# 55 of 80 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 55 OF 80 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM - THURS. JULY 2, 2020

 

CHAPTER 26 - A DAY WITH PADRE PIO  P. 293 - 306

 

    "Pio's reactions were sometimes so extreme to provoke a reprimand from his superior. Yet he justified his outbursts, insisting, "If we do not behave so, the people will eat us .... They squeeze my hand in a vise, they pull my arms, they press me on every side. I feel lost, I am forced to be rude. I'm sorry, but if I do not act that way, they'll kill me." Many times he remarked, "There should be a big fence around the area with the sign, 'Lunatic Asylum." ...

 

    From 1918 until about 1923, Padre Pio heard confessions fifteen to nineteen hours a day. After that his superiors limited his hours in this activity. During the 1940s and 1950s he generally heard five to eight hours a day. He heard women's confessions in the morning in the traditional booth. Men heard face to face in the afternoon in the sacristy, often with his hands on their shoulders....

 

    Only those fluent in Italian were allowed to approach Padre Pio. It was widely believed that Padre had the "gift of languages... It is estimated that Padre Pio heard two million confessions over a fifty-one-year period... 'Father' she said, "I never knew abortion was a sin." ... Padre Pio responded y saying, "But it's a sin, a great sin."...

 

    Sometimes, Padre Pio could be disturbingly harsh, as when he told a penitent, "Wretched man, you've sold your soul to the devil!" or "You wretch, you're going to hell!" When questioned about his apparent rudeness and ill humor, Pio insisted, "I don't give sweets to someone who needs a purge." T one of his superiors, he confided, "I treat souls as they deserve before God." ..."He made me aware of the importance of going to confession and receiving the graces of confession and of going to Communion. He made me aware that when you commit a mortal sin, that's a grievous offense against God... "Remember that it is better to be reprimanded by a man in this world than by God in the next!"...

 

    Padre Pio also infuriated many "progressive-minded" folk by his habit of refusing to hear confessions of any whom he considered inappropriately attired. Shorts, even on children, were anathema. Any whom whose skirt failed to reach to mid calf or whose sleeves did not cover three-quarters length of her arm or who had the temerity to enter the church bareheaded, was liable to be ordered out of the confessional... To a women, he snapped, "Women who smoke are disgusting."...

 

    Despite the occasional rebukes in which Padre Pio allegedly told penitents that they were going to hell, unless they mended their ways. "I believe that not a great number of souls go to hell," he told a friend."God loves us so much, He formed us in His image. God the Son died to redeem us. He loves us beyond understanding. And it is my belief that even when we passed from the consciousness of the world , when we appear to be dead, God, before He judges us a chance to see and understand what sin really is. And if we understand it properly, how could we fail to repent....

 

    It will be recalled that Padre Pio lived in a time and place in which there was little understanding and less sympathy for Christians outside the fold of Rome, who, in the days before Vatican II, were common regarded as "heretics."... The afternoon recreation at an end, the friars retired to their rooms for an hour for their siesta. Sometimes Padre Pio took a nap, but usually he spent most of his time in a wicker chair in the veranda, adjacent to his room, praying the rosary... For Padre Pio, the Rosary was his "weapon" against the powers of hell...

 

    Although he disapproved of the use of cigarettes and cigars, like many men of his generation, he used snuff... Padre Pio said snuff was good for clearing the sinuses... Late in the evening, Pio joined the community for Compline, the night Divine Office. After the friars retired to bed. Before going to his room, Padre Pio went to his superior  joined his hands , bowed, and asked for a blessing...."

 

George H. Kubeck