PRIVATE PIO

[Dawn Marie]

PRIVATE PIO

A photograph of Private Francesco Forgione (Padre Pio).

Padre Pio was already a Priest when he was drafted into the Italian army along with 60 other members of the Capuchin Order that, at the time along with the rest of the Catholic Church was under persecution by Italy.

He was called up for military service when Italy entered the First World War. He was 30 years old and was assigned to the 10th Company of the Italian Medical Corps in Naples.

He prayed to Jesus to "have compassion on the poor nations, so tried by the misfortune of war, and to cause His justice to give way at last to mercy.

Padre Pio experienced a divine response to his prayers for Jesus appeared to him and answered him by means of a gesture which communicated to him - "Slowly, slowly." This divine visitation seemed to signal the approach of peace.

[Flavia Talladen Schott]

Awesome. Thank you for posting, Dawn Marie.

St. Pade Pio, pray for us for a deeper and unfailing faith.

[Dawn Marie]

How Padre Pio Became Known as the Flying Monk in W.W 2
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Many Allied aviation pilots of various nationalities (English, American, Polish, Palestinian) and of varied religions (Catholic, Orthodox, Moslem, Protestant, Jewish) who during the Second World War, after September 8, 1943, were based in Bari to undertake missions on Italian territory, had testified , at the risk of.their own jobs, to an impossible occurrence they had witness during American bombing raids of Italian Territory. While all the other bombing raids more or less went as planned, each time, while fulfilling their Italian military mission, whenever they approached the zone of the Gargano, in the environs of San Giovanni Rotondo, they saw in the sky Friar who either was flying at them and blocking their planes or who would be Floating in the sky and simply stretching out his wounded hands would prevent their bombing in San Giovanni Rotondo. Foggia and almost all of the centers of Puglia were subjected to repeated bombardment and more or less destroyed; but on San Giovanni Rotondo not one bomb fell.
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This event, which is to say the least unheard of, was directly witnessed by the General of Aeronautica Italiana Bernardo Rosini, who at that time was part of the "United Air Command" operating out of Bari with the Allied air forces. "Each time that the pilots returned from their missions," General Rosini told me, "they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back.
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"Everyone laughed at these incredulous stories. But since the episodes kept recurring, the Commanding General decided to intervene personally dismiss this wise tail once and for all. He took command of a squadron of bombers to destroy a cache of German war materials that was said to be right in San Giovanni Rotondo. Up until that time, no one had ever succeeded in dropping a single bomb in that area because of the supposed presence in the air of that mysterious phantasm which forced the airplanes back numerous times and said by numerous witnesses even under threat of disciplinary action.
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"Since this had been happening for some time, at the base there was much apprehension by the soldiers some Who haven't witnessed it wondering if this was some type of illusion somehow put together by the Germans. Now with the General personally taking the Reins of this mission all the men were curious to see the results of this operation. When the squadron returned, we went over to ask what had occurred. The American general was quite upset. He recounted that as soon as they arrived near the target, he and his pilots had seen rising up into the sky the figure of a monk with his hands held high. The bombs dropped all by themselves way to early and fell into the Forrest area, and the planes turned in retreat, without any intervention on the part of the pilots.
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"That evening, the episode was the main topic of conversation. Everyone was wondering who was this specter which the airplanes mysteriously obeyed. Now being in Italy for sometime at that point the Italian people having heard the Allied Service Men stories about the mysterious Monk said to the Servicemen who in returned told the Commanding general that at San Giovanni there lived a Priest with the stigmata whom everyone considered a saint, and that perhaps he was the very one responsible for diverting the planes. The general found this hard to believe, but as soon as it was possible, he wished to go there to find out.
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"After the war, the general, accompanied by a few pilots, arrived at the Capuchin Convent. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the sacristy, he found himself facing a number of Friars, among whom he recognized immediately the one who had stopped his airplanes. Padre Pio went up to meet him, and putting a hand on his shoulders, said to him: "So it is you, the one who wished to do away with all of us".
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"Astonished at seeing and hearing the Friar, the general knelt before him which was very uncharacteristic of this hardened Military man who also happen to be a devout Protestant. Padre Pio had spoken in his usual Benevento dialect, but the general was convinced that the Priest has spoken in English. The two became friends and the General converted to Catholicism having met a living Saint.

[Dawn Marie]

Saint Pio On How The Devil Failed Miserably Trying to Confess His Sins
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Satan went beyond all the limits of deception when he went to Father Pio pretending to be a penitent. This is the Father Pio’s testimony:

“One day, while I was hearing confessions, a man came to the confessional where I was. He was tall, handsome, dressed with some refinement and he was kind and polite.

He started to confess his sins, which were of every kind: against God, against man and against the morals. All the sins were obnoxious! I was disoriented, in fact for all the sins that he told me, but I responded to him with God’s Word, the example of the Church, and the morals of the Saints.

But the enigmatic penitent answered me word for word, justifying his sins, always with extreme ability and politeness. He excused all the sinful actions, making them sound quite normal and natural, even comprehensible on the human level.. He continued this way with the sins that were gruesome against God, Our Lady, the Saints, always using disrespectful round-about argumentation.

He kept this up even with with the foulest of sins that could be conjured in the mind of a most sinful man. The answers that he gave me with such skilled subtlety and malice surprised me.

I wondered: who is he? What world does he come from? And I tried to look at him in order to read something on his face. At the same time I concentrated on every word he spoke, trying to discover any clue to his identity.. But suddenly; through a vivid, radiant and internal light I clearly recognized who he was. With a sound and imperial tone I told him: “Say long live Jesus, long live Mary!”As soon as I pronounced these sweet and powerful names, Satan instantly disappeared in a trickle of fire, leaving behind him an unbearable stench.”

[Gloria]

Thank you for sharing this with us.  St Padre Pio is such a powerful Saint.