This afternoon, at the 5 p.m. vigil mass, retired Bishop Thomas Daily will celebrate mass at our parish, and rededicate what was once the baptism chapel. It will become a chapel in honor of St. Pio, “Padre Pio.” My homily for this occasion is below.

The scriptures we just heard have a simple, recurring theme: it’s all about the search for God. There’s Samuel, listening for His voice, and then answering it. There’s Peter and Andrew, seeking Him on the seashore. “Where are you staying?,” they ask Jesus, and he tells them, in a haunting reply, “Come and you will see.” That is God’s invitation to all of us.

It’s an invitation St. Pio accepted, and then lived, with astounding holiness, grace — and even, at times, with wit.

One of my favorite stories about him happened during the early 1960s

Italy was in crisis. The Red Brigade was sparking violence in Rome, and it was considered dangerous to travel around the country. For protection, people began carrying pictures of Padre Pio.

During this time, Padre Pio had to leave his village to visit Rome, and one of the other friars asked him, “Aren’t you worried about the Red Brigade?”

“No,” he said. “I have a picture of Padre Pio.”

For a fuller picture of the man now known as St. Pio, I did a little Googling.

He was born Francesco Forgione in the small town of Pietrelcina, Italy in 1887. His parents were peasant farmers who tended sheep. Early on, Francesco knew that he wanted to give his life to God, and be a priest. He joined the Capuchins when he was only 15 and took the name of Pio, after Pope Pius V, the patron saint of Pietrelcina.

Like many friars, he was ordered to serve in the army during World War I. Near the war’s end, he returned to his monastery in Pietrelcina. And in the fall of 1918, shortly after celebrating mass, while praying in the church, he had a vision of a man standing before him dripping blood from his hands, feet and side. To his horror, Padre Pio discovered blood flowing from the same parts of his own body. It wasn’t long before news spread around the world that this anonymous friar from Italy had the stigmata — the wounds of Christ. His life would never be the same.

He was often controversial – for a time, Rome suspended his faculties as a priest, and investigated allegations that he’d misused funds, seduced women and faked his wounds. None of it, of course, was true.

But through it all, Padre Pio persevered. Quietly. Humbly. Prayerfully. After a lifetime of poor health and great pain, he died in 1968. He was proclaimed a saint in 2002. Stories of his miracles and wonders abound. His mysticism. His gift for prophecy. But his greatest work on this earth was profoundly humble.

It came not only from how he lived, but how he listened.

Because his most familiar home… was the confessional.

Padre Pio spent hours hearing confessions each day. People would line up in the early morning and wait all day to tell him their sins, hear his penance, and whisper their acts of contrition. One of them was a priest from Poland, Karol Wojtyla, who heard Padre Pio tell him during confession that he would one day hold the highest office in the church. Fr. Wojtyla thought that meant he’d become a cardinal. He had no idea what Padre Pio really meant.

And it began in confession – a sacrament that a lot of us, frankly, avoid.

Several years back, after I’d spent years as a lazy, indifferent Catholic, something compelled me to go back to confession, to return fully to my faith. I went to St. Francis of Assisi, down on 32nd St. When I slipped into the confessional, I encountered a small, elderly Franciscan wearing his traditional brown robes, and a pair of Nike sneakers.

I knelt before him and said, “Bless me, Father for I have sinned. It’s been 10 years since my last confession.”

Before I could say anything else, he smiled and said two beautiful words.

“Welcome back.”

Welcome back. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That is what confession says to us. And that was the heart of Padre Pio’s ministry to the thousands upon thousands who came to him. They wanted, like so many of us, to be reconciled with God. To reconnect. Padre Pio’s presence in that confessional day after day, year after year, said: “Welcome back. We want you here. God wants you here.”

After mass, this statue will be placed in the space that for decades served as
our baptism chapel. It’s where generations of parishioners were welcomed into the church. It was the site of many beginnings.

Now, perhaps it can be a place of new beginnings.

A place where new generations will come to pray, to find peace, and to begin to find their way to God….a way that St. Pio helped so many to follow.

Maybe there are people here tonight looking for that way. Maybe you’re feeling lost. Alienated. Disconnected from your faith. Maybe it’s been ten years, or 20 or 30 since you were last in confession. Or maybe you just need a place apart, a place to pray and to listen, like Samuel, for God’s voice.

This chapel can be that place — a place of renewal. Just as it was for all those who came into the church in that chapel through the waters of baptism. Located at the entryway to the church, with St. Pio as its patron, this chapel can continue to serve as a place for entering, and returning.

A place of welcome, and welcoming back.

My prayer is that this chapel, with the saint from Pietrelcina standing watch, will help that message come alive, and that it will help draw more people through the doors of this church – people who are seeking God, just as the apostles did.

They asked Jesus, “Where are you staying?”

Where will we find God? Where we will we find our salvation?

Come, Jesus told them.

Come, Padre Pio tells us.

“Come and you will see.”