Close encounters of a special kind with Padre Pio around the world, in person and perfume,
without leaving the convent.
“Yes, the coincidences are coincidences. But there is
somebody up there who arranges those coincidences.”
To father Mariano and to father Tarcisio: "I can do three thing at once: pray, confess, and go around the world."
Bilocation is the simultaneous presence of the same person in two different places.
Padre Pio describes under obedience the person that bilocates:
"He knows what he wants, knows were he goes, but he doesn't know if it's the body or the mind that goes."
"There is an urgency, a grave danger, a soul or a body to save".
The first known bilocation of Padre Pio:
Marchioness Giovanna Rizzani Boschi, one of the 6 witnesses who testified at the Process of beatification, reported coincidences that don't have a rational explanation.
She was born January 18, 1905. At that time Padre Pio was 18, and studying philosophy in Sant'Elia a Pianisi.
Padre Pio noted on February 1905:
"I found myself in Udine, were a father was dying and a child was being born. And the Virgin Mary said 'I'm entrusting this child to you.'
Now Giovanna was living in Rome. In the summer of 1922, while in St. Peter's basilica, she confessed to a capuchin friar.
In 1923 she heard about Padre Pio and went to see him. "Giovanna I have been waiting for you. The Virgin Mary took me to Udine when you were born
to be present at your father's death. Also, last year in St. Peter's I was the capuchin priest."
And later: "One day you will be present at my death." Later she described the vision she had of Padre Pio's cell the night he died.
She reported every detail of what happened, and described every person that was in the room.
Saint Luigi Orione made this statement: "I saw Padre Pio in St. Peter's Basilica the day that Saint Therese of the Child Jesus was declared blessed.
He came smiling towards me, walking through the crowds. He disappeared when we were few feet away from each other."
That happened on April 29,1923.
In the early days, Padre Nazareno went to town with Padre Pio to visit a Franciscan tertiary gravely ill.
The day after Padre Nazareno reported to Padre Pio that she had died during the night. Padre Pio replied:
“ I know. I assisted her. She went
straight to Paradise.”
Generale Luigi Cadorna
General Luigi Cadorna, Supreme Commander of Italian Army, after the defeat of Caporetto, on November 12, 1917 was about to shoot himself. A friar appears in front of him.
"General, you will not do this stupidity!"
After the war Cadorna heard about Padre Pio and went to visit him, unannounced.
Padre Pio from afar: "Yeah, general, we had a narrow escape that night!"
(In 1917 Padre Pio was an Active Duty in the Italian Army, on sick leave).
On June 25, 1950 Padre Pio was seen attending to the death of a fellow monk in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, without leaving the convent. When asked about it he said:
"If Christ multiplied the loaves and fishes, why cannot he multiply me."
In 1956 Padre Pio served the Mass of Cardinal Mindszenty while he was incarcerated in Budapest. The news spread.
Padre Pio was asked: "Did you really talk to him, did you really see him? "Certainly, if I have talked to him, I must have seen him."
In another occasion: 'Did you visit Cardinal Mindszenty while he was prisoner in Budapest in 1956?' "Yes. I have seen him and spoken to him."
In 1957 Padre Placido Bux da San Marco in Lamis (he hade taken the earliest photographs of Padre Pio's wounds) was hospitalized.
"I saw Padre Pio at my bedside and he reassured me I would be ok. He left through the window putting his hand on the glass.
The news spread and everybody went to see the fingerprint of the hand on the glass. The imprint was washed with soap and water several times. But it was still there.
Padre Alberto D'Apolito was told about it. He first went to see the window and that went straight to Padre Pio, several miles away:
"Everyone believes that you went to the hospital of San Severo to visit Padre Placido, and that you left on the window the imprint of you hand."
Padre Pio: "Do you have any doubt about it?"
Padre Placido recovered and lived eleven more years. On October 1968 he reported that Padre Pio had appeared to him and told him:
"You will join me very soon. You will not see the end of this year." Padre Placido died on Christmas 1968.
Cleonice Morcardi testified: 'I had not heard from my nephew Giovannino, prisoner of war, for more than a year.
I told Padre Pio: "I will write an unaddressed letter to him and will live it on the nightstand. " The day after the letter had disappeared.
Few days after I received good news from my nephew.'
Padre Pio:
"Thank the Virgin."
On January 29, 1957 in Alençon (France) Daniel Batonnier was about to die of cerebrospinal meningitis.
The mother at 13:30 PM sent a telegram to Padre Pio. At 16:00 PM the child was fully recovered. The doctors were puzzled.
The child, seeing a picture of Padre Pio said: 'Mom, I know that friar. He came to see me twice today.
He was humming so as not to scare me, and than he left. Mom when I grow up I want to be a friar like him'.
A woman went to stay with the daughter and son in law in Bologna, while waiting to have surgery for a malignant tumor in her arm.
She was sitting alone in the living room when a capuchin friar came through the door. "I am Padre Pio da Pietrelcina".
He exhorted her to have faith in the Madonna and blessed her arm. Than he said good bye and left.
The day after she met the doctor to go over the details of the surgical intervention. The surgeon examined the arm. There was no trace of the tumor.
In 1970 Venerable Madre Speranza di Collevalenza told journalist Renzo Allegri:
"Between 1937 and 1939 when I was working in the Vatican at Sant'Uffizio (Holy Office), I saw Padre Pio every day for a whole year.
He used some half gloves on his hands to hide the wounds. I would greet him, kiss his hand, and sometimes we exchanged some words."
Father Joseph reported that Dr. Millilo, a plastic surgeon at the Casa Sollievo had a brain hemorrhage while in Milan, and the doctors wanted to operate.
He asked to talk to Padre Pio first.
Padre Pio: "Tell them to operate on their own brain. Get out at once."
His wife picked him up by car, while his colleagues were nervously observing. A week later he was back on duty in San Giovanni Rotondo.
Padre Carmelo, superior of the convent, decided to have meetings with the group of early spiritual daughters, at the Ventrella's house,
to gather first hand information about the beginning of Padre Pio's ministry in San Giovanni Rotondo.
The first meeting was held on December 14, 1954, on January 10 and 25,1955, and at later dates.
Ten spiritual daughter were present: the Ventrella sisters, the Pompilio sisters, Filomena Fini, Rosinella Gisolfi in Placentino,
Rachele Russo, Rachelina Gisolfi and Nina Campanile. Padre Carmelo testified:
'During the first meeting Rachelina Gisolfi told everybody that Padre Pio was present. Back to the convent I didn't have the courage to ask Padre Pio about it.
During the second meeting Rachelina said again that Padre Pio was there. Back to the convent I took the courage and asked him.
The answer:
"Why? You don't want me there? You don't want that I come to those meetings?"After the third meeting, back to the convent:
"Yes I was there."After another meeting:
"How come you don't ask me anymore if I came to the meeting?"
Carol Wojtila, future Pope John Paul II
This notes are written in Latin, and were sent from Rome, were Bishop Wojtyla was visiting the Pontifical Polish College:
Venerable Father, I ask You to pray for a mother of four girls, forty years old, from Cracow in Poland,
(during the last war she was in a concentration camp in Germany), now she is extreme danger for her health and
her life because of cancer: May God use his misericordy to herself and her family, with the intercession of the Vey Blessed Virgin.
Very much obliged in Christ, + Carol Wojtyla, titular Bishop of Ombi, Capitular Vicar of Cracow in Poland. Roma,
Pontifical Polish College, Piazza Remuria 2A, Roma
Venerable Father, The woman living in Cracow, Poland, Mother of four girls, on November 21, regained
her health immediately before surgery. Thanks to God. And also to you, Venerable Father, the biggest thank you
from the woman, her husband, and the entire family.
In Christ. + Karol Wojtyla, Capitular Vicar of Cracow
Roma, November 28, 1962
On November 17, 1962 Padre Pio received an handwritten letter from Monsignor Karol Woityla asking to pray for Wanda Poltawska form Cracow, having terminal cancer.
Angelo Battisti, administrator of Casa Sollievo, reports that Padre Pio told him:
"Angelino, conserva questa lettera, perché un giorno diventera' importante".
"Angelino, keep this letter, because one day it will become important."
Few days later, in a letter to Padre Pio on November 28, 1962, Monsignor Karol Woityla wrote:
"Wanda was completely healed from cancer on November 21, and surgical intervention was canceled. Deo gratias. Thank you Venerable Father."
This is a follow up letter to Padre Pio from the future John Paul II, sent from Rome on December 14, 1963
Very Reverend Father, Your Paternity will certainly remember that already some few times in the past I took the permission to recommend
to Your prayers some particularly dramatic cases in need of attention. I'd like therefore thank you deeply on behalf of the people involved,
particularly about a lady, catholic physician, ill with cancer, and of the son of an attorney, gravely ill since birth. Both the persons are doing well, thanks to God.
Allow me moreover, Very Reverend Father, to entrust to Your prayers, a paralyzed lady, of this Archdiocese. At the same time I let myself to recommend
to You the vast pastoral difficulties that my poor work faces in the current situation. I Take the opportunity to renew to You the senses of my religious regards,
with which I love to prove myself, of Your Paternity very devout in Jesus Christ .
+ Carlo WOJTYLA, titular bishop of Ombi, Capitular Vicar of Cracow.
Padre Michelangelo Bellini reported that his grandma was over eighty years old and in a coma, when he prayed Padre Pio that she could live
long enough to see him celebrate his first Mass. By the morning she had made an extraordinary recovery and told him that
she had seen like in a dream a monk who had brought her ten more years of life. She lived exactly for ten more years on the day.
King George V
The evening of January 20th, 1936, Dr Guglielmo Sanguinetti, was talking to Padre Pio in his cell.
Suddenly Padre Pio took to his knees and urged them to pray “for a soul that is soon to appear before the tribunal of God.”
Afterwards Padre Pio said: “Do you know for whom you prayed? It was for the King of England.”
Around midnight padre Pio went to the room of Padre Aurelio: "Let's pray for a soul which at this moment is about to appear at the tribunal of God.”
The next day the newspapers announced the death of King George V.
Ettore Masone, Padre Pio's only nephew. Was not yet thirty when he became gravely ill, fell into a coma, and the family made arrangements for the funeral next day.
But all of a sudden he woke up and shouted: "I'm not dying anymore." He recovered completely and instantly.
He recalled: I was at the gates of heaven and saw my sister Giuseppina who died many years ago standing there at the door.
Than I also saw Padre Pio. Both wouldn't let me in." That's when he woke up.
In 1953 Padre Pio was sitting with other friars for a presentation. Padre Carmelo, the Superior, was sitting by him.
He reported that Padre Pio "placed his arms on the back of the chair in front of him and rested his head on them, remaining silent and motionless for few minutes".
The next day, Padre Carmelo went to visit a sick man and was amazed when the man expressed his appreciation for permitting Padre Pio to go visit him the previous evening.
Padre Carmelo than understood what had happened.
In 1952 a woman was about to die during delivery because of an erroneous blood transfusion. She received the Last Rites.
When the priest left she saw a monk. "I am Padre Pio and you will not die. Say an 'Our Father' and one day you will come to see me."
About a year later she went to see Padre Pio. He told her: "You got the miracle because the Sacred Heart sent me to save you,
since you are devout to him and did the First Fridays of each month."
Last known bilocation when Padre Pio was alive.
Padre Umile, friend of Padre Pio was bedridden in Genova because of a fall. On September 22, 1968 at 4:30 PM Sister Ludovica brought to Padre Umile a cup of tea.
In entering the room she felt and intense perfume of flowers. Padre Umile said: "Padre Pio went to say me the last goodbye." Few hours later Padre Pio died.
Padre Alberto d’Apolito, from San
Giovanni Rotondo, met Padre Pio in 1917 when he was 12 . He was superior
of the convent in 1950-53, and in 1961-64.
He wrote: “Ricordi, esperienze, testimonianze.”
“One day I saw Padre Pio standing at the window, talking to somebody I couldn’t see. I heard clearly Padre Pio pronouncing the words of the absolution after a confession.”
Few days later a telegram came from Torino, thanking the Father Superior for sending Padre Pio to assist a dying person. It was the same time that he had been at the window.
Padre Nazareno went with Padre Pio to visit a Franciscan tertiary gravely ill. The day after he reported to Padre Pio that she had died during the night.
“ I know. I assisted her. She went
straight to Paradise.”
levitation
Padre Andrea D'Ascanio testified: "The sacristy was full of people and they were looking at the door from were Padre Pio had to go to the confessional.
There was no way that Padre Pio could reach the confessional walking through such a large crowd.
The door didn't open, and I saw Padre Pio walking over the heads of those people and go to the confessional.
Later I asked him about it. ""I assure you, my son, it was like walking over bricks" (sopra un mattonato).
Father Joseph Pius Martin reported: "It was near the end of Padre Pio's life. Another brother and I were helping him to the altar. He was going to say Mass.
I remember thinking 'Why his weight on my arm feels like nothing at all." That's when I looked at the floor. Padre Pio's feet were six inches off the ground.
He was just gliding. He was levitating on his way to say Mass. I exchanged a glance with the other monk.
We had come to the same realization at about the same time. We never spoke about it. We just knew."
Padre Pio about the Universe
Don Nello Castello, a priest from Vicenza met Padre Pio in 1957 and frequently visited until Padre Pio's death in 1968.
He asked padre Pio about life in the universe, and reported
the answers in the book "così parlo' Padre Pio "(So Padre Pio
spoke ).
The book was published in 1974, and has the Imprimatur of the Bishop Carlo
Fanton, at the time Auxiliary of Vicenza.
"They say that on other planets there are more creatures of God."
"And you wanted that the Omnipotence of God was limited to the little planet Heart?
And you wanted that there weren't other creatures loving the Lord?"
"Padre, I have been thinking that the Earth is nothing, compared to all the other stars and planets."
"Yes, we born on the Earth are nothing. The Lord has certainly not restricted his glory to this little planet.
On other planets there might be beings that have not sinned like we did."
Close encounters of a special kind with Padre Pio: the perfume.
One of the doctors who examined Padre Pio decided to take with him a cloth that had been covering the side wound, for a laboratory analysis in Rome.
Nobody knew about it. During the trip several people told him they were smelling the perfume of Padre Pio.
And the patients smelled the same perfume during the doctor's visits.
Fra Modestino reported: I was serving Padre Pio's Mass when I started smelling his perfume. It was so intense that I was about to faint, and mentally asked him to stop.
The perfume stopped. Later I asked Padre Pio about it.
"My son it's not me. It's the lord. He decides who smells it, and when. Everything happens if and when He want."
A woman involved in an accident broke arm and shoulder, and after 3 years of surgeries the doctors said that she would never be able to use her arm.
She want to Padre Pio. "Don't despair. The arm will recover." She went back home. No improvement.
3 months later, on September 17, 1930, feast day of the wounds of St. Francis, she and all in the family, and the neighbors smelled a strong perfume of daffodils and roses.
It lasted about 15 minutes. The arm returned normal. The radiographs showed no abnormality in the bones and cartilages.
A woman testified: "My husband was taken to the hospital in Taranto with life threatening injuries after a car accident. After several days
of no improvement I prayed Padre Pio. I smelled a marvelous perfume of lily. From than on my husband made a fast recovery.
On October 1949 Maria Galliano was about to die from uterine adenocarcinoma. Her daughter sent a telegram and 2 letters to Padre Pio.
On April 29 1950 Maria smelled an intense perfume. It lasted for 2 days. The third day she felt healed.
The doctors run tests and found that 'the tumor has completely disappeared.'
Francesco Cavicchi and his wife visited Padre Pio in June 1967. He had confessed three days before, but wanted to confess to Padre Pio anyway.
The rule was at least seven days. He stood in line and when his turn was approaching he got agitated. But Padre Pio calling him from the line said:
"Come forward, my son, I have been waiting for you for a long time." He started the confession asking:
"How many days has it been since last confession?" Francesco said that he couldn't remember. Padre Pio:
"You have a short memory, don't you. But let me ask you this. Do you remember the bombardment In Rimini many yeas back?
Do you remember the air raid shelter? Do you remember the trolley bus? But why I'm asking you to go back in time?
You cannot even remember what you did less than a week ago!"
At that point Francesco started recollecting that in November 1943, when he was 28 years old, he was riding the trolley bus with about ten other people, including a middle aged monk.
Than the bombs started falling, Francesco had difficulty getting off the bombed bus to reach the air-raid shelter and thought he was about to die. The monk helped him.
The capuchin monk once in the shelter began to recite the rosary and inspired calm and confidence in everyone.
After the sirens gave the 'all clear" signal, the capuchin monk was the first to leave. Suddenly Francesco:" Were you the monk?" " Well, who do you think it was?"
Padre Pio was seen many times like he was talking to someone unseen by others, crying as he was emotionally involved in something sad,
with his sight frozen. He was in ecstasy.
Padre Pio dressed in vestments for vespers, fixing the monstrance and crying.
Padre Pio dressed in vestment for vespers, with the sight fixed on something above the monstrance.
When Padre Pio celebrated Vespers on Sunday evenings and other holidays, he concluded the ceremony with the blessing with the Monstrance.
He was dressed with piviale and humeral veil.
After distributing the Communion, and before the blessing he would also go in ecstasy at times, as you can see below.
Padre Pio in ecstasy.
During the elevation of the Host Padre Pio appears immersed in a mystical contact.
Just before the Consecration Padre Pio seems to be in contact with something above the altar.
Padre Pio is looking beyond the consecrated blood of Christ.
What is Padre Pio seeing?
Padre Pio kneeling after the consecration of the Bread appears mystically absorbed.
Padre Pio looks at something above the Host
Padre Pio's eye appears to follow something between the Host and the Chalice.
Francesco Cavicchi's cloth in Conegliano, near Treviso, in the Veneto region, Italy.
Francesco Cavicchi reporting his story.
Francesco Cavicchi from Conegliano, near Treviso in the Veneto region, in February 1968 was waiting in the hallway to see Padre Pio.
He was a bit nervous and was holding his hand kerchief because the hands were sweating.
Padre Pio saw the kerchief and he took it in his hand and went on, meeting the other people filling the hallway.
After a while he turned back to Francesco: ”Young man, don’t you want this back?” Francesco went towards Padre Pio ad took back the kerchief.
Francesco: ”I was extremely happy to have the kerchief back, ad showed it to my wife, and we showed it to our friends repeating the story about it. It was an absolutely normal piece of cloth."
"Than, on September 23, 1969 I made with my wife a trip to the tomb of Padre Pio on the anniversary of his death. We visited his tomb and I was tired and sat in a pew ad fell asleep and had a dream of Padre Pio.
Outside the church it was hot and to wipe the sweat I took the kerchief from my pocket. But instead of a normal kerchief I took by mistake the kerchief of Padre Pio.
I looked at it and it appeared stained and not clean. I opened it and a woman nearby screamed “Padre Pio”. She was seeing the image of Padre Pio on the kerchief.
I turned the kerchief the other side and my wife said:” I see the face of Jesus.”
"Back in Conegliano I showed the clergy, including the bishop, the kerchief and they said that I’d better keep it quiet to prevent fanaticism. And that’s what I have done for more than thirty years.
But people have come to see it just by word of mouth, and they say they have received graces, ad left this ex-votos.”
Cavicchi died In 2005. His wife kept the Sindone at home until her death in 2011. Currently it is kept I an undisclosed friary.
Prof. Giulio Fanti, of the University of Padua, renowned expert of syndonology , has examined it, and has concluded the Sindone of Conegliano is
"not man made, and the pigment n not known in nature. "
Francesco Cavicchi showing one side of the cloth.
Francesco Cavicchi's in house shrine, with ex-votos on the walls.
The ex-voto objects are offered in fulfillment of a vow, In
gratitude for a grace obtained. Usually body parts in sterling silver to
pinpoint the favor received.
The Sindone di Conegliano
Prof. Giulio Fanti showing the two sided of the cloth.
Prof. Giulio Fanti showing an electronic microscope enlargement of a fiber from the cloth.
next: Close encounters of Padre Pio with the souls in Purgatory
Close Encounters of the Special Kind with PADRE PIO: hallways, backyard; around the world, ecstasies; Purgatory, Guardian Angel, devil; Americans; confessional, baptisms, first Communions, weddings; Virgin Mary, Rosary; Wounds; Mass; himself, God, Jesus, Cross, Christmas, Church; spiritual children, meditation, prayer, Prayer Groups; child, novice, priest, soldier, fevers; first inquisition, Saint Mary of the Graces, Home for the Relief of Suffering (Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza); the most famous picture, children, blessings, at the ballots downtown, eating; second inquisition, last ten years, death; the Capuchin friars; entombed in first resting place, blessed, saint, exhumed, displayed, final resting place in golden crypt; mosaics of the life of Padre Pio, Jesus, Saint Francis of Assisi; fists class relics with certificates; original painting, original icon.