Padre
Pio had been staying at the Monastery of Sant'Anna
in Foggia for some months. It was the height of
summer: harvest was over, the fields in the plain
had lost the golden shimmer of their crops; now
razed to nothing by the threshers, the land was
laid bare and the eye had to stretch as far as the
horizon in the vain search for a patch of green.
The
weather was stifling hot all day long and the evenings
brought no breeze, however slight, to give relief.
It was 1916. Padre Pio, whose health was already
bad, was suffering from this heat. The Provincial
Father invited him to spend a few days at San Giovanni
Rotondo, thinking he would benefit from the altitude
and the cool northern breeze. And so Padre Pio went
up Mount Gargano for the first time on 28 July 1916.
The monastery was situated in a lonely area approximately
1,500 m from the town and stood at the end of a
country road winding across a barren landscape which
further heightened the impression of utter isolation.
Not a voice was to be heard. The silence that reigned
in this place was only broken by the whistling of
winds blowing down the slopes from the mountain
top or by the sound of a bell dangling from the
neck of some goat grazing on one of the rare patches
of grass found on the valley's rocky soil. Yet,
as the cool climate did Padre Pio good, and his
health quickly improved, San Giovanni Rotondo became
the Padre's fixed abode. Far from the noise of human
vanity, in a lost corner of the world recalling
the Saviour's native Bethlehem, Padre Pio would
pray and meditate, preparing to climb his own Calvary
out of sheer love of Christ and for the sake of
the souls of his fellow-beings.
But what was it that caused him to immolate himself?
Was it a subconscious desire to physically hurt
himself, as some scholars have suggested? Padre
Pio himself tried to explain to himself his deeply-felt
desire to imitate Christ. In a letter to Padre Benedetto
on 20 November 1921, he wrote: "First of all
I have to admit with shame that I am unable to put
into words or otherwise express the ever-seething
turmoil that Jesus himself has put in this small
heart of mine and that is burning in me like a volcano.
God is always fixed in my mind and engraved in my
heart." (Ep. I° pag. 1247). To love God
means to accept His will, as Jesus did in the Garden
of Gethsemane. To love one's neighbour means to
place oneself at God's feet in expiation of the
guilt of humankind. Padre Pio was possessed by a
divine fire he felt burning in his soul. Forgetful
of his Self, he became a reflection of Christ, a
scapegoat ready to carry the cross all through his
lifetime, and not just for a brief spell on his
own road to Calvary. "He who does not take
up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me;
he who tries to save his life will lose it; he who
has lost his life for me shall find it again."
(Mt. 1038).
And Padre Pio did follow his Master along the road
to Calvary, the only path - so he felt - that would
lead to eternal life. He wrote to one of his daughters
in faith: "Remember and engrave this well in
your mind: Calvary is the mount of saints. But remember
that once you have climbed Calvary, planted the
cross, and expired your last breath on it, you shall
immediately ascend another mount named Tabor, the
Heavenly Jerusalem." (P. Pio Epist. 111°
pag. 250).
The stigmata, a visible sign of the charismatic
grace that God had bestowed on him as a token of
the soul's supreme bliss: salvation from eternal
death, were first impressed on Padre Pio's body
on 20 September 1018, two years following his arrival
at the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo. This extraordinary
mystical event is dealt with elsewhere. scritto.
Padre Pio's Spirituality
Spiritual
school
"Let
us always trust in God, and may our lively faith and the comfort of Christian
hope assist us in this. We must pray continually, moreover, that peace may soon
smile on the nations. We should turn our thoughts to heaven, our true homeland,
of which our earthly country is but a dim image, and make every effort with the
divine assistance to preserve at all times, amidst happy or sad events, the cheerful
calm that becomes the true followers of the fair Nazarene" (Epist. I,
p. 596)
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The
weather was stifling hot all day long and the evenings
brought no breeze, however slight, to give relief.
It was 1916. Padre Pio, whose health was already
bad, was suffering from this heat. The Provincial
Father invited him to spend a few days at San Giovanni
Rotondo, thinking he would benefit from the altitude
and the cool northern breeze. And so Padre Pio went
up Mount Gargano for the first time on 28 July 1916.
The monastery was situated in a lonely area approximately
1,500 m from the town and stood at the end of a
country road winding across a barren landscape which
further heightened the impression of utter isolation.
Not a voice was to be heard. The silence that reigned
in this place was only broken by the whistling of
winds blowing down the slopes from the mountain
top or by the sound of a bell dangling from the
neck of some goat grazing on one of the rare patches
of grass found on the valley's rocky soil. Yet,
as the cool climate did Padre Pio good, and his
health quickly improved, San Giovanni Rotondo became
the Padre's fixed abode. Far from the noise of human
vanity, in a lost corner of the world recalling
the Saviour's native Bethlehem, Padre Pio would
pray and meditate, preparing to climb his own Calvary
out of sheer love of Christ and for the sake of
the souls of his fellow-beings. 
