Today's saints, 23 September: Padre Pio and Pacifico from San Severino

Today the Church commemorates two saints: Padre Pio and Pacifico from San Severino.

FATHER PIO

Born in Pietrelcina, in the province of Benevento, on 25 May 1887 with the name of Francesco Forgione, Padre Pio entered the Capuchin Order at the age of 16.

He carries the stigmata, that is the wounds of the Passion of Jesus, from 20 September 1918 and for all the time he has left to live. When he died on September 23, 1968, the sores, which had bled for 50 years and three days, mysteriously disappear from his hands, feet and side.

Many supernatural gifts of Padre Pio including the ability to emit perfume, perceived even from a distance; bilocation, that is, being seen simultaneously in different places; hyperthermia: doctors have ascertained that his body temperature rose to reach 48 and a half degrees; the ability to read the heart, and then the visions and struggles with the devil.

PACIFIC FROM SAN SEVERINO

At thirty-five his legs, sick and sore, had grown tired of carrying him constantly hither and thither; and is forced to immobility in the convent of Torano. It was his passion, in union with that of Christ, for exactly 33 years, passing from active to contemplative ministry, but on the cross. Always pray, fast for the seven Lent in which St. Francis had divided the liturgical year; he wore a sackcloth, as if physical suffering were not enough for him. Fra 'Pacifico dies in 1721. A hundred years later he is proclaimed SAINT.