Padre Pio of Pietrelcina died early in the morning of September 23rd, 1968, and while he was well known and loved by many thousands across the world, his fame would grow and devotion to him would increase and multiply in the years after his death. Even while he was alive, people would make the journey from all parts of Italy to meet him, receive his blessing, and even book tickets for the sacrament of penance from him. When it was more difficult for people to make these trips, there were those who travelled across continents in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s to come to his Mass in the early hours. Many Irish have met him would have made the long journey to San Giovanni Rotondo to see him.
While he was alive, and while he didn’t like his image being portrayed,
there were photographs of him being circulated and it was well known that pieces
of his Capuchin habit were being torn and kept as relics. He used to wear the skullcap,
but he had to give it up as they were being stolen even from his head by
over-zealous people. His brown fingerless mittens, used to cover the plasters
over the stigmata were kept as relics after
they were worn once and changed.
My mother and father were married in December 1968, and I
came along in October 1969. One afternoon in the Spring of 1969, my mother was
in work in Abbey St in Dublin city centre, an elderly man came to the office with
pictures of this Padre Pio and asking for 2/6d (two and six) in the old money.
My mother hadn’t got it at the time, but he gave her the picture anyway and she
felt badly not to be able to pay the man who she felt sorry for to leave the
office with little money for his work.
When I was a little boy, my Nana, my mother’s mother, used to
show me her old black-and-white picture of Padre Pio and I remember she would
exclaim that he was a “very holy priest” She had the old traditional image of
the Sacred Heart installed in the sitting room with the little red lamp which
she used to light each day faithfully.
As a young lad out playing, on Monday, I would be Superman,
on Tuesday, I would be Batman, on Wednesday, I would be Adam Ant, and on
Thursday, I would dress up as a priest. This make-believe world, long before the
internet and smartphones, kept us kids occupied in school, after school, and at
the weekends.
As a teenager I was more into Breakdancing, graffiti art, discos, and I had a couple of girlfriends. We sported Adidas Rom, and baggy jeans which
broke my mother’s heart trying to afford for us. In my mind I was thinking
about priesthood, and I knew some of the priests in our parish who asked me did
I ever think of being a priest? Sunday Mass was the limit of my religious
practice then although I remember I used to pray a lot more as a younger boy.
The seeds of a vocation get sown a long time back in the past.
In 1985 just after my Inter Cert, a brown-habited Capuchin
visited my school and spoke of St. Francis of Assisi and the order he founded.
Then he mentioned Padre Pio. I began to remember my Nana’s fondness for him and
that old black-and-while photo she had in the house in O’Curry Road. He invited
us to a “vocations workshop” which I went along to.
The vocations day was in Church St Friary, a church we would
have passed by going to the other granny’s house in Glasnevin on Sundays. I met
a lot of younger friars, full of fun and energy and I must say I was made very
welcome and one of them said he knew I had a vocation to the Capuchin Order
because I asked for a second helping of ice cream at dinner.
Time passed and I joined the order and a few years later, I
found myself dressed in the Capuchin habit and linking my Nana’s arm as we
walked up to Dufferin Avenue close to where she lived and where the Irish Office
for Padre Pio was located. We venerated
the mitten of Padre Pio, and she was blessed by it which was an incredible
experience for her since she had such a devotion to him. Over the years as a
Capuchin student friar, I was involved in the organizing of the Padre Pio days
of prayer in Church St with the late Frs. Senan, Angelus, and Barnabas, heroes
of mine in the order, and Eileen Maguire, the Director of the Irish Office for
Padre Pio until 2018. I was in Rome for
the Beatification of Padre Pio in 1999, and for the Canonization of Padre Pio
in 2002.
Nana died on February 1st, 1991, and I was ordained
priest on June 8th, 1997, and today I find myself as the Director of
the Padre Pio Apostolate for the Capuchin Order in Ireland and I imagine that
my Nana had something to do with all this because of her love for Padre Pio. My
mother wonders too that all those years ago when she hadn’t got that ‘two and
six’ to give the old man selling the pictures of Padre Pio, perhaps she gave
much more, to her cost to God and Padre Pio.
