Padre Pio. C. Bernard Ruffin
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but I … I will hold you close, so very close … I will almost take your freedom away!11
The ecstasy ended with Padre Pio urging his angel to “praise Jesus for me…. My lips are unworthy and foul, but yours are pure.” The angel seems to have said something, to which Padre Pio responded: “Are you an angel of the darkness? … You are an angel without sin! … Then praise Jesus for me…. Dear Guardian Angel, drive that fiend away.” And then he whispered: “O Jesus … Sacred Host … Beauty … Love … Jesus.” After a few moments, he became once more aware of his physical surroundings.
The next day Padre Pio expressed concern to Jesus that he had been observed. He didn’t mind Padre Agostino watching, but he was particularly concerned that the physician, Nicola Lombardi — a layman — had observed and overheard the ecstasy: “To friars, that’s one thing … but to a layman! … I know that he’s a good man, but he’s still a layman!”
Padre Pio began once again to pray for conversion: “O Jesus, you can’t refuse me! Remember that you shed your blood for everybody … and what does it matter if he is a hardened sinner?” He prayed for the confreres who ministered to him in his sickness: “Jesus, I commend these friars to you. They get up at night. You know that…. After all, who am I? … Help them … I am not good enough even to celebrate Mass, but they exercise their ministry.”12
Pio’s conversations with his guardian angel were a good deal less reverent:
Angel of God, my angel — aren’t you my guardian? God gave you to me…. Are you a creature or are you a creator? … You’re a creator? No! Then you’re a creature and you have a law and you have to obey…. You must stay close to me whether you want to or not…. You’re laughing! … What is there to laugh about? … Tell me one thing — you have to tell me. Who was it? Who was here yesterday morning? … You’re laughing! … You have to tell me! … Who was it? … Either the lector or the guardian — tell me! Come on now, answer me! … You’re laughing! An angel laughing! … I won’t let you go until you tell me! … If you won’t tell me, I will ask Jesus … and then you will listen! … Well, my boy, tell me who it was! … You’re not answering! … All right, just stand there — just like a block of wood! … I want to know … I asked you just one thing, and after such a long time, here we still are. Jesus, you tell me!13
Jesus apparently made the angel tell Padre Pio that only Padre Agostino had been watching the ecstasy of the previous day.
Toward the end of the ecstasy, Padre Pio spoke of a mysterious thirst that he experienced prior to receiving Holy Communion. (It is common for mystics to feel a real hunger and thirst for the living God.) The ecstasy closed with the enraptured priest kissing the Savior’s bleeding wounds.
The next day Padre Pio expressed a desire to help Jesus bear his cross. Jesus told him that he really did not need man’s works, but Padre Pio begged for the grace to participate in his redemptive suffering. From Padre Pio’s responses, it would seem that Jesus conceded him this privilege.
Padre Pio remained depressed over the fact that he was able to exercise his priestly duty of celebrating Mass only in his hometown. “Why there and not here?” he asked his celestial visitors. “Am I a priest only at Pietrelcina?” He was distressed about Padre Benedetto’s refusal to permit him to hear confessions. From Padre Pio’s responses, it appears that Jesus, too, was unhappy about this and actually accused the minister provincial of having a “hard head.” Even so, Padre Pio prayed that the punishment deserved by Padre Benedetto might fall upon himself. Furthermore, Padre Pio accused himself of being worthy of damnation. “You want to glorify yourself in me?” Pio asked in amazement. “Who am I? … I am a priest, true, but a useless one. I don’t even say Mass anymore, or hear confessions.”14 The ecstasy ended with Padre Pio praying for Padres Benedetto, Agostino, Pannullo, and for all priests, good and evil.
The next day, Friday, December 1, Padre Pio apparently saw Jesus crucified, bleeding, and suffering. “Jesus, I love you,” he exclaimed, “but don’t appear like this to me anymore…. You tear my heart to pieces…. It’s true, then, that you bore the cross all the time of your life … and therefore it’s wrong when wicked men say that your suffering was only a matter of a night and a day…. Your suffering was continuous.”15
Once again Padre Pio offered himself as a victim and prayed for the stigmata to return: “If you give me the strength, permit that those nails … permit it, yes, in my hands … if it be your will … but invisibly, because people despise your gifts.”16
Although Padre Pio suffered distress and anguish, there were moments of sublime rapture as well. “Tell me,” he asked Jesus, “if on earth it can be so lovely, what will heaven be like? … There we will die of love! … Jesus, all the things of this world are but as a shadow.”17
Touched when told how fervently Padre Evangelista and the rest of the community were praying for him, Padre Pio told Jesus: “Try to console him. Maybe he doesn’t even pray for himself…. Give him the grace [he is seeking]…. You can do anything!”18
On Sunday, December 3, as he talked with Jesus, Padre Pio was troubled about the sins of unworthy priests. Again, he offered himself as a victim, specifically on their behalf:
My Jesus, why are you so bloody this morning? … They did wicked things to you today? … Alas, even on Sunday you must suffer the offenses of ungrateful men! … How many abominations took place within your sanctuary! … My Jesus, pardon! Lower that sword! … If it must fall, may it find its place on my head alone…. Yes, I want to be the victim! … Here is the usual excuse: “You are too weak.” … Yes, I’m weak … but, my Jesus, you are able to strengthen me…. Then punish me and not others…. Even send me to hell, provided that I can still love you and everyone is saved. Yes, everyone!19
It was in this ecstasy that the Lord apparently explained to Padre Pio that he would have to return to Pietrelcina. In previous ecstasies, he had expressed his alarm at his inability to remain in any friary. He had been terrified on learning that the minister general was thinking of dismissing him from the Capuchin order because of his poor health, and that it might be necessary for him to journey to Rome to plead his cause. “O my Jesus,” Padre Pio lamented, “you want to send me to that land of exile! … Aren’t I a priest here? … What do I have to do?” Jesus evidently told him that his return to Pietrelcina was part of his plan to glorify himself in the friar. “You want to glorify yourself in me?” Pio exclaimed. “And who am I? … If only people could know my sins! … Daddy is proud of me and goes around boasting about me…. Oh, if he only knew, if he only knew.”20
Saint Francis of Assisi also appeared to him. “Seraphic Father,” Padre Pio complained, “are you expelling me from your order? … Aren’t I your son anymore?” Padre Pio seemed to be assured by Saint Francis that he would not be expelled from the Capuchin order and that it was God’s will for him to remain in Pietrelcina for a time.
A Cataleptic Trance?
Two of Padre Pio’s ecstasies were observed by Dr. Nicola Lombardi. On November 28, 1911, Lombardi found Pio lying in bed and apparently staring at the ceiling. The Capuchin was talking to the Lord. Lombardi lit a candle and held it in front of Pio’s eyes. “He’s in a cataleptic trance,” Lombardi explained to Padre Agostino. “When he comes to himself, you’ll see that he remembers nothing of what happened.” Lombardi was wrong. Without being told of the doctor’s visit, Padre Pio complained bitterly the next day about being observed by a layman.
Lombardi was called back on December 3. Padre Pio was again talking to unseen visitors. “Take my heart and fill it with your love,” he murmured. Lombardi measured the heartbeat with his stethoscope and took the pulse under the wrist, marveling that the two were not synchronous: the pulse in the wrist was strong and rapid, but the actual heartbeat was significantly stronger and faster. Lombardi called the priest’s name in an attempt to bring him out of the trance. “Ah, what called me?” Padre Pio said. “My angel, let me stay with Jesus.” And he remained