As Padre Pio grew in faith, gradually he was able to rise above the temptation to worry that he would give in to the devil and lose his salvation — at least most of the time. To the very end of his life, he never felt that his salvation was entirely secure. Far from being of the “once saved, always saved” school, he felt that the possibility of being lost remained as long as he lived. Toward the end of his life, when they were walking together, Padre Pio horrified his friend Pietro Cugino by asking him, “Tell me seriously, do you think I’ll be saved?”21
Realizing, therefore, his helplessness and inability to save himself, in moments of spiritual desolation, Padre Pio learned to cast himself into the arms of Jesus. His letters to Padre Benedetto in the summer of 1911 reveal a growing confidence in resisting the temptations of the evil one. That August he wrote:
The attacks of the devil continue, as always, to afflict my soul. Yet, meanwhile I have observed for some days a certain spiritual joy that I am unable to explain … I no longer have the difficulty I once felt in resigning myself to the will of God. I even repel the slanderous assaults of the tempter with such ease that I feel neither weariness nor fatigue.22
In September, he wrote Padre Benedetto:
Jesus continues to be with me, and ability to repel temptations and resign myself to God has not left me…. Doing this is growing easier. Marvel, then, at such a token of the sweetness and goodness of Jesus, that comes to such an evil wretch as me. And meanwhile, to what can I liken such amazing grace? What can I render to him for such benefits? How many times in the past, if only you knew, I exchanged Jesus for some vile thing of this world!23
“A Victim for Poor Sinners and for Souls in Purgatory”
Padre Pio’s spiritual commitment went further than merely accepting suffering for his own good. During this period, he offered himself to God as a victim for the salvation of souls. As we have seen, he was familiar with the concept of the “victim of divine love,” and in the prayer card from his ordination, he had expressed the desire to be a “perfect victim.” A few months after his ordination, on November 29, 1910, he wrote to Padre Benedetto:
For some time I have felt the need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for souls in purgatory. This desire has grown continuously in my heart until now it has become a powerful passion. I made this offering to the Lord on other occasions, imploring him to inflict me with the punishments that are prepared for sinners and for souls in purgatory, even multiplying them upon me a hundredfold, so long as he converts and saves sinners and quickly releases the souls in purgatory…. Now, however, I wish to make this offering to the Lord with your authorization. It seems to me that this is what Jesus wants. I’m sure that you will not find it difficult to grant me this permission.24
Padre Benedetto’s response was an unqualified and enthusiastic assent. “Make the offering!” he advised. “Extend your arms on the cross and offer yourself to the Father as a sacrifice in union with the loving Savior. Suffer, groan, and pray for the sins of the world and the miserable ones of the other world [that is, the souls in purgatory].”25
Two years later, in a letter to Padre Agostino, Padre Pio further defined what it meant to be a “victim of divine love,” writing:
[The Lord] chose certain souls, and among them, despite my unworthiness, he also chose me, to assist in the great work of the salvation of mankind. The more these souls suffer without any consolation, to that extent are the pains of our good Jesus made lighter. This is why I want to suffer increasingly and without comfort. And this is all my joy. It is only too true that I need courage, but Jesus will deny me nothing.26
Some years later, again writing to Padre Agostino, Padre Pio further elaborated on his mission: “With your prayers assist this Cyrenean who carries the cross of many people, so that there might be accomplished in him the words of the Apostle, ‘I make good and complete what is still lacking in the Passion of Christ.’”27 Padre Pio identified himself with Simon of Cyrene, the man who was forced to carry the cross to Calvary after Jesus collapsed under its weight. Like Simon, Padre Pio did not imagine that he had chosen this mission himself. He was certain that he had been chosen by God to be a victim, to help Jesus bear the cross.
Even by the time Padre Pio asked Padre Benedetto’s authorization for his self-oblation as a “victim of divine love,” he had received signs in his body which led him to believe that the Lord had accepted his offering.
“Fiery Red Spots”
On the afternoon of September 7, 1910, Padre Pio appeared at Pannullo’s office and showed the archpriest what appeared to be puncture wounds in the middle of his hands. When questioned about them, Padre Pio told him that he had been praying in Piana Romana when Jesus and Mary appeared to him and gave him the wounds. Pannullo examined the hands of his protégé and insisted that he see a doctor. The first physician he consulted diagnosed the phenomenon as tuberculosis of the skin. Padre Pio then went to Andrea Cardone, who vehemently rejected his colleague’s diagnosis. He observed on Pio’s hands, both on the palms and back, wounds about a half-inch in diameter. Although they apparently did not bleed, the wounds seemed to extend all the way through the hands. Apart from the fact that they were definitely not of tubercular origin, Cardone could not explain them.
The wounds, which Pio tried to conceal, were a source of great embarrassment. Besides the doctors and Archpriest Pannullo, the only person to whom he showed them was Mercurio Scocca. He concealed them even from his mother, who noticed that something was wrong and remarked that he was moving his hands as if he were playing the guitar. But Padre Pio successfully evaded her questions and hid the lesions under the long sleeves of his habit.
A few days after seeing Dr. Cardone, Padre Pio went to Pannullo and said: “Pati, do me a favor. Let’s pray together and ask Jesus to take this annoyance away. Yet, if it is God’s will, [I] must yield [myself] to do his will in all and over all. And, remember, since this is for the salvation of souls and for the good of the entire world, [we] must say to Jesus, ‘Do with me as you please.’”28 The two men prayed, and the wounds went away — for a season.
Padre Pio said nothing to Padre Benedetto about his stigmata at this time. However, a year to the day after their first appearance, the wounds reappeared, and only then did Padre Pio feel comfortable in telling his superior about the wounds:
Yesterday something happened, something I cannot explain or understand. In the middle of the palms of my hands there appeared a small red spot the size of a small coin, accompanied by a strong, sharp pain in the middle of the red spots. The pain was most intense in the middle of the left hand, so much so that I still feel it. Also I feel some pain in the soles of my feet.
This phenomenon has been going on for almost a year, yet recently there has been a brief period of time in which it has not occurred. Please do not be upset that I have not mentioned it to you before. The reason is that I was too darned embarrassed to tell you about it. If you only knew the great effort I had to make to tell you about it!29
In later years, Padre Pio downplayed these early manifestations of the stigmata. When Padre Raffaele D’Addario conducted a series of interviews with Padre Pio in 1966 and 1967, Pio — who was then in his eightieth year and in decline — had at first forgotten all about the earlier phenomenon, declaring that the stories about an earlier stigmatization were false and that “everything happened at San Giovanni Rotondo.” When shown his own letters of fifty years before, the old man’s memory was refreshed, and he recalled that, while praying in his cabin in Piana Romana, “in profound meditation and ecstasy, more than once I noticed fiery red spots in the palms of my hands, accompanied by extremely sharp pains that lasted several days. [I noticed] puncture wounds in my side as well. But it was only at San Giovanni Rotondo