Everybody’s Friend

St. Padre Pio was—and still is—a “networker” for God.

By: Eileen Dunn Bertanzetti

On a hot summer day in 1978, while our family was out for a drive, I “met” a saint who changed my life. Because he has led me closer to the Lord, I have tried to introduce others to him ever since.

My husband was at the wheel of our blue Ford station wagon, talking about “old times” with his mother and brother. I was in the back seat trying to read, as I refereed our three young children.

“Mom, she hit me!”

“Did not.”

“Give me my truck!”

I was going through a difficult period then, feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities of motherhood. That day, though, my attention was not on my struggles but on what I was managing to read amid the children’s noisy interactions. It was a book by a friend, about a Capuchin friar she had worked for in southern Italy. I had never heard of this “Padre Pio” and was riveted by his deep prayer life and the many conversions and healings that had taken place around him.

I learned that in 1918, Padre Pio…

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