In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, St. Joseph.
St. Pio of Petrolcina, our patron saints and guardian angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I know it's the new translation, but I don't think St. Pius of Petrolcina will ever catch on in the English-speaking world.
I think St. Pio, even if he was, everybody knows Padre Pio, no matter where he was,
was truly a universal saint, a universal name that was known throughout the world.
Even though he never left for almost 50 years, little San Giovanni Rotondo,
he was truly a saint for the world at a time when the world needed a very remarkable saint.
St. Pio died in 1968.
It was the beginning, you might say, of the modern troubles that we have in our society.
It seems the 60s were the fomenting ground or the time when many of the things that we are experiencing today were getting their push.
And so God sent to the world St. Pio as a convert.
Kind of a way to remind us of what is important in the church, especially.
Because we celebrate St. Pio as a pastor.
He's celebrated in the common of pastors.
And many may say, well, Padre Pio never had a parish.
He wasn't really assigned to a parish.
How can he be a pastor?
Well, because the first thing that a pastor is, is one who takes care of a flock.
And he did have...
He had a very large flock, a flock from all over the world.
St. Pio understood that his priesthood, even though it may have been confined to that little area of San Giovanni Rotondo,
that he was a priest who was universal.
His priesthood was for all souls.
And he attracted souls from all over the world to come to see him.
Why?
Why?
Because he was given special graces from God.
First and foremost, people came to him maybe out of just curiosity.
To see this man who was marked with the wounds of Christ.
To see another living crucifix like our Holy Father St. Francis in the Middle Ages.
So St. Pio Petrocina was also another one of these remarkable signs given by God to the church.
So that we could see that, yes,
we are to be conformed to Christ and him crucified.
And especially as priests, that we are not only offering the sacrifice of the Mass,
but we are offered to.
And one could see that so clearly when he offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass,
that Padre Pio entered into that mystery.
And you could see that he, with the wounds of Christ on his body,
that it was really, you could see that, you know, what we always know,
that it is Christ who is...
using the priest as his instrument at that time of the consecration.
It is Christ who is speaking those words.
And that the priest is truly an alter Christus.
And that he was crucified with Christ, literally, in his body.
Because he was doing that already, long before, as a religious.
And as a young priest, he saw his life with Christ to be a life of sacrifice.
A life of penance.
And so he started doing penance for people that were coming to him
for confession or for spiritual direction.
Because he just knew that there were souls that needed to be saved.
And although he may not be in personal contact with them,
by his life of penance, by his life of sacrifice,
Padre Pio obtained graces for them.
And that's something that we should always keep in mind.
That, you know, the greatest thing that...
we can do to help bring about the conversion of souls
or to help change our world is just take up our cross and follow Christ.
That's our first duty as Christians.
That's the first thing our Lord said to his disciples was,
you know, no one's worthy of me unless they take up their cross and follow me.
So we can see that Padre Pio had a great apostolate.
His apostolate of suffering, of penance.
He ate very...
He ate very little, as his biographers say, you know.
Maybe he was even sustained by the Eucharist.
And he offered, you know, many, many, many, many rosaries.
You know, that's another thing, you know.
After the 60s, you know, we were told, you know,
oh, devotion to Our Lady is not important.
But Padre Pio stood there as a kind of a...
as a stumbling block to all the modernists.
Because here this man was praying hundreds of rosaries.
Every day.
And they were, you know, saying that devotion to Our Lady isn't important.
But it was through all those rosaries he prayed
and his life of sacrifice that he obtained many graces for souls.
To be a pastor is first and foremost one who feeds his flock, takes care of them.
He fed them with the Eucharist.
He was concerned for their welfare and giving spiritual direction and confession.
And Padre Pio...
didn't preach.
I think he was given an obedience not to preach.
So he...
I think there's only like one homily that he ever recorded his voice speaking.
But he preached in the confessional one on one to those souls who came to see him.
He gave them a word of encouragement or a word of admonishment.
But he knew that that was a pulpit in one sense.
Being in the confessional where he could reach out to that one soul who came to him at that moment
and give them the grace of God to preach the gospel.
And even more so to be the good father of the prodigal son who welcomes the sinner back into the fold.
And people came to him just for confession.
Because they knew that Padre Pio...
was truly...
another Christ.
So that we can look at Padre Pio and we as other priests, you know,
we should imitate him to those things that we need to model our lives.
But we know that we have the same priesthood as Padre Pio.
But we need to maybe have greater fervor, greater zeal in exercising it.
Have a greater recourse to the examples he gave.
The examples he gave of prayer and offering sacrifice for those who are under our care.
And to remind ourselves that as we offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,
that we are to be conformed to Christ and Him crucified.
And that also that we are feeding the flock entrusted to our care as well with the body and blood,
soul and divinity of Christ.
So today as we honor Padre Pio,
let us look to him as the model of what a true priest is.
And that we can see it for the ministerial priesthood.
He's a model.
But for even those who share only in the priesthood of the baptized,
you know, that we need to offer more sacrifices.
That our consecrated souls are altars in which we're to offer sacrifice of praise to God.
And that Padre Pio shows us truth.
He was truly an amazing soul who loved God.
And that was truly, of course, the motivation for everything he did.
He loved God.
To serve Him as a priest.
To pray for souls.
And to work for the salvation of souls.
And he was truly marked with the wounds of Christ because he loved Christ so much.
And we too ask our Lord and our Lady to assist us to become more and more faithful disciples.
That we will take up our crosses and follow Christ and our Lady,
knowing that that is where our true happiness and true holiness will lie.
And today in our world we see that we need so much these graces for our nation,
for our families, for us as individuals.
We need to do that.
And that is where we will find the graces we need for our conversion and the conversion of souls.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community