Fra Pio exceedingly was reluctant to discuss his “heavenly secrets” with anybody, but through “Holy Obedience” he was bound to do so with his superiors, who decided that it was advisable to assign him a spiritual director. Under this arrangement, the disciple would make a commitment of obedience to his spiritual director. Unless the director counseled an obviously sinful act, the disciple would be bound to obey him exactly, as the “internal and external judge” of his soul. If the director should lead the disciple into sin, he and not the “spiritual child” would have to answer before God.
A spiritual director is supposed to be both learned and holy, and Fra Pio’s superiors settled on a man who was considered to be one of the holiest and most learned in the province. Padre Benedetto Nardella of San Marco in Lamis, then in his mid-thirties, was a professor of philosophy and physics. Fra Pio had studied under him from 1905 to 1906, and Benedetto had been very much impressed by the young man’s spiritual precocity. It was said that he himself was a mystic, at times the recipient of visions and locutions.
Benedetto was born in 1872 in the town of San Marco in Lamis, five miles west of San Giovanni Rotondo, where Pio would live most of his adult life. He entered the Capuchin order at eighteen and was ordained at twenty-six. By his thirties, he was a respected theologian and considered an authority on mysticism. He published nine books, most of which dealt with mysticism and the inner life. A celebrated preacher, Padre Benedetto was greatly in demand in southern Italy. When Padre Pio of Benevento died in 1908, Benedetto was elected to replace him as minister provincial.
Photographs of Padre Benedetto show an impressive-looking man of stout build with light eyes, and a full head of hair, whose strong, regular features were almost obscured by a gigantic beard. From his letters to Fra Pio, Padre Benedetto appears to have been somewhat distant and not a little authoritative. At times, he seemed almost tyrannical and was characterized by Fra Pio as stubborn. Even so, Fra Pio always held the man he addressed in his letters as “Daddy” in utmost reverence and respect. As his spiritual director, Padre Benedetto insisted that Fra Pio describe to him in detail all his mystical experiences; they were to be submitted “to the judgment of the one who directs you.” Padre Benedetto warned that revelations that seemed certain and thoroughly reliable could come from nature, the devil, or “the very propensity or fondness we have for believing what we consider to be revealed.” When the younger man was uncertain as to whether or not he was pleasing God, Padre Benedetto urged him to trust in his director’s judgment as totally as a blind man trusts the person or dog who leads him. Padre Pio was later to write that in his various spiritual trials he could find calm only in the counsels of Padre Benedetto of San Marco in Lamis.
Padre Agostino
As a student, Fra Pio formed a deep and lasting relationship with another teacher, Padre Agostino of San Marco in Lamis, under whom he studied sacred theology at Serracapriola in 1907. Padre Agostino came from the same town as Benedetto. Born Michele Daniele in 1880, he entered the Capuchin order after graduation from a public high school. In March 1903, two months after Fra Pio entered the novitiate, he was ordained a priest. Renowned as a preacher, Padre Agostino studied French and Greek in university and earned a degree in philosophy.
Padre Agostino was a large, heavy man, whom some called, behind his back, “Big Daddy.” His enormous forked beard was then brown, and he had rosy cheeks and a booming bass voice. He seems to have been more warm and approachable than Padre Benedetto. In fact, since Padre Agostino was only slightly older than Fra Pio, the “Dear Professor” became his lifelong confidant and probably his best friend. When they lived at the same convent, Padre Agostino was Fra Pio’s confessor. Fra Pio often poured out his heart on paper to Padre Agostino, instructing him to forward the letter to Padre Benedetto, who would, upon receiving it, offer his advice. In this sense, Padre Benedetto and Padre Agostino formed a team in their direction of Pio.
Padre Agostino was not a mystic, however, and there were certain things he could not understand as clearly as Padre Benedetto did. In 1946, Padre Pio told one of his confreres, who asked about the advisability of having a spiritual director, “It is usually sufficient to have a confessor. If the confessor is incapable of understanding spiritual matters, you should simply trust in the goodness of God.”
“Don’t you have a spiritual director?” the man asked Pio.
“I had one,” Pio answered, “and he was Padre Benedetto. But since they took him from me, I have been without one.”
When asked, “Don’t you have Padre Agostino for your confessor?” Pio answered, “Yes, but he doesn’t understand me and I have to carry on putting my trust in God.”7
Nonetheless, the mutual affection between Padre Pio and Padre Agostino was very deep. Their letters abound with expressions of affection. Pio sometimes called Padre Agostino, “The most beloved person in the world.” Agostino, in 1912 wrote, “My dear son, I love you very much, as God wishes me to, and I desire nothing other than to embrace you here below again and then to be together with you forever in heaven with our most merciful Lord.”8
During his Capuchin student years, knowledge of the supernatural events in Fra Pio’s life was limited to Padre Benedetto. Even Padre Agostino knew nothing about these things until 1911. Although impressed by the young man’s goodness, obedience, and diligence, Padre Agostino was, at that time, “unaware of anything extraordinary or supernatural.” Even so, some remarkable events were taking place.
“The Madonna Carried Me Away … to Your Mansion”
One of the most remarkable — and best documented — of these events took place two years after Fra Pio’s entry into religious life. He was then studying at Sant’Elia a Pianisi. He described his experience in writing within three weeks of its occurrence and consigned it to his superiors. The archives of the friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie at San Giovanni Rotondo have preserved Fra Pio’s deposition, dated February 1905:
Several days ago, I had an extraordinary experience. Around 11:00 p.m. on January 18, 1905, Fra Anastasio and I were in the choir when suddenly I found myself far away in a wealthy home where the father was dying while a child was being born. Then the Most Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to me and said to me: “I am entrusting this child to you. Now she is a diamond in the rough, but I want you to work with her, polish her, and make her as shining as possible, because one day I wish to adorn myself with her.”
I answered, “How is this possible, since I am still a mere seminarian and do not yet know whether I will one day have the fortune and joy of being a priest? And even if I become a priest, how can I take care of this child, since I am so far away?”
The Madonna said, “Do not doubt. She will come to you, but first you will meet her at St. Peter’s in Rome.” After that I found myself again in the choir.9
That very night, January 18, 1905, some three hundred fifty miles to the north, in the city of Udine, a wealthy man in his early forties named Giovanni Battista Rizzani was dying. He had been taken ill shortly after his wife, Leonilde, had become pregnant with their sixth child. Rizzani was a fervent Mason and would have nothing to do with the Church or religion. As his illness progressed, he grew even more hardened and strictly forbade his wife to summon a priest. When it was apparent that the end was near, his Masonic friends surrounded the house day and night to frustrate the efforts of any priest to see the dying man.
Leonilde, a devout Christian, prayed fervently to God that her husband might put his trust in the Lord before he died. About the same time that Fra Pio had his experience in the choir at Sant’Elia a Pianisi, Leonilde was kneeling in prayer by the bedside of her husband, who was now in a coma. Suddenly she looked up and saw a young man. She recognized his Capuchin habit but did not get a good look at his face. As soon as she saw him, he left the room. Leonilde got up to follow him, but he seemed to vanish into thin air!
She had no time to try to figure out an explanation for the appearance and disappearance of this strange young man, for the family dog immediately began to howl — a harbinger, it was believed, of imminent death. Unable to stand the baying, Leonilde