Today the Church remembers a very special priest – Padre Pio – the only priest in Church history who was given the privilege of bearing the marks of the Lord's Passion – the 5 wounds – the "stigmata" in his body! (St. Francis also bore the stigmata but he was not a priest – but rather a deacon).
The gospel passage today speaks of those who do the will of God as being his true brothers and sisters! Padre Pio accepted his role as bearer of the Sacred Wounds as the will of God – and counted himself, as we do – a true brother of the Lord!
Why is this "stigmata" – the imprinting of the wounds of Christ – given at all? The first reason would seem to be that it is proof positive that the Passion really did occur – and that Jesus himself experienced them firsthand. They are therefore a cause and reason for our belief in what he went through in dying for us on the Cross. The second reason would seem to confirm what St. Paul says that we must carry around in our bodies the dying of Jesus – so that we can also share in the fruits of his resurrection. We cannot get the icing – unless we also eat the cake! The third reason would seem to be Jesus' own command to his disciples that they carry their own crosses and sufferings, wounds, pains, trials, misunderstandings, injustices in order to have them transformed by his upcoming resurrection.
And so, we rejoice that a priest of our own time – who was born in 1887 near Naples, Italy; who became a Capuchin Franciscan in 1903; and who bore the stigmata of our Lord for 50 years, and then died in 1968 at the age of 81 – was canonized on June 6, 2002 by Pope John Paul II.
We ask his intercession today to help us bear whatever degree of Christ's sufferings are best suited to each of us, and assigned us by God – so that we can be rewarded both now and in eternity for our faithfulness, our devotion and our love in wanting only and always to do God's will, God's way!
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