Father Joseph from Brooklyn brought us around the parish where Padre Pio, the stigmatist and charismatic, transubstantiating future saint, lived for sixty-five years. From the age of five in 1889, Padre Pio talked about giving himself to God. At sixteen he was accepted to study for the priesthood, and even before he left his little village Christ appeared to him. On one side were shining beautiful people, whom Christ identified as his children; on the other side were horrid monsters. Christ said to Pio, “You have to fight monsters to help my children. Don’t worry. I’ll be beside you.”
Pio was sickly, and a month after he was ordained he was lying in the little hut he’d made of reeds, and Christ came, accompanied by Mary, and stigmatized Pio, opening wounds on Pio’s hands, feet, and chest. But Pio was humble and didn’t want people to make a big deal over him, so he asked the Lord to cover up the wounds but leave the pain. World War I broke out and Pio was drafted, but because he ran such high fevers and was so weak, he was given a medical discharge and two years to live. He lived fifty years longer.
Eight years passed. Pio said daily mass in the medieval church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. He was always in the Mary chapel praying. He called prayer “the sweet sleep” and “resting in the Holy Spirit.” He said, “Pray, don’t worry.” Then, eight years after the stigmata first appeared, Christ appeared again. Rays of light shot from his wounds to Pio’s, and the stigmata opened and bled. Pio again begged Christ to cover them up, but this time Christ said no. Pio hid his hands in his robes. Then one day his superior saw the red seeping through the robes and wanted to take a look. Pio broke down crying.
His superior sent him to a doctor, who poked his fingers through the holes in Pio’s hands and feet and touched his thumb on the other side. It happened exactly the same way with the second and third doctors. Pio was the first priest to be a stigmatist. Saint Francis of Assisi, who also bore the stigmata, was a deacon and not a priest. There have been 333 stigmatists approved by the Church. Most are women. “Women can love God more than men,” said Father Joseph from Brooklyn.
Every night Pio’s wounds would cover with skin as thick as an orange’s, and every morning the skin would peel off and the wounds would lie open. Pio wore gloves to hide his wounds except when he offered the Eucharist during mass. Word spread about the stigmatist priest and hordes of people trekked up the hill to San Giovanni Rotundo to take confession and communion with Padre Pio, who was busy morning, noon, and night, sleeping only two hours a day and surviving on the equivalent of a jar of baby food. Pio never took a day’s vacation. The scent of roses was everywhere. Because there were so many people, after a while the padre hadn’t enough time to sit in a confessional, so he would walk down a line of people, look each in his or her eyes, then kiss a cheek or touch a forehead, hit someone with his rope belt, completely ignore another, sensing what each needed to heal. Father Joseph told us how a woman came to confession, saw the padre, and exclaimed, “Oh, my God—you’re the priest I confessed to in Brazil!” to which Pio responded, “That’s right, and did you do what I said?” Padre Pio had the gift of bilocation and could be in two places at the same time, Father Joseph tells us.
We peer inside Pio’s room, where, Father Joseph says, cries and thuds would often be heard in the night. Once Father Joseph himself ran into the cell and saw Pio being thrown around the room, and as Pio lay on the floor bruised, a pillow floated from a chair to the floor, then under his head. Later Pio told how Satan had come to beat him up, as he often did, and that Our Lady had appeared to comfort him and had placed the pillow under his head. “Padre Pio had great devotion to Our Lady.”
Father Joseph leads us into a room with a mound of books and rosaries for sale, as well as Pio medals with little pieces of Pio’s garments under a bubble of clear plastic. An elderly priest I’ve recognized from pictures in some of the books as Pio’s close companion bows before each of us and offers us tea as Father Joseph says, “Would you all like a blessing?” Choruses of yeses. He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a Baggie containing a blood-encrusted glove. “Padre Pio’s,” he says, then walks around the room, touching the glove to each of our foreheads. I feel heat shoot down to my toes, and tears of gratefulness, surrender, sweet release—call them tears of bliss—flow and flow. These are the same tears I’ve been weeping in church at Medjugorje and every day after. My heart is filled with the feeling of just stepping foot in my home after being away for a lifetime.
Every day, I cry several times, and always when I say the words before communion, “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” It’s bliss really, a draining of my defenses, a softening and an opening, and so much gratefulness to Mary. The weeping itself leaves me peaceful and euphoric. Father Joseph says that Pio had the gift of tears and could fill jars with the water that fell from his eyes. I think I have this gift, too.
I do not, however, have the gift of good feelings for my fellow man. In fact, my fellow pilgrims are beginning to grate on my nerves. They’ve begun to revert to their old, less angelic selves as the heaven we tasted in Medjugorje begins to fade. Day after day, we squeeze into a bus in which every seat is filled and from which, every evening, we have to lug our ever-growing luggage—we amass more and more icons at every stop. Day after day a percentage of us has had to contend with trying to buy water or soda or chocolate at a roadside store only to find everyone else has bought out the supply of water or soda or chocolate. The mountain roads are narrow and winding, producing motion sickness in at least half of us. So, we scramble for seats at the front of the bus, where the oceanic weaving of our vehicle is less severe. I have a long history of selfishness, and so am a master right from the beginning at jockeying myself into a position to score a good seat; but as the days wear on, my fellow pilgrims get savvier and more selfish, until they resort to thievery. Once when I reenter the bus after leaving it for a moment at a rest stop, someone has stolen my seat.
We arrive in Assisi, our last stop, a few weeks after a devastating earthquake has virtually collapsed the basilica. We are not allowed inside but are entertained by another American Franciscan, leaning on a cane, outside the doors. Father Andrew tells us how Saint Francis was from a wealthy family, and how when given the choice between marriage and war, he had chosen war. He was captured in France and thrown into a dungeon, where he almost died; his father ransomed him, and when Francis finally came home he recovered his health slowly. His family worried because he was so changed, and had even been seen talking to birds. (He eventually became the patron saint of animals.) Saint Francis took to heart Christ’s words:
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. And are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith. Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”
Saint Francis cast off his clothes and found an abandoned chapel near Assisi that he began to rebuild with his bare hands, saying to people, “For every brick you give me, God will give you two.” He was reviled by the townspeople, but some of his old friends joined him, and eventually Francis founded the Franciscan order, which requires hard work and a vow of poverty. Two years before he died he was stigmatized, and after that he was repeatedly attacked by Satan. Father Slavko had said that Satan was tirelessly working against good, and that saints and mystics were tortured by him, because wherever there is much good Satan will come and try to work his evil. “Our Lady is our first exorcist,” he said. On one of his visits, Satan threw Saint Francis into the rose-bushes, and the thorns disappeared.
We see
the thornless roses.
“You can be like Saint Francis,” Father Andrew says. “All you have to do is love God and love your neighbor as yourself. You can be rich—God bless you—just don’t put anything between you and God.”
That night, our last, Father Freed conducts a healing mass in the chapel in our motel. And for two hours before, he gives confessions in a little room adjoining the chapel. Nearly every one of the pilgrims wants to go to confession, so it seems like an eternity before I get in to see the father. I confess how much everyone is annoying me. I tell him how this big fat guy sat behind me and poked his knees into my seat for the entire trip to Assisi and how I had to restrain myself from turning around and throwing food at him, but wasn’t able to restrain myself from intentionally blocking his exit from his seat with my luggage for as long as I could manage it. “I just get so annoyed. It’s hard to feel love. It’s hard to like people. The first thing that comes to my mind is the criticism, the fault.”
“A lot of us have been feeling this. I want you to try to follow any criticism with something to praise.”
I picture that big guy who annoyed me the most. He’s a blowhard, his wife can’t get a word in edgewise, and he knew he was ramming his knee into my back through the seat. What can I possibly think of to praise him for?
“That’s really hard, Father Freed,” I say. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to.”
“I want you to promise to try.”
I remember that our first night in Rome, one of the women had thought her bag had been stolen from her room, and this man had taken it upon himself to talk to the manager and to accompany the woman to the police. It turned out to be a false alarm, but he had been the one to help and to feel responsible for the safety of the rest of us. That certainly was something to praise. “And Beverly,” Father Freed continues, “tonight during the services I want you to try to be open to the Holy Spirit.”
“I will.”
After mass, Father Freed calls Bruce and one of the single men, Fred, who’s from Father Freed’s congregation in Iowa, to come to the altar. Then, as we sing “Come, Holy Spirit,” we walk one by one up to Father Freed in front of the altar. I watch as Father Freed presses the palm of his hand to people’s foreheads and they fall like trees into Bruce’s and Fred’s hands. I begin to sweat. Father Freed is going to press his palm to my forehead and chances are good that I’m going to faint. Everybody else is. But something inside me resists. I’m the cynic again, the outsider, unable to join. I don’t want to be slain in the spirit like the others. But my feet carry me forward and I approach the altar, my face pouring sweat.
In front of Father Freed, my heart beating so hard my breathing becomes shallow, I close my eyes, think, “Come, Holy Spirit,” and as Father Freed presses his hand to my forehead, I feel wobbly and vertiginous, but pleasantly so. I decide I can resist and remain standing, and in control, or I can surrender, let myself go, see what it feels like. I let myself go and fall backwards in a divine falling-down swoon, like a baby who’s never been dropped. Then I am caught by four strong hands and eased to the floor, where I lie till the wave of bliss washes through me.
I can’t begin to tell you all the stories I know about statues of the Virgin Mary in which she was found and either refused to move, or was placed in a cart and pulled by a donkey—or carried by a monk—and at a certain location she suddenly became so heavy, it was impossible to move forward. And so they let her stay where she chose, and a shrine, followed by a chapel, then a church, and sometimes even a cathedral, was built to house her.
Mary statues with this kind of self-determination were powerful and worked miracles for those who came to worship and ask for favors. Some of these statues date as far back as the fourth century. Through time, Mary’s place in the countryside may have been overtaken by Saracens or Turks or some other heathen who tried to carry her off or harm her, and the hapless heathen ended up writhing in pain on the ground, his arm fell off, or he dropped dead. His companions might have then burned down the church, and Mary survived unscorched.
There are stories of the devout follower who thought Mary worthy of a more beautiful or accessible abode and so carried her there, only to find the next morning that the Virgin had made her way back to the home she had chosen for herself, sometimes with mud on her skirt.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On my way home, I pushed my seat on the plane into its reclining position, pulled down the window shade, and as I was about to doze off I was brought back by a memory of a Mary statue that stands on top of the cathedral in Loreto, Italy. Loreto is a town built around Mary’s humble little house, which the angels are said to have flown from Nazareth to Italy. A slightly more believable story goes that the Crusaders carried it brick by brick (the bricks actually do date back to Mary’s time) when Nazareth was invaded by Muslims. As you approach Loreto the first thing you see, standing on top of the cathedral’s spire, is Mary, outlined in tiny white lights, illuminating the sky. It had felt so right, so downright safe, to have the Mother all lit up, the first, last, and highest presence in the sky, that I had a fantasy: What if we could see Mary looking down on Los Angeles?
Back in LA, driving the freeway, I felt like I was in love; all I could think about was Mary. I was consumed, obsessed. It felt the same as, say, getting to know a man by being around him for a long time, then realizing you are actually attracted. He begins to enter your mind at odd moments. He’s the last thing you think of before bed and the first thing you think of in the morning. You walk through your day looking at things through his eyes. He’s called you a few times, maybe he’s even asked you out; but you don’t know if he’s asked you just as a friend. And then, one glorious evening, across the table at dinner, or just as you break away from a slow dance, he says, “I am so in love with you.” You flood with a delicious tickly excitement and a warm peaceful relief at the same time.
That’s how I felt about Mary. I could not get the Blessed Mother out of my mind; she was in my heart; she was the air I breathed. I wanted to give her gifts, to tell everyone who and what I’d found.
But at dinner with my closest women friends on Saturday night, I was careful not to let them know the depth of my passion, or to proselytize. I did want them to know I pray to Mary, so that over time when they saw the change in me, they too might begin praying, and who knows, open their hearts, let Mary take their hands, find peace, and be less afraid. After I told my miracle stories, I experienced a twinge of my old, customary everybody-thinks-I’m-an-idiot moment, and shook it off. Mary loved me; I must be lovable.
For the first time in my life, I understood why people proselytize: you are happy, you have found a way, you want to share it so others may find it, too. But I controlled it, handed my gifts of gold and silver rosaries around the table, and with restraint said, “These were blessed by Mary. I know, I know—it’s hard to believe. But they have power. Just keep the beads near you. Put them under your pillow. You may wake up in the middle of the night and want to pray. Or just say a Hail Mary.” They seemed to think that they might.
Jason flew in to LA to see some friends. We made a date to meet at a West Hollywood bar with a pool table. I sat on a bar stool, watching Jason sink expert shots, waiting for an opportunity to present him with his wooden rosary beads, a silver medal of Our Lady of Peace that looks just like the statue with the broken hand, a white pressed-marble crucifix, and a Saint Benedict’s medal I suggested he could use as a key chain: “It keeps away evil.” He smiled and said, “Cool,” which gave me hope that he wouldn’t just stick them in a drawer.
I wanted to tell him about my heart, how sorry I was, how I prayed for him, but it would have to wait, because it was impossible to arrange a time to be alone with him.
I decided to visit the Virgin of Guadalupe on her feast day, December 12, in her basilica in Mexico City, built on the spot where she appeared to Juan Diego in 1531. As Father Freed suggested for my penance, I would ask Guadalupe to help me forgive myself for my abortio
n.
Meanwhile, I resumed my yoga classes three mornings a week and went to my office every day to begin reading some books I’d collected about Mary. I didn’t even have to look at my watch to know when it was time for mass. The bells at Saint Augustine’s across Washington Boulevard rang and I felt a pull on my chest and knew viscerally for the first time why churches ring bells: to call you home. As soon as they tolled I knew I had ten minutes to get myself over there. I don’t remember noticing those bells before Medjugorje.
At the noon mass, a tiny hunchbacked lady in turquoise slacks and smudged white sneakers, named Dottie, would begin a rosary, “a rosary to Our Lady for world peace,” she would announce as the priest left the altar and the people filed from their pews. Sometimes as few as six gathered round Dottie, sometimes as many as thirty. Sometimes I prayed, sometimes I just sat behind and did my twenty-minute meditation to the chanting of their Hail Marys; sometimes I left. A few times I led a decade.
The congregation was a mixture of Latinos, whites, Filipinos. Church was the only place in LA where I mingled with people who were different from me. We daily churchgoers sat in the same seat every day, and there was a comfort in the predictability of this. When the priest said, “Show one another a sign of peace,” I shook hands with the same people every day, saying, “Peace be with you.”
To touch people I didn’t know, to look in their eyes and smile, to sincerely wish them peace, to receive a wish of peace from them, the plain goodness in this warmed me to the bone, and tears filled my eyes almost every time.
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