What's the point of all those Padre Pio miracles?

This posting is about Padre Pio, the 20^th century Italian monk who by all accounts had a very close-knit and active relationship with Jesus.  His life was marked by willing personal sacrifice and hundreds of miracles. Some of the things that happened are so unusual that his biography reads like fiction.  But according to hundreds of witnesses and recorded statements from people whose lives were converted by interaction with Padre Pio, these things really happened (I’ll mention some later in this article).    

If you believe what was reported about Padre Pio, there are a couple of ways to react to such a story.    

1. “How curious!  How fascinating!  This is a great conversation piece.  When I’m done with this story, I’ll search for other oddball stories, like how a restaurant just set the world record for making the world’s largest cheeseburger.”
2. “There must be a reason these things happened.  There must be something God wants us to learn from Padre Pio’s life, and I want to find out what that is… (right after I finish my cheeseburger… I got a hankering for one).

I finished my own large cheeseburger, so I decided to really think about the ‘meaning’ behind his life.

Let me first catch you up on who this Padre Pio is, and why he’s attracted attention for years.

A rare photo of the stigmata on Padre Pio's hand.

• Lived in Italy from 1887 – 1968.  (Alive while I was alive, which makes him more credible than some middle-ages dude... there are photos and videos after all).
• From an early age behaved well, loved God, followed the rules, kind to others.
• At the age of five, began to have spiritual ecstasies and apparitions, including visions of the Blessed Mother Mary.  But he didn’t report them to others until years later “Because I thought they were ordinary and happened to everybody.”...

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Source:  Padre Pio, Man of Hope by Renzo Allegri, Published by Servant Publications, 2000.
Two (of many) websites about Padre Pio:  Biography of Padre Pio.  A few Miracles of Padre Pio.  

How long does Love last?

On the birthday anniversary of my recently deceased Mother in July, I went to her gravesite in Rochester Hills, Michigan at the Guardian Angels cemetery.  When I went, I was not exactly sure why I wanted or needed to go.  Sure, I’m a person who believes in the afterlife, but I’m also a pragmatist, and not much of a sentimentalist.  I think: “Since my Mom’s current life is as a soul in the afterlife, the body she left behind is no more than an empty container… it’s not the real her.  I can’t see that body anyway.  It’s in a grave.  Also, I can remember her from anywhere on the planet, and if spirits can hear humans, then she can hear me from anywhere.  So I was not really sure why I went. 

When I stood over her grave (and the grave of my departed father and my brother Jim), I thought, unsentimentally:  “Hmm, the grass above their graves is pretty dry, sparse and has weeds.  I might pull the weeds.  But what would that matter to any humans on this earth?  Would that really matter to my Mom, Dad, and Jim?  That seems so incidental.  It affects nothing.  Very few if any family members come here.  If I did care for the grass, would I be doing it so that the rare visitors would have a better experience?   Doesn’t it seem that the same minutes could be better spent doing something for my own immediate family members, who are still alive?”

While I was thinking about that, a Chrysler Minivan pulled up several tens of yards away, and an old short man walked out and over to a six foot tall black curved-top marble monument with some Greek name on it.  He made the sign of the cross on himself, indicating to me that he was either Catholic or Orthodox.  I wondered what he thought as he motioned that hand pattern.  Did it help him in some way?  Did it help his dead relative in some way?  Did it help God in some way?   It seemed not valuable.  (I’m being difficult in this posting to set up a contrast.  Of course I see value in it, but not in the way that most people define value… it’s a confirmation of my own beliefs to me and to my God)...  

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Unusual reaction to buying a new car – from a Christian perspective

Bill Griffin and New 2012 Ford Focus

We / I got a new car this past Saturday.  It’s the one I’ll be using, but it belongs to my wife and I.  It’s only the third new car either of us has had, so it should be an experience that comes across as really special.  But I’m noticing that despite the cool new features… Ford Sync voice activation where I can tell it to “Call Mary” or “Get Directions”, the cool body styling, the smooth transmission and acceleration, the leather seats, the on-dash multi-purpose displays, the great gas mileage,…  I’m finding myself only moderately excited for it.   I have not had the urge to show it off to my friends or bring it up in the first few minutes of conversation at work so that I can brag about it.  Sure, I’m informing the people who’d known I was shopping, so that they are in the loop.  But not much more. 

I’m understanding this “underwhelmed” reaction from a Christian point of view… it’s a point of view that is filtering into just about every area of my life now. 

I’m seeing the value of an activity or object from the viewpoint of God looking down on us... 

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Bill Griffin
Royal Oak, Michigan