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.  

Unconventional Hope for a Heart Transplant Patient

An acquaintance named Craig, a man with grey hair and a low upbeat voice, told this story yesterday. Craig has a friend who has needed a heart transplant to survive.  He has been waiting for a judgement from his cardiologists at a renowned Michigan hospital, and finally had a visit with them.  They gave him what for anybody else would have been considered a death sentence:  "You are not a candidate for heart transplantation".

The patient's response was puzzling to me, but appealing.  Craig said that his friend said "Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus.  I don't know what your plans are for me, but I accept them.  I know you will continue to be with me the whole way."

What kind of man would react that way?  Either a madman, or a man who really trusts.

I don't pretend to know what went through his head.  But because my acquaintance Craig is not a madman, I suspect neither is the heart patient.  To me, he sees "the future" as having a longer time horizon than just the time spent here on Earth.

If your life is easy, you'll never be a Saint

Today, at Men’s Fellowship, we were talking about difficult situations we were in.  In all four of the situations mentioned, it had to do with a person in our lives who had or still is making life very unpleasant whenever we encounter them.  I told about Jill at work interpreting my normal actions that most people like as offensive.  Gerry C. told about a woman at work who was just making his life hell, and we was concerned that when he came in to Men’s Fellowship to lead it this morning, that he would not be able to concentrate.  Jerry told about a neighbor who is just so difficult he just wants to avoid him. Etc.   These stories were right on the surface for us all. 

Gerry said that he’s pretty sure that the Lord wants us to be able to continue to be Godly people in the face of this stress.  As an example of someone who succeeded in accomplishing that, he mentioned a female VP at his workplace who handled something well.  Gerry thought that he said something that could have been taken the wrong way, and he went to this woman and said, “I’m sorry if I offended you”.  She said, “Oh, you can’t offend me.  I have to let myself be offended”.    And Gerry immediately thought, “That’s got to be one main reason she is where she is.”

Dan G., on the same topic, said that he heard the saying, “We can be much happier if we just don’t allow others to rent free space in our head.”

Gerry said, “It seems like this kind of problem is something that only happens to us, and that it’s harder for us than for anyone else to manage through it.  But many of the saints had to deal with harder things and still maintain a behavior consistent with God’s commands.”  Now here’s his point that really stuck with me:  “If the Saint’s task had been easy, we wouldn’t think of them as Saints”.

Yes.  Unless we have some true difficulty in life, we cannot demonstrate that we can maintain a focus on God through difficulty.

This gives me a reason to think differently about some of the parts of my life that give me pain.  It makes me think that some day I’ll really understand the Romans 5:3 passage “rejoice in our sufferings”.