is not yet come."
And she said, "Do whatever he tells you."
And so the miracle happened, the water changed into wine.
And that was at the preempting, as we said, of Our Lady.
And Our Lady also saw that her son was almost thrown off the cliff in their hometown Nazareth.
So all of these things, they must have weighed on her.
This must have weighed on her heavily because through all of this, Our Lord said, "A sword
of sorrow would pierce her heart."
And ultimately, as we know this culminated in Our Lady seeing her son crucified right
there in front of her.
So imagine that which mother would not be in absolute agony, seeing their child butchered
right in front of them.
But she stayed, she did not run away like the other apostles.
She never turned away.
She never doubted even with the sword of sorrow in her heart.
And certainly she was present there at the very birthday of the Church, Pentecost.
She was there with the other apostles.
And so in this new Church, if the apostles, they were illiterate fishermen to a large
degree, if they did not understand something, the persecutions, the agonies that the early
Church had to go through, who could they turn to?
Who had this intimate knowledge of her son?
Our Lady.
She had contemplated him of course for 33 years, as we said earlier and she was able
to advise in a great degree.
And she was able to advise in a very motherly way because she was the mother of Jesus.
And she was also able to advise in a very wise way, because she was the spouse of the
Holy Spirit.
And in a filial way, she could advise as well as the daughter of God the Father.
And so through this all, Our Lady remained absolutely true.
Even if a sword were to be plowed right through her heart, she never wavered.
And so she was greatly honored in the early Church.
And we can see evidence of this.
Between 250 AD and 280 AD, they found a papyrus script with the first known prayer to Our
Lady in which she was honored as the Theotokos, the mother of God.
So we can see that she held a very prestigious position in the early Church.
And was she also the mother of the mystical body?
So does this agree with Padre Pio's views on Our Lady.
Here, we're going to go back to what Father Bernardino explains.
And he says this was exactly Padre Pio's attitude to Mary, his mother.
And he gives us various examples to illustrate this.
Already, we have seen refer to the words of The Heavenly Mother Padre Pio's words, "This
most tender mother in her great knowledge, mercy and goodness."
So he really looks up to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
And also he tells us that she introduced him, introduced Padre Pio to the mystery of the
cross.
And there's some writing too, Father Augustino from Padre Pio in which he says, "To obtain
from her Most Holy Son, the grace to penetrate the mystery of the cross to inebriate ourselves
with Jesus' suffering."
So he sees her as a tremendous intercessor, someone who could go to Our Lord and was able
to win from him, the grace for Padre Pio.
And we know that Padre Pio was intimately linked to this understanding, the mystery
of the cross, because he also carried the stigmata on his hand, a tremendous cross for
him.
And Padre Pio also said that she was the very first to practice the gospel in all perfection
and advises, "Let us always stay close to such a dear mother."
So all of these things are showing Padre Pio's spirituality, his very close connection to
his mother.
There were other times when Padre Pio spoke about his heavenly mother and he was hardly
able to contain the emotion that he felt in his heart for her.
So when he told people of Our Lady Fatima, he could not hold back the tears.
So once again, we know Fatima is illustrating our ladies motherly admonitions to all of
us now, to the Church as we exist, always as a mother.
And of course, Padre Pio, as we know, was so attached to the rosary as well.
He was referred to as the living rosary.
So he always had a rosary in his hands.
He was not seen without a rosary.
And once, when his superior wanted to know how many prayers, how many rosaries he had
said that day, Padre Pio said, "Well, I must tell the truth to my superior.
I said 34."
So that's 34, or 5 decades each.
And he would also refer to his rosary as his weapon.
So for once he said to a friar, "Bring me my weapon."
The friar didn't know what he was talking about.
And he said his rosary was his weapon in the spiritual battle.
So now when he gave up his soul as well, when Padre Pio died, he was with his rosary in
his hand.
And he died hanging on tightly to his rosary, with the names, repeating these names, Jesus,
Mary, Jesus, Mary, on his lips, right to the last moment, is with his rosary and the names
of Jesus and Mary.
That's how he died.
And Father Bernardino, he writes and he concludes, that Padre Pio through all of this, he left
a message for us today.
In a world so shaken by a crisis in faith, as he said, and Padre Pio indicates the obligatory
ways of the rebirth that it has to come.
It is of us and of the Church, of course.
And he says part of which is with the Church as mother and also the mother of the Church
there, or two obligatory things he concludes.
Please do join us next time.
We're going to have a talk on another father, Modestino, his impressions and experiences
with Padre Pio.
Please do join us for that video.