The first is St. Catherine Laboure who received messages from the Blessed Mother concerning the Miraculous Medal about which both Our Lord and Our Lady have spoken to Nancy. (See Pg. 10 in "To Bear Witness..." Vol 1)
The second is St. Therese of Lisieux whose Way of Spiritual Childhood, otherwise known as the Little Way is the Way which Our Lord is teaching at Conyers through Nancy Fowler. The Little Flower advises giving thanks for our weaknesses and mistakes because it thus enables God to show His mercy and forgiveness. She advocates total childlike trust and confidence in God. At Conyers, Our Lord says, "Oh, if My children would be children and depend upon Me." (No. 13 pg.30 "To Bear Witness..." Vol. 1) Nancy describes spiritual maturity as being so small we can fit into the palm of God's hand. Therese was aware that every moment of her life was taken care of by an all-merciful God. The Blessed Mother at Conyers tells us that even the chair we sit on is provided by God for our comfort and that we should give Him thanks for it. (no. 77 pg.65 in "To Bear Witness..." Vol.1)
The third person who has been seen often at Conyers is Padre Pio of Pietrelcina O.F.M. (Cap). He has appeared to other mystics there in response to requests for his presence there as witness to the authenticity of events in Conyers. During the May 13, 1992 apparition of the Blessed Mother, Nancy saw Padre Pio several times. When Nancy saw Padre Pio the first time, the Blessed Mother said, "He is a model of suffering for my Son. He is a model of selfless love. Pray to Him. He desires to help you. I desire to honor him this day." [Nancy then saw Padre Pio appear again.] "Please children seek spiritual conversion. Many of you have come with worldly requests." [Nancy saw Padre Pio appear again and wondered why he was appearing so much.] "Be not afraid to pray to him for his help."
Finally, there is a section on the Brown Scapular in this Appendix. This also came into being through the request of the Blessed Mother to St. Simon Stock, a Dominican. Our Lady appeared to this English monk and was accompanied by many angels.
All that Mary is trying to teach Her children about their relationship to Her Son and the Blessed Trinity is contained in the messages She gave to this humble, ill-educated sister, and then shown in the way Catherine lived her life. It is not easy to perfect one's ordinary state in life but this is what the Blessed Mother hopes for all who follow Her and it is to help us be better wives, mothers, fathers and husbands, sons and daughters that She bestows the graces at Her command.
Catherine came from a fairly well set up middle class French family but somehow Catherine's family skipped over her education despite her brothers and sisters being well-schooled. After her mother died, like many great saints before her, Catherine adopted the Blessed Mother as her mother. She also longed to enter the Religious Life but her father would hear none of it. Instead, she had to take over the running of his household. Each day, she walked six-miles to Mass in the pre-dawn, then returned home to cook and take the midday meal out to the fields to their fifteen farm-hands and look after her father and brothers and sisters.
She received a vision of St. Vincent de Paul which guided her to her vocation in the Sisters of Charity which was part of the great dual order founded by St. Vincent and St. Louise de Merrilac. However, her father withheld his permission and such was Catherine's obedience that she would not enter without his permission even though she had reached the age when she did not require his permission. Eventually, he did give permission but withheld her dowry--this her brother and sister-in-law finally provided.
The superior did not want to accept her because of her poor education but the Assistant sister discerned her deep spirituality and promised to teach her and so she was accepted.
It was shortly after her entrance into the novitiate that Catherine was granted, in a vision, the favor of seeing St. Vincent de Paul's Heart. Shortly after this she was granted the vision of Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist, and it is thought that this gift from the Lord was repeated throughout St. Catherine's life.
After the great apparitions of the Blessed Mother in 1830 which allowed St. Catherine more intimacy with the great Mother of God than most visionaries are permitted, Catherine spent her life in obscurity working as a housekeeper and finally looking after the old men who lived in the Hospice d'Enghien outside Paris.
Catherine had prayed for the great grace of seeing the Mother of God. One night, she was called from her bed by a young boy whom she later identified as her guardian angel. Miraculously, doors opened and lights went on to help her on her way to the chapel. Shortly after she arrived, her guardian angel told her that the Blessed Mother was near. With a rustle of fabric, She arrived. Catherine fell to her knees at the feet of the Virgin, resting her hands in Our Lady's lap. She was told much of what would happen to Paris and France and her Order. In yet another visitation, Mary manifested to her the Miraculous Medal, telling her to speak of the happenings only to her confessor.
There was much conjecture over who was the visionary behind the Miraculous Medal request but, although one or two of her Sisters guessed it might be she, she never talked to anyone but her confessor about it. It was only six months before her death that she divulged her identity and she only did this because one of the Blessed Mother's requests had not been fulfilled. The Holy Mother had asked for a statue to be made of Herself as she appeared on the Miraculous Medal. This had not been done and, knowing she was soon to die, Catherine asked the Blessed Mother's permission to tell her superior her story in the hope that it would facilitate the making of the statue. Before she died, Catherine was indeed able to see a plaster model of the statue at the artist's studio. Now, her incorrupt body lies beneath the statue that she was so anxious should be sculpted .
Americans will be particularly interested that included in the Miraculous Medal messages was one about the Order our first American born saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, founded in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Catherine was told: "When the rule will have been restored in vigor, a community will ask to be united to your Community. Such is not customary, but I love them; God will bless those who take them in; they will enjoy great peace." This indeed happened and, in 1849, Mother Seton's Sisters were joined to St. Vincent's community.
Stories about people who have been converted by Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal abound. One of the most famous is that of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a French Jew with no belief in God, whose brother, a Catholic convert, gave him a Miraculous Medal to wear and extracted a promise from him to pray daily--probably the Memorare--asking for the Virgin's help.
Within five days, his life had changed dramatically. He visited a church with his brother and was later found in deep ecstasy. He told his friends that "I have seen her as I see you." Without speaking, Mary conveyed to him the truth of Jesus Incarnate and His death and resurrection. He also understood that the light that streamed from Mary's open hands was indeed the grace of God. When he came out of his ecstasy, he demanded baptism and was baptized by a cardinal who had no doubt about his belief, through Mary's miraculous intervention in the Risen Christ. Alphonse Ratisbonne went on to found the Institutes of Our Lady of Sion and the Fathers of Sion. He died in the Holy Land and is buried at Ein Karem, believed to be the "hill country of Judea" where Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist.
The streams of light coming from Mary's hands are explained by St. Catherine as light streaming from the gems of rings on the Blessed Virgin's fingers. "..I saw rings on her fingers, three rings to each finger, the largest one near the base of the finger, one of medium size in the middle, the smallest one at the tip. Each ring was set with gems, some more beautiful than others; the larger gems emitted greater rays and the smaller gems, smaller rays; the rays bursting from all sides flooded the base, so that I could no longer see the feet of the Blessed Virgin... The gems from which rays do not fall are the graces for which souls forget to ask."
Within months of the medal being struck and distributed, the stories of miracles proliferated and soon it became known as the Miraculous Medal. And the stories, even today, are never-ending.
The Miraculous Medal is a simple pictorial version of God's plan for our salvation. On the front of the medal, we are shown the Virgin Mary pouring graces out over the whole world. She is crowned with stars--a crown that Catherine identified to her confessor as the crown of stars described in the Book of Revelation. The words, 'O Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee' are a reminder that She is there for all Her children. On the reverse side of the medal there are twelve stars representing the Twelve Patriarchs and the Twelve Apostles. The great 'M' representing the Blessed Virgin is entwined with the Cross on which Her Son died and redeemed us. Then there are the twin hearts--the Immaculate Heart with the sword and the Sacred Heart crowned with thorns.
Image of the Miraculous Medal (Front) (Back)
Devotion to the Miraculous Medal was not specifically asked for yet, as miracles proliferated, more and more people wore the medal and became devoted to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The Perpetual Novena in Her honor was established at Mary's Central Shrine in Germantown, Pa. by Father Joseph A. Skelly, C.M. on Monday December 8, 1930 and has continued there ever since. Now the Novena is held in many parishes throughout the world including the Chapel of Apparitions on the rue du Bac in Paris.
A replica of the "Virgin of the Globe", the statue St. Catherine was so anxious about, can be seen in the Basilica Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Md.
Details of Therese's life and spiritual doctrine come from her Story of a Soul written in three sections to Mother Agnes of Jesus, her sister Pauline, who entered Carmel in 1882 and was Therese's superior for a while; to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, her sister Marie; and to Mother Marie de Gonzague, her long-time superior.
Her father, Louis Martin came from a military family, but opted to become a watch-maker. He also dreamed of a monastic life but was refused entrance to the monastery of the Great Saint Bernard because of his inadequate knowledge of Latin. Until he married, Louis lived with his parents on rue du Pont-Neuf, leading a quiet life filled with travel, prayer, reading and fishing.
Zelie Guerin, Therese's mother, came from a devout peasant family, also with a military background. When her father retired, he moved with his family to Alencon. After she, too, was refused entry into religious life, she took up lace-making, and with her sister ran a little business selling the beautiful "Point d'Alencon" that she made.
Zelie and Louis were married in 1858 in the Church of Notre-Dame. They had nine children but only five daughters survived, Marie, Pauline, Leonie, Celine and Therese and all of them entered religious life. Leonie was the only one not to become a Carmelite. She became a Visitandine.
Little Therese was a sickly baby and finally the Martins decided that it would be better for her to live in the country with a nurse. She thrived on the peasant life and quickly became the favorite of her adopted family, later prompting Therese to write, "All my life God was pleased to surround me with love, and my first memories are imprinted with the most tender smiles and caresses."
Her childhood passed with great joy, and Therese was to write in her autobiography, "Ah! how rapidly passed by the sunny years of my early childhood, but what a sweet impression they left on my soul! Everything on earth smiled at me. I found flowers under each of my steps, and my happy disposition contributed also to making my life pleasing."
On August 28, 1877, Zelie Martin died and Therese was left motherless. She chose her sister Pauline as her second mother.
Therese was a pretty child and a beautiful girl. She was looked after by her sisters with very tender love and attention. Up to the age of eleven, she had never brushed her own hair and when she made a three day retreat for her confirmation, her family visited her each day bringing her favorite pastries. But their eyes were firmly on God and they taught her the life of faith. In fact, the atmosphere of the home was redolent with love of God and each other.
She and her father would take walks each afternoon and he would encourage her to give alms to the poor, then they would visit the Blessed Sacrament, going to a different church each afternoon, sometimes she would go fishing with her father. Everything was joyous for Therese. Therese spent her time, even as young as that, contemplating the beauties of nature and dreaming of heaven.
One afternoon a thunderstorm blew up and Therese was thrilled because God seemed so close, Her father however, was worried that Therese would get wet. "Papa, fearing the diamonds would soak his little girl, picked her up and carried her on his back in spite of his bundle of lines."
Despite this idyllic childhood, Therese had much to bear. She was sent to the Abbey School. "I have often heard it said that the time spent in school is the best and happiest of one's life. It wasn't that way for me. The five years I spent in school were the saddest in my life, and if I hadn't had Celine with me, I couldn't have remained there and would have become sick in a month. The poor little flower had become accustomed to burying her fragile roots in a chosen soil made purposely for her. It seemed hard for her to see herself among flowers of all kinds with roots frequently indelicate; and she had to find in this common soil the food necessary for her sustenance!
"...As I was timid and sensitive by nature, I didn't know how to defend myself and was content to cry without saying a word and without complaining even to you about what I was suffering. I didn't have enough virtue however, to rise above these miseries of life, so my poor little heart suffered very much."
Her beloved sister Celine then made her first Communion and Therese considered that day one of the most beautiful of her life.
After that event, her sister, Pauline, whom she had chosen as her second mother, decided to enter Carmel, "...And now I must speak of the sorrowful trial which broke little Therese's heart when Jesus took away her dear Mamma, her tenderly-loved Pauline...and how she suffered when she heard her dear Pauline speaking one day to Marie about her coming entrance into Carmel..." Of this Therese further wrote, "I shall always remember, dear Mother, with what tenderness you consoled me. Then you explained the life of Carmel to me and it seemed so beautiful! When thinking over all you had said, I felt that Carmel was the desert where God wanted me to go also to hide myself. I felt this with so much force that there wasn't the least doubt in my heart; it was not the dream of a child led astray but the certitude of a divine call; I wanted to go to Carmel not for Pauline's sake but for Jesus alone."
Now she was left with Marie as her third mother. It was during this period that she became very ill indeed and everyone expected her to die. She would go into a sort of coma during which she was perfectly conscious but unable to move or communicate. "That night we were to go to the Catholic Circle meeting, but finding I was too fatigued, Aunt made me go to bed; when I was undressing, I was seized with a strange trembling. Believing I was cold, Aunt covered me with blankets and surrounded me with hot water bottles. But nothing was able to stop my shaking which lasted almost all night. Uncle, returning from the meeting with my cousins and Celine, was very much surprised to see me in this state which he judged to be very serious. He didn't want to say this in order not to frighten Aunt.
"He went to get Doctor Notta the next day, and he judged, as did Uncle, that I had a very serious illness and one which had never before attacked a child as young as I.....This sickness was not "unto death" but like that of Lazarus it was to give glory to God."
This illness, of which she also wrote: "The sickness which overtook me certainly came from the demon; infuriated by your entrance into Carmel, he wanted to take revenge on me for the wrong our family was to do him in the future," left little Therese feeling guilty because she believed she had become ill on purpose. Her sister Marie, now her little mother, since Pauline had entered the Carmel, tried to reassure her. Her confessor tried to calm her but nothing worked. "God willing, no doubt to purify and especially to humble me, left me with this interior martyrdom until my entrance into Carmel, where the Father of our souls, as with the wave of his hand, removed all my doubts. Since then I am perfectly calm."
The family suffered greatly from this affliction of anxiety and everyone clustered round Therese, nursing and pampering her. Finally, they all realized that a miracle was necessary for Therese's cure. She herself turned to the Blessed Virgin as did her sister Marie. "All of a sudden the Blessed Virgin appeared beautiful to me, so beautiful that never had I seen anything so attractive; her face was suffused with an ineffable benevolence and tenderness, but what penetrated to the very depths of my soul was the 'ravishing smile of the Blessed Virgin.' At that instant, all my pain disappeared, and two large tears glistened on my eyelashes, and flowed down my cheeks silently, but they were tears of unmixed joy."
But these tears of joy turned into a trial of humiliation because, when she tried to explain to questioners what she had seen, she began to believe she had lied and "I was unable to look upon myself without a feeling of profound horror. Ah! what I suffered I shall not be able to say except in Heaven."
The next big event in Therese's life was her first confession and communion. Her sister Pauline prepared her for this with infinite and loving care.
"Oh! dear Mother, with what care you prepared me for my first confession, telling me it was not to a man but to God I was about to confess my sins; I was very much convinced of this truth. I made my confession in a great spirit of faith, even asking you if I had to tell Father Ducellier I loved him with all my heart as it was to God in person I was speaking."
She went through many trials to be accepted in Carmel, hoping to enter on her fifteenth birthday. But when she applied to the Carmelites, they rejected her. She appealed to the Bishop, finally to the Pope, trying to obtain permission to enter when she was fifteen. Everything stood in her way but at last, she was accepted and finally came the great day when her father gave her to her very beloved Jesus and she was received into Carmel.
Therese writes of her entrance into Carmel, "The day chosen for my entrance in Carmel was April 9, 1888, the same day the community was celebrating the feast of the Annunciation, transferred because of Lent. The evening before, the whole family gathered round the table where I was to sit for the last time. Ah! how heartrending these family reunions can really be! When you would like to see yourself forgotten, the most tender caresses and words are showered upon you making the sacrifice of separation felt all the more.
"Papa was not saying very much, but his gaze was fixed upon me longingly...
"On the morning of the great day, casting a last look upon Les Buissonnets, that beautiful cradle of my childhood which I was never to see again, I left on my dear King's arm to climb Mount Carmel... I was the only one who didn't shed any tears, but my heart was beating so violently it seemed impossible to walk when they signalled for me to come to the enclosure door. I advanced, however, asking myself whether I was going to die because of the beating of my heart! Ah! what a moment that was! One would have to experience it to know what it is.
"My emotion was not noticed exteriorly... I knelt down before my matchless Father for his blessing, and to give it to me he placed himself on his knees and blessed me, tears flowing down his cheeks. It was a spectacle to make the angels smile, this spectacle of an old man presenting his child, still in the springtime of life, to the Lord! A few moments later, the doors of the holy ark closed upon me and there I was received by the dear Sisters who embraced me... My soul experienced a peace so sweet, so deep, it would be impossible to express it. For seven years and a half that inner peace has remained my lot, and has not abandoned me in the midst of the greatest trials...
"This happiness was not passing. It didn't take its flight with "the illusions of the first days." Illusions, God gave me the grace not to have a single one when entering Carmel. I found the religious life to be exactly as I had imagined it, no sacrifice astonished me and yet, as you know, dear Mother, my first steps met with more thorns than rose! Yes, suffering opened wide its arms to me and I threw myself into them with love."
Shortly after her entrance, her sister Marie, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, made her profession. A month later, their father began to show signs of his last and fatal illness. He had Celine and Leonie to support him in this very sad time for all the sisters. At the end of October, Therese was approved by the Conventual Chapter to receive the Habit and on September 8 1890, and made her profession and received the Veil on September 24. In about February of 1891, she was named to aid the Sacristan. Then on June 24, Leonie again entered the Visitation Convent in Caen. On July 29, 1894, Louis Martin died. After their father's death, Celine entered the Carmel and was put under Therese's care.
It was during this period that Therese began practicing her Little Way. "I applied myself to practicing little virtues, not having the capability of practicing the great... Alas! my ardor for penances would not have lasted long had the Superiors allowed them. The penances they did allow me consisted in mortifying my self-love, which did me much more good than corporal penances."
Therese began to understand love. "The science of Love, ah, yes,... I desire only this science. Having given all my riches for it, I esteem it as having given nothing as did the bride in the sacred Canticles. I understand so well that it is only love which makes us acceptable to God that this love is the only good I ambition. Jesus deigned to show me the road that leads to this Divine Furnace, and this road is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its Father's arms...
"See, then, all that Jesus lays claim to from us; He has no need of our works but only our love, for the same God who declares he has no need to tell us when He is hungry did not fear to beg for a little water from the Samaritan woman. He was thirsty. But when he said: Give me to drink," it was the love of His poor creature the Creator of the universe was seeking. He was thirsty for love. Ah! I feel it more than ever before, Jesus is parched, for He meets only the ungrateful and indifferent among His disciples in the world, and among His own disciples, alas, He finds few hearts who surrender to Him without reservations, who understand the real tenderness of His infinite love."
Therese viewed herself like a tiny, weak little bird who can only look at the sun but who was quite incapable of soaring up to reach it. She could only sit on a ledge and look at the sun with love, and when it disappeared behind a cloud, keep her eye focused on where the sun had been. She hoped that some eagle would one day bear her up on its wings and fly with her to the sun.
Her Little Way is often viewed as easy because it is little. But it was based on spiritual poverty, complete abandonment and trust in God and the little and ordinary penances and sacrifices of life. It is not easy for a child to sit bolt upright and never let its back touch the back of the chair, but this Therese did from early childhood. These rigorous but little sacrifices were the essence of her Little Way; and she dared to hope that her complete spiritual poverty would call forth Jesus' Mercy and that on her death, she would be clothed with the righteousness of her beloved Jesus who would not be able to bear seeing her poverty before the Father.
Therese longed for martyrdom but realized she was incapable of any glorious act of courage for her beloved Jesus, so she offered herself to him as a victim of love. Her God called for the greatest of sacrifices. He gave her two which ran concurrently at the end of her short life. During Holy Week of 1896, Therese experienced two hemoptyses which finally led to her grave and agonizing last illness. At the same time, on Easter day, she had a sudden entrance into the Night of Faith.
Therese doesn't write much about this: "Dear Mother, the image I wanted to give you of the darkness that obscures my soul is as imperfect as a sketch is to the model; however, I don't want to write any longer about it; I fear I might blaspheme; I fear even I have already said too much."
It seems that Therese, who had always longed for Heaven to be with her beloved Jesus, lost this hope along with her faith so that every act of hers became an act of will, the will to love.
Finally, only months before her death she could say: "Do not be troubled, little sister, if I suffer very much and if you see in me, as I have already said to you, no sign of joy at the moment of death. Our Lord really died as a Victim of Love, and see what His agony was." Later she wrote: "Our Lord died on the Cross in anguish, and yet His was the most beautiful death of love. To die of love does not mean to die in transports. I tell you frankly, it appears to me that this is what I am experiencing."
She died on September 30, 1897. By 1923, she was beatified by Pope Pius XI who made her the "star of his pontificate." Then in 1925, this young little nun who had declared she would spend her heaven doing good on earth, was canonized and called a "word of God" to reveal "spiritual childhood to us as a sure means of salvation."
Padre Pio was born Francesco Forgione in Pietrelcina, Italy. As a child, he was different from other children and displayed a recollection of the spirit and a love for the things of God that set him apart. He enjoyed the clouds and the stars and other things of nature, seeing in them the greatness of God in a true Franciscan spirit. Through these early meditations of his, he developed a strong concept of good and evil, of the pure and the impure. At first everyone thought he was rather unintelligent because he did not do well in his studies. His parents hired a private tutor for him but Francesco did badly. It was only after he switched tutors that he was found to have a lively intelligence.
By Fall of 1902, he was ready to enter the monastery of Morcone as a novice. The young Francesco was suddenly terrified. He loved the things of this world. Not the wild, lurid pleasures one would imagine, but the ordinary and normal pleasures of living and he was scared at the thought of giving them up for the austerity of the friary.
Today, we have lost the very strict and strong sense of the penitential that pervaded the monasteries before Vatican II and find it difficult to comprehend such a strict and ordered life as the young Francesco was subjected to. Even when walking in the countryside with his classmates, he never saw the countryside because they were all obliged to keep their eyes on the ground. But his obedience to his superiors, which was being formed, became one of the great strengths of his life.
His goal in life, to perfect his nature and live more and more in harmony with his ideals, angered the evil one who began to temp him with great temerity and to attack him on other fronts as well.
Even before he entered the novitiate, he was accused of sleeping with the daughter of the local station master. The parish priests were impressed by the accusation and suspended him from his parish duties. Francesco, even then imitating his Savior Who did not reply to His accusers, did not even ask the reason for his suspension from duties. His pastor after a thorough investigation, revealed the lies and identified the liars, commending Francesco for his docility and patience and declaring the way was now open for him to enter the Capuchin novitiate in Morcone.
This was the first of the many accusations of sexual scandal that plagued his life and brought about the severe restrictions that beset him as priest and confessor. In a climate of acrimony, he became the victim of these accusations and many others, such as claiming the stigmata were self-induced. These accusations were accepted by the Church and he was restricted by Rome from saying Mass in public and even forbidden to hear confession. Eventually, little by little the restrictions were lifted and he was allowed to hear the confessions of men and then finally all the priestly faculties were returned to him.
On New Year's Day, 1903, Francesco was given an intellectual vision (one which is seen with the eyes of the soul rather than with the physical senses). In it, he was shown two groups of men. One group was beautiful and dressed in snow-white garments, the other was hideous and they were dressed in black "like so many dark shadows."
Francesco's soul was urged by "a majestic man of rare beauty, resplendent as the sun" to fight the protagonist of the hideous group. His soul was terrified and tries to escape but his guide who was beside his soul urged him forward, promising his would be with him and promising him a crown to adorn his brow after his victory. He fought victoriously and was presented with the crown but the crown was withdrawn and his guide promised him an even more beautiful one if he would continue fighting the hideous being for the rest of his life. His guide promised his support saying he would always be close at hand and that Francesco would always win.
And so Francesco received his mandate from Heaven. Six days later, he left Pietrelcina for Morcone and the Friary without shedding a tear because Jesus and His Blessed Mother appeared to him in all their glory to encourage and strengthen him.
An hour after leaving Pietrelcina, he arrived at Morcone and entered into a life of suffering and service.
So much is known of the miracles of Padre Pio that it is easy to view him as leading a charmed life. But this would be far from the truth.
He was subject to bouts of terrifyingly undiagnosable illness which almost cost him his vocation as a Capuchin Friar. He was also prey to grave doubts about the state of his own soul and it was only the words of his spiritual director, which he was ordered to hold as true under his vow of obedience, that gave him stability and peace in his own spiritual pilgrimage. He spent many years in dryness, able only to know about what the Lord wanted for other people but not for himself,
He reached out to everyone especially the sick and raised money for a hospital to be built in San Giovanni Rotondo where he spent most of his life at the Capuchin Friary. It was also in San Giovanni Rotondo that he received the stigmata of Christ, the first priest to be given them. Padre Pio lost about a cupful of blood each day from the wound in his side and his halting gait evidenced the pain he experienced from the other wounds. Once, when asked if the stigmata were painful, he laughed and said, "Do you think that the Lord gave them to me for a decoration?"
Padre Pio had a number of spiritual children, mostly women including Mary Adelia Pyle, a wealthy America who moved to San Giovanni Rotondo and handled his correspondence, played the organ in the church and opened her home to pilgrims as well as Padre Pio's parents who both died in her house. He imposed upon these spiritual children of his five rules for spiritual growth: weekly confession, daily Communion, spiritual reading, meditation and examination of conscience. And he always urged everyone to study Scripture. And enjoined them to follow the same ten points by which he tried to live. They were:
He used the following analogy to explain the need for patience and acceptance in suffering: There's a woman who is embroidering. Her son, seated on a low stool, sees her work, but in reverse. He sees the knots of the embroidery, the tangled threads... He says, 'Mother what are you doing? I can't make out what you are doing!' Then the mother lowers the embroidery hoop and shows the good part of the work. Each color is in place and the various threads form a harmonious design. So, we see the reverse side of the embroidery because we are seated on the low stool.
The cause for his beatification and canonization is closed and now his friends await the decision of the Holy See.
When She gave it to St. Simon, the Blessed Mother said, "This shall be to you and all Carmelites a privilege, that anyone who dies clothed in this shall not suffer eternal fire; and if wearing it they die, they shall be saved."
This is interpreted as meaning that anyone who dies in Mary's family (Carmelites Order or Scapular Confraternity) will be given the grace of perseverance in the state of grace, or the grace of final contrition by Our Lady.
Tradition has it that the devils told Francis of Yepes, brother of St. John of the Cross, that the Scapular ... snatches many souls from us. They ranked the efficaciousness of the brown scapular with the Name of Jesus and the Name of Mary. "All those clothed in it die piously and escape us."
Baptized Catholics are the only people who can officially be enrolled in the Confraternity of the Scapular. Non-Catholics will receive many graces and blessings when they accord this honor to the Blessed Mother.
On October 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared at Fatima as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, holding out the Brown Scapular in Her hands. Sr. Lucia has said that "She wants everyone to wear the Scapular...because it is a sign of consecration to Her Immaculate Heart."
In 1950, Pope Pius XII echoed this, saying: "Let it (the Scapular) be your sign of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which we are particularly urging in these perilous times."
Note: A sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church to excite good thoughts and to increase devotion, and through these movements of the heart to remit venial sin. The Miraculous Medal, Brown Scapular and Rosary are sacramentals. And so is Holy Water.
A Sacramental is not to be confused with a Sacrament which is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. There are seven sacraments in the Catholic Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Annointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. They have the power of always giving grace from the merits of Jesus Christ if received with the right disposition.