Padre Pio, Man of Sorrows, Pray for Us

On this day sixteen years ago, twelve days after the planes flew into the World Trade Towers, I found out I was expecting our first baby. I recall the extremes of emotion from excitement, wonderment, surprise (my doctor had told me I would have difficulty becoming pregnant), trepidation, and concern. I'd just started a new job as a Catholic school teacher, my husband was doing temp work while looking for employment, we had zero savings after buying our first home, and our country seemed hungry for war.

My parents were in town for a work trip and we had plans to meet them at their hotel downtown that Sunday morning. We intended to keep our news to ourselves for awhile, but my face gave me away. Dad kept asking what was going on and Mom got teary. After an approving glance from Jason I asked how they'd feel about becoming grandparents in the spring. Dad slapped his knees with joy. Mom cried. We went to Mass at the Old Cathedral and walked about the Arch grounds as the news settled and a peace came into my heart.

On this day four years ago, I was folding laundry in my living room half watching mindless mid-morning news shows when our DVR auto switched the channel to EWTN. I let it be. It began recording (on its own) a biography about Saint Padre Pio, whose feast day it was. I'd not heard of this saint before, and he's pretty far out, stigmata, bilocation, levitation, and physically battling the devil at night. He was also big on redemptive suffering, the idea that our trials on earth are never without benefit either for our own souls, or for those of others.

At the time, the prayer most on my heart was for my friend's son, Jack. Jack was a fourteen year old who'd been battling muscle disease his whole life now succumbing to heart failure. It was an impossibly painful and helpless time. I decided to ask for the intercession of Padre Pio on Jack's behalf. Jack had never been able to communicate other than with his eyes or the squeeze of a hand. He knew all about redemptive suffering. Four months later, despite our hopes for a miracle, Jack passed away. I flew to Phoenix for the funeral and was taken aback by the officiant. He was a Franciscan friar (Padre Pio's given name was Francisco, and he began his priesthood as a Franciscan) and looked just like him. The resemblance was comforting. Father de Blas passed away about a year later.

Padre Pio

Fr Alonso de Blas

I began reading all I could about this Padre Pio character, that I had felt had a hand in Jack's transition into heaven. He was beatified on May 2, 1999. Ben was born exactly three years later. He was canonized June 16, 2002, three days before we brought an extremely sick newborn Ben home from the hospital. Like Ben, he was very sick as a child and suffered much, especially with his lungs. He had to be home schooled due to his health. He was born in a small Italian town, Pietrelcina. He built a hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo just north of his home town called, "Home for Relief of the Suffering".

Pio is the patron saint of adolescents and I believe he picked young Ben out to watch over, to be one of his spiritual children. When Ben was 13 years old, he developed a cholesteatoma, a benign tumor, in his right ear. It is benign, in that it is not cancerous, but devastating in that it erodes the tissue it touches. He had it removed that December, but it had destroyed the hearing in that ear so a prosthetic inner ear was built for him. It is unusual for the cholestatoma to reoccur, but in Ben it did. So it was again removed eight months later, along with the prosthetic. When the cholestatoma returned for the third time it was with the frightening news that the tumor had gone outside the mastoid space of the ear and was likely entering the brain. The surgeon set the date for the third removal of cholesteatoma, September 23, 2015. When we realized the surgery happened to be set on the feast day of Padre Pio we decided to pray a novena leading up to the date asking for Pio's intercession to protect Ben's brain.


On this day two years ago, Ben's surgery went beautifully. His surgeon was amazed that though there was definitely evidence of further erosion from the tumor, he could find no tumor and that he had to shore up the lining between the mastoid space and the brain, but that his brain was unharmed. The CT images had indicated otherwise. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ben chose Padre Pio as his confirmation saint the following May.

The day after the surgery my husband went on a retreat through our parish. During adoration he brought the suffering of his son to Jesus. As he'd done so many times, he again offered himself in place of Ben. Soon after he felt intense pressure in the palms of his hands and the word, "pellegrino", filled his head and also the command, "Be my healer." The pressure briefly became pain and then faded. He didn't know what to think of it but when he shared this with me later, I talked with him about stigmata and that pellegrino is "pilgrim" in Italian. The name Jason means healer and he works in healthcare. We sat with the event, unsure of what it meant, but compelled to seek further.

On this day one year ago, Ben had a follow up CT, again scheduled arbitrarily, to check for reoccurrence. Again, we asked for Padre Pio's intercession for the nine days prior. Ben's scan was clear.  It is interesting to note that Padre Pio had surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his own ear.

I have tried to keep it hidden, but my own suffering has intensified lately. I cannot do the things I could do even two years ago. My muscle weakness is much worse and is affecting daily life. I struggle to clean the house, do simple chores, climb the stairs, and carry groceries. I'm concerned my weak eye muscles will prevent me from writing. I try to take a walk every day so that I can continue to walk that distance, but my body is heavy. I have a sense that my physical capabilities will continue to decline.

On this feast of Padre Pio, I marvel at God's works, at His hand in our life. I wonder what is next, but I do not fear. Padre Pio is known to say, "Pray, Hope, and Don't Worry!" a mantra I take to heart. Soon, we will go visit Padre Pio. We will be literal pilgrims and visit his birthplace, his tomb, his chapel. We will present our pain to his Home for the Relief of Suffering. Maybe God will take it from us, or maybe we'll choose to continue to offer up our suffering as redemptive. We are compelled by faith and by a certain saint who is said to be standing just this side of the gates of heaven waiting for all his spiritual children to enter before he can finally rest.

Once Upon a Time...

I dug this post out of the archives from seven years ago. It gives a little background on the title of this blog and highlights why Roma calls to us still. 

I was tuning my viola in the college music department atrium when I first recall laying eyes on a young man with curly brown hair and jade eyes. He rolled in the front door on roller blades, then clomped up the narrow marble staircase to class still wearing the blades, singing all the way.

In February 1996 I attended a master class in which this same man participated. He sang "Quanto e bella"* from the Opera, Elixir of Love. The visiting master critiqued that he had an excellent voice and technique, but lacked passion. The instructor then pointed randomly to me in the audience and said. "There is your love. You, in the white sweater. Sing it to her." He instructed me to act aloof and to pretend to read a book. The dutiful student began again with ardor.

Our paths crossed periodically on campus. I have a newspaper clipped photo of the large ensemble in which we both performed, he with the tenors, me in the strings. We weren't aware until years later.

I nannied throughout college and often had a young child along that I'd drop off with another care-giver on campus. One day I was helping a teacher move some things and Jade Eyes offered assistance. We finally exchanged names. Later I learned Jason found me attractive, "with eyes like a cat," but assumed I was the mother of the blond child and already taken.

In May 1996 I attended his senior recital and met his parents. Shortly after we were both hired by our mutual voice instructor to work for an educational opera company that performed each summer in Rome, Italy. That summer I worked for the company in the US while Jason worked his third season in Rome and we'd communicate the necessary details via international phone and fax keeping the calls as short as possible to save dimes. At summer's end we traveled together to Virginia to move the program's base of operations. After clearing up my single status, this is where our friendship actualized. Somewhere between religious discussions, duets, shared meals, and 45 minutes in Washington D.C. where we raced to the Washington Monument and back before our train departed, our friendship had been cemented. It probably didn't hurt that he was kind of a rock star, having just produced his first album with his brother.

Jason graduated that December and moved back home to Iowa to teach and give music ministry a shot. The next summer we were both recruited to work for the opera, but this time I got to be on location too. Jason greeted me when I arrived and happily showed me the ropes and the charms of the city. He treated me to a slice of street pizza. Once he serenaded me with, "Quanto e Bella" in the middle of Piazza Navona. I was sure he remembered, unless that's just what he sang to all the girls...

It soon became apparent that we felt something deeper. One evening while taking in the beauty of the Spanish Steps he asked if he might kiss me. I don't think he knew it was my first.



The program ended and our planes went their separate ways. Romance in Rome was aces, but we had no grander illusions. It was not long however, until the phone bills and mileage began to add up and by January of 1998 we'd committed ourselves to long-distance dating. I graduated in the spring and began teaching in St. Louis shaving two hours off the drive. The following summer, I finished off the final five by moving to Iowa. That opera season of 1999 Jason and I again found ourselves on the Spanish Steps. Well, "found ourselves" drastically undercuts the massive planning behind Jason's scheme to arrange the perfect night. But in the end, he asked if I might be his sposa.

August 3, 1999

We were married on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima in 2000. We had dreamed a little of a wedding in Rome, but in the end, having the people we loved witness our vows took priority over setting. As a compromise, we took our wedding clothes with us to Rome the following month which was to be our last summer working for the opera. As a gift, the opera program's photographer spent an evening snapping our bridal pictures all over town.

June 2000

A year later, we bought our first home and moved back to Missouri. We grew up fast when Ben arrived and fell into the rhythm of life, love, and labor. We realized recently that we haven't been away together since our honeymoon nearly ten years ago. Ten years seems long enough. So to celebrate our first decade of marriage we will again visit the Spanish Steps.


At least that's the plan.

*Rough Translation: How beautiful she is, how dear she is the more I see her, the more I like her but in that heart I'm not capable. Little dearness to inspire. That one reads, studies, learns. I don't see that she ignores anything. I'm always an idiot. I don't know but to sigh. Who will clear my mind? Who will teach me to make myself beloved?

Update: 9/21/17

The plan was fulfilled, though I recall leaving a sick Ben behind with a true friend! We had a wonderful Roman anniversary, ahem nine months before Gigi's birth.

Seven years later, in the year of Fatima, we are planning to return again, this time, in part to share with our children where our story began. Maria will finally get to mangiare i nostri bambini (eat our babies). I suppose it would be easier and more accurate to show them the former music department 100 miles from home. Ma no, roma sta chiamando. But no, Rome is still calling.