The delightful friendship of Padre Pio and St. Therese

Happy Feast of St. Padre Pio! Are you ready for a good and true story?

Once when Padre Pio was a young priest, a Frenchwoman brought him a picture of Sister Therese of Lisieux. He was filled with joy and exclaimed, "She is a saint! A very great saint!"

When, however, the woman asked him to bless the picture, Padre Pio refused, saying, "I cannot bless the image of this nun, for she has not yet been beatified, but one day she will ascend all the altars because she is Saint, a very great Saint!"

A few years later Padre Pio was seen at the beatification of St. Therese, even though he never left his friary at San Giovanni Rotondo. How sweet a devotion he had to her, using his gift of bilocation to witness this big step in her glorification. What a wonderful holy affection our Padre had for this "very great saint!" I like to think that in the picture above he's reading Story of a Soul, the book that took the whole world by storm.

Pio's appearance at Therese's beatification was the only instance I knew of his bilocating for his own edification, until I recently read about his trips to the tomb of St. Pius X in the crypt of St. Peter's. Witnesses saw him there on five different occasions. Later, Padre Pio said, "I never met Leo XIII nor Pius X, but certainly this last one is the most sympathetic of all the popes I know from St. Peter down; for he is so simple and humble that he, more than anyone else, resembles Christ through his simplicity and humbleness."

Considering St. Padre Pio's gift for reading souls, it's fair to guess that his estimation of the popes "from St. Peter down" has more than a mere human calculation to it. And how wonderful that he seizes upon the very virtues that Christ has held up for our imitation in Himself, which are also (no accident!) Therese's most prized "possessions." Or to speak more accurately, her own favorite gifts from God.

I've been rejoicing lately, as Jesus did, in the Father's unexpected but eternal decrees. We didn't get to celebrate St. Matthew's feast on Sunday (because the solemnity of our "little Easter" takes precedence), but here is a passage we can thank him for, even at the same time as we join Our Beloved in thanking the One from Whom all good and perfect gifts come:

At that time, Jesus declared, "I thank Thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for such was Thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to Me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."

Our little sister St. Therese and our big brother Padre Pio both took Jesus at His word. She insisted on a little way to God that would be "very direct, very short, and entirely new," and found that way smack dab in the middle of Jesus' embrace. Let Him do the heavy lifting, she counsels!

As for Padre Pio, I love asking him to give us his love of the Rosary, for while this was one prayer our dear Therese found (to her surprise, for she loved the Blessed Virgin so much) nearly impossible to say alone, one more charism of Pio's was his indefatigable devotion to saying his beads. When asked, "How can you say so many rosaries each day?" he answered, "How can you not?" I love that the saints find easy what we (and even other saints!) may find far beyond our ken. And yet, how natural, or rather how supernatural, for it is His yoke, not ours, that is easy. O Jesus, let's trade!!!

It is literally wonderful to ponder the resemblances between these two very great saints so seemingly different. Last year at this time, I found the time and place to wax eloquent (and I resemble Therese in that I'm surprised, for I didn't remember these public appearances) at both Catholic Exchange and on Ave Maria in the Afternoon, and you can read or listen, depending on your preference and whether you click on THIS (to read the article at CE) or THIS (to listen to my 10 minutes with Dr. Marcus Peters).

Finally, though, and this time completely unsurprisingly because she is the Doctor of the Church among us, Therese expresses her and Pio's similarities and common sanctity most pithily and best when she says, explaining our Blessed Mother's words in the Magnificat:

"I prefer, therefore, to own in all simplicity that, 'He that is mighty hath done great things to me,' and the greatest of all is that He has shown me my littleness and how of myself I am incapable of anything good." (Story of a Soul, Manuscript C)

Ah, mystery of sanctity and love! How can we be so relieved to find ourselves entirely poor?

Again St. Matthew comes to our assistance with his inerrant account of Jesus' answer:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!

In our poverty, let's not forget to ask for EVERYTHING we need (and for everything needed by those we love, those who've asked for our prayers, and those for whom we've promised to pray - and then those who need our prayers too) with a simple prayer to conclude the second part of our triple novena:

St. Padre Pio and St. Thérèse, come down from Heaven and show us the love that the Blessed Trinity has for us, inspire in us a love for the rosary, and obtain for us the grace to be living tabernacles for Jesus. Amen.

I slipped in that last bit about being living tabernacles because it was another miraculous grace Pio and Therese shared, and one which they highly recommend to us! I'm so convinced of their determination to share this gift that I even wrote a book about it: Something New with St. Therese: Her Eucharistic Miracle.

One of my favorite passages from St. Therese, and one which I never tire of quoting, is her letter to her sister and godmother Marie of the Sacred Heart (the famous Letter 197 from September 17, 1896) in which she joyfully insists that "It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love." What a perfect note on which to begin the final jaunt of our triple novena to her feast. If you worry that you don't have enough confidence, relax, because our sister in Heaven is ready to share hers! Let's listen to her reassurance:

"Ah! I feel that what pleases the Good Lord in my little soul is to see me love my littleness and my poverty, it is the blind hope that I have in His mercy... This is my only treasure, darling, why shouldn't this treasure be yours?...
                O my darling Sister, please understand your little girl, understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more fit one is for the operations of this consuming and transforming love... The mere desire to be a victim is enough, but you have to agree to remain poor and without strength and that is the difficult thing because “The truly poor in spirit, where to find him? You have to look for it far away” said the psalmist... He does not say that you have to look for it among great souls, but “far away,” that is to say, in nothingness ... Oh! so let's stay far away from everything that shines, love our littleness, love to feel nothing, then we will be poor in spirit and Jesus will come to get us, however far away we are, He will transform us into flames of love... Oh ! how I wish I could make you understand what I feel!... It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love... Since we see the way, let's run together. Yes, I feel it, Jesus wants to give us the same graces, he wants to give us His Heaven for free."

And to this, I hear Padre Pio concluding with his Italian accent, "Amen!"

But wait, dear Pio! We don't want to forget to say our novena!

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus
Please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden
and send it to me as a message of love.

O Little Flower of Jesus,
please ask God to grant us the favors
We now place with confidence in your hands . . . 

St. Therese, help us to always believe as you did,
in God’s great love for us,
so that we may imitate your “Little Way” each day.
Amen.

Our triple novena ends on October 1st, our sister's feast AND the day her relics arrive in the USA! I hope you can find your way to her since she's traveling so far to get to us. You can check the schedule here:

https://stthereseusa2025.com/

And just in case you, like Padre Pio, can't get enough of prayer, here's a final one specifically for the joys and graces of the relic visit to come to fruition:

Heavenly Father, we thank You for bringing the relics of St. Thérèse here to us very soon. Continue to bless our preparations, and give us Your guidance, Your strength and Your peace. May our prayers and sacrifices help build up the Church: Give us conversions, healings and vocations. Fill our churches and our hearts with Your presence and Your joy. “May we love You and make You greatly loved.”  

Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Lady of the Smile, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, pray for us.
St. Thérèse, pray for us.

​Draw me, we will run!

And now, since it's our dear Padre's feast day, how about one last laugh?