On September 23 we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of St Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio. Just three days earlier, September 20, it was the 100th anniversary of Padre Pio receiving the stigmata. There are millions of people, living and departed, who owe a great deal to the advice, intercession and example of this great saint; and I am one of them.
My first encounter with St Pio was round a meal table in 1990, where one of the guests had regularly served Mass for the saint. He regaled us with stories of his many encounters with this extraordinary Capuchin Franciscan friar. At the end of the evening, the guest slipped into my hand a small plastic pouch containing a third-class relic, which I placed into my cassock pocket. At that time, I was an Anglican minister who had been struggling with the “call to Rome” since before my diaconal ordination. Hearing those tales and putting that small piece of cloth into my pocket took my life along the right path.
