Who was Padre Pio?
He was born in 1887 in Pietrelcina, a little village among hills and olive trees in the south of Italy, and his name was Francis. He loved to pray and to be quiet with God. He said his guardian angel had been his friend since he was little, so he never felt he walked alone. When he became a Capuchin friar, with a long brown habit and a rope around his waist, he took a new name, Pio. Later he became a priest, and people called him Padre Pio, Father Pio.
He lived for many years in a friary on a hill at San Giovanni Rotondo, where he prayed and prayed and loved to celebrate Mass. In 1918 marks like the wounds of Jesus appeared on his hands, and they stayed with him for the rest of his life. He kept his hands covered with soft brown half-gloves, and he went right on smiling, praying and helping everyone who came to see him.
People came from near and far and waited in long lines to go to confession with him. In confession we tell God we are sorry and he forgives us, and they walked away feeling light, as if a heavy backpack had been lifted off their shoulders. With many friends he built a big hospital, the Home for the Relief of Suffering, which opened in 1956, and he started prayer groups. He died in 1968, and in 2002 Saint John Paul II declared him a saint.
When is Padre Pio’s feast day?
Padre Pio’s feast day is September 23. It’s the day he died, in 1968, at San Giovanni Rotondo, the town in the south of Italy where he lived for most of his life.
Clara tells the whole story at bedtime, in the Little Prayer Stories app.Get the app →
