«Giving and forgiving»: this is «the example that Padre Pio left us». This was underlined by the cardinal prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints Marcello Semeraro, celebrating the mass for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beatification of the friar with the stigmata yesterday afternoon, Thursday 2 May, in the church of the Saint of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo.
In his homily, the cardinal recalled his previous visit to the Gargano sanctuary in June 2021, for the twentieth anniversary of the canonization of the religious, and clarifying “what, in the practice of the Catholic Church, differentiates a beatification from a canonization”, he highlighted that the latter extends the cult of witness to the entire Church, while the former has a more local character. Hence the exhortation in the place where «Padre Pio lived many years of his earthly life until his death» to «have with him and towards him, a greater intimacy, a more intense gratitude and a more loving devotion».
In fact, he added, he “is known throughout the world, but it is necessary that here we have a more exemplary and more lively cult for him, which manages to grasp the heart of his message”.
Commenting on the readings, Cardinal Semeraro then spoke about the stigmata of the Saint. «For the Church – he explained – holiness does not lie in the fact that the signs of passion become visible in a body, but in the fact that a believer enters those stigmata day after day, with fidelity and love! And this is how Padre Pio began to resemble Christ, day after day: to respond to love, because the Crucified had wanted to make him similar out of mercy to him.”
And in this way, added the celebrant, «he teaches that holiness is never easy, because it costs as much as loving, always and despite everything; choosing God every morning and thanking him every evening.”
Also because, this is the second aspect highlighted by the prefect, «precisely because of the stigmatization, Padre Pio felt the need to translate the charity of the Cross that had marked him into the spirituality of the Charity that gives. Saint Pio of Pietrelcina soon combined his love for the crucified Christ with love for suffering humanity.” Here then the experience of the stigmata is transformed in him «into an operational principle» which takes shape in «a great work of charity: the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, “creature of providence” yes, as he called it, but at the same time a monument of his tireless charity.”
Finally, in the perspective of the next Jubilee, Semeraro highlighted a third aspect of the friar’s holiness; what years ago pushed the journalist Renzo Allegri to call him “Man of hope”, who “with the forgiveness of sins exercised in the ministry of Confession radiated an ineffable joy”. Therefore, added the cardinal, “many pilgrims came here to San Giovanni Rotondo not only to participate in the Mass celebrated by him, but also to be able to confess to him”, experiencing how “in this ministry” he maintained a “constant attitude of total abandonment to the mercy of God, so profound and intense that it also instills it in others.”
Here then are the three instructions entrusted by the prefect to those present: “first, let yourself be transformed by Christ so as to resemble him as much as possible”; second, “transforming our being Christians into works of charity”; and finally “to be messengers of hope, especially through the exercise of forgiveness”.
