Saint Padre Pio "Comes" to the Confraternity of Penitents Headquarters

Saint Padre Pio

How blessed we were on Saturday, November 9, 3013, to have one of Padre Pio's gloves brought to our headquarters at 1702 Lumbard Street, Fort Wayne IN. The glove was brought by two members of a Padre Pio/Saint Monica Prayer Group in New Hampshire and had made the rounds of some Catholic churches and friaries in the Fort Wayne/South Bend Diocese. A small window of time opened up on Saturday night and the Confraternity was asked if we would like to have the glove come here. What is the only answer for that question? YES!

On Friday night, November 8, the glove was at a Mass and Blessing Service at St. Andrew's Church in Fort Wayne. The CFP Holy Angels Gift Shop had a few tables of items, some featuring St. Pio. Over 800 people were crammed into St. Andrews, filling the choir loft, confessional, sitting on chairs in the back and down the aisles and even sitting and standing on steps into the church. The Mass was 7 p.m. The blessing of each person individually concluded at quarter to midnight. So to be able to venerate the glove in a much smaller group was a true grace.

We began with a pot luck dinner at 6 pm, then Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours and veneration of the glove. The glove, made of grayish brown wool, is one of many worn by the saint. It has been laundered and is encased in plexiglass for viewing on both sides and also for preservation. If one holds the glove up to the light, faint drops of darker material, presumably stains from the blood from Padre Pio's Stigmata, may be seen. Padre Pio was the first priest to receive the stigmata (St. Francis, the first to receive the stigmata, was a deacon, not a priest). Padre Pio bore the stigmata for 50 years and when, asked if it hurt, he said, "Do you think the Lord gave me this for decoration?" Saint Pio was known to have seen his guardian angel always, to have bilocated to various locations, to have been able to read hearts as he heard confessions, and to have powerful intercession for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. His intercession is powerful and his humility sincere.

Here are some photos from the visit of Padre Pio's Glove to the CFP headquarters.

Glove of Padre Pio in plexiglass 

Glove of Padre Pio on prayer altar. The wooden box once held the Blessed Sacrament at our first retreat in 1999. 

Pot luck meal nearly finished. Preparing to pray Evening Prayer. The couple who brought the glove from New Hampshire are pictured to the left.