St. Padre Pio Relics at Holy Family Cathedral-Tulsa
I’ve been praying to St. Padre Pio lately for special intentions about recent health issues (please keep me in your prayers) and re-watching videos about his life. There is a special reason so many flocked and continue to flock to visit him at San Giovanni monastery in Italy, contemplate his life, join his prayer cells around the world, and to this day plead with him for his intercession.
I witnessed that reality for the first time this Tuesday at Holy Family cathedral in Tulsa, venerating Padre Pio’s relics with several hundred people in attendance. The relics were solemnly exposed for veneration from 7 am to 7 pm. So I imagine a stream of people coming there throughout the day.
There was a great silence and solemnity in the people gazing at the relics set onto an altar at the steps of the sanctuary. Looking at people’s faces, I had the sense many were there because they were suffering with something serious in their life, especially health issues. I saw people in wheelchairs, people struggling to walk, old and young alike.
A priest stood very solemnly at the front of the relic altar with an older woman wearing a black outfit and long black veil. They were there to assist people in venerating the relics, but since most did not need assistance, their role seemed to be more like an honor guard, guarding the relics while praying for the people. I could see the kindness and concern in their faces for every person approaching, as if they understood many were there to seek help in whatever situation God had given them.
Later they themselves very solemnly approached the relics touching a large handful of rosaries to them to make them also relics. A holy object that touched a relic becomes itself a kind of relic or extension of the saint, so in some degree venerating that new object indirectly venerates the saint, creating a sacred contact between you and the saint, this being a mystery to me.
We ourselves brought holy cards of Padre Pio, a cross, and a rosary up to the relics, touching them to each relic. There were first class relics, one of his hair, another a piece of scab that had covered one of his stigmata wounds. There were also second class relics, I believe a handkerchief and one of the gloves he used to cover the stigmata on his hands. When I venerated the relics, I imagined Padre Pio looking down from heaven, and also the scenes from his life suffering. It was a very peaceful and grace-filled moment.
I submitted my prayer intentions for my health issues to Padre Pio, who was and is a miracle worker. What I know is he heard my prayers, is offering my petitions to God, and is blessing me from heaven.
I feel Padre Pio is the greatest saint of the modern era, as if he is THE saint of the modern era. In his priesthood and saintly life, he was alter Christi, another Christ, but in a special way. The stigmata, many chronic health problems, extreme pains, nightly attacks by the devil, persecutions, daily mystical re-living of the Passion when saying Mass (why his Masses took so long), the humiliation of becoming a public spectacle, etc. All while literally praying the rosary non-stop, fasting on barely any food for decades (the Eucharist being mainly his food), hearing confessions for long hours, organizing a network of prayer cells around the world as their spiritual director, being the main force behind building a Catholic hospital next to the monastery, obeying their Rule of life and his superiors, etc, etc.
He could levitate, bilocate, cure the sick and dying, read souls, etc, etc. And when he died his body remained incorrupt.
I think his life is s lesson in Christ, in dying to self, in the redemptive value of suffering, in learning to pray and do penance, and to rely on God’s mercy.
His motto was “Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry.” The last part seems to be the one we need to heart most, to stop once and for all worrying about our health, longevity, finances, jobs, relationship problems, etc. God knows how much I myself need to stop worrying once and for all.
St. Padre Pio, pray for us.