# 33 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 33 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONE.BLOGSPOT.COM - THURS. NOV. 7/19

 

Padre Pio - The True Story By C. Bernard

Chapter 13, Holiness or Hysteria  p. 158-165

 

Last paragraph from Chapter 12 - The Stigmata:

"The war was finally over and the worst part of the epidemic had subsided and word of Padre Pio's stigmatization began to spread, despite Padre Benedetto's firm insistence that the phenomena be kept secret.Padre Paolino blamed this on the inability of Nina Campanile and other spiritual daughters to keep their promise to maintain silence. Paolina wrote, in words capable of driving feminists wild with rage, "Women ...are not made to keep secrets. And even when they have good intentions ... they still have to reveal that secret to an intimate friend... and then it happens that from the secret becomes public knowledge." .... By the spring of 1919 news of the stigmata was beginning to filter to the world outside the friary of Our Lady of Grace, and Padre Pio was on the threshold of a ministry of colossal magnitude..

 

"There are no recorded instances of the stigmata before the thirteenth century. In 1224, the five wounds appeared on the hands ,feet, and side of St. Francis of Assisi while he prayed in ecstasy

on Mount Alverna.Francis vision was similar in some ways to that of Pio... Jesus crucified, who appeared to Francis in the form of  the seraph, told him. "I have given you the stigmata which are the emblems of my Passion, so that you may be my standard bearer." The wounds of St. Francis, which the "Seraphic Father" bore until his death two years later, were slightly different from those of Padre Pio...

 

"For the next seven centuries, at least four hundred individuals, nearly all Roman Catholic, most of them female and Italian, were reported to have borne the stigmata, in various forms...There were several stigmatics contemporary with Padre Pio. The best known was a Bavarian laywoman by the name of Therese Neumann; eleven years younger than Padre Pio, she received the stigmata in the side in 1925 and wounds in the side in 1925 and wounds in the hands and feet the following year. These persisted until her sudden death from a heart attack in 1962....No study was undertaken of the stigmata Padre Pio's death for the singular reason that the wounds disappeared entirely shortly before -without leaving the slightest trace or faintest scar!

 

The stigmata were not pleasant to behold. The hand wounds usually looked enormous, but most of the mass that covered the entire palm was dried blood. The actual lesions were the size of a small coin.... Drs. Bignami and Festa both commented on Padre Pio's physical appearance in 1919. Bignami commented on the Friar's "delicate constitution." Pio was small-boned, flabby, with undeveloped muscles  a pale complexion, and a "sickly  suffering look." Nonetheless, the pathologist conceded that "the expression of his face is full of goodness and sincerity." and despite his physically unprepossessing appearance, he was able to work fifteen or sixteen hours straight without a bite to eat. When Pio did eat, Bignami observed he consumed very little. ...

 

"The blood pressure (166/90) was normal. Dr. Giuseppe Sata, Pio's physician from 1956 to 1968 also reported that none of the tests he ran on his patient's blood revealed any abnormality. "He had beautiful bloodwork".... Most witnesses testify that the wound in the side was shaped like a cross... Romanelli, however, was positive that when he examined Padre Pio in June 1919, the side wound was not cruciform, but "a clean cut parallel to the ribs," about three inches long....

 

At times, such as in Lent, the wounds seem to have bled more copiously. There are persistent reports that sometimes he bled from extensive lesions on his torso, suggestive of the wounds received by Christ when Pilate ordered his flagellation. The best evidence of this is extant photograph of Padre no record of anyone observing any wounds on the person of Padre Pio except those in the hands,feet, and side. Padre Pio took great pains to conceal the wounds.. One of the most extraordinary characteristics of Padre Pio's stigmata was the peculiarly fragrance of the aroma of the blood that issued from them....

 

Padre Pio showed no interest whatsoever in attempts to explain his stigmata. When asked why his hand wounds were in the palms rather than in the wrists (where victims of crucifixion were routinely nailed), he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh, I guess it would be too much to have them exactly like they were in the case of Our Lord."

George H. Kubeck                                                                                                                                                              P.S. "Pray for the intercession of Saint Padre Pio for an American Christian Revival."