A saint of our time

Colm Fitzpatrick speaks with the director of an Irish St Pio charity

With devotion to Padre Pio still continuing to grow, one woman is providing an opportunity for people globally to learn more about the incredible work of this modern saint.

Eileen McGuire, who is the director of the Irish Office of St Pio in Dublin, has for decades been promoting the works of Padre Pio, and also giving people the chance to express their devotion towards him.

The office was originally established due to the influence and works of a Capuchin priest, Fr Alessio Parente, who moved to Ireland for a short period of time having been Padre Pio’s assistant during the last six years of the saint’s life.

He arrived in Dublin in June 1968 to learn English and also take a break from caring for him. Upon learning that St Pio had died in September of the same year, Fr Alessio decided to pay homage to the saint and began writing the magazine The Voice of Padre Pio, which now circulates all over the English-speaking world.

“I didn’t know anything about Padre Pio until this man came into my life. Of course, I knew he was priest who had stigmata in San Giovanni in Southern Italy. There it stopped. Fr Alessio would tell us stories of Padre Pio and stories of his experiences which were amazing,” Eileen says.

Exams

Fr Alessio lived with Eileen and her family for over a year, and she helped correct his articles. After completing his English exams, he returned to Italy and was responsible for building the English Office in San Giovanni, but often returned to Ireland.

“He came to Ireland every year for our big celebration in Knock and travelled all over Ireland speaking on Padre Pio”, explains Eileen, adding that because of this, prayer groups and devotion towards the saint began to spread.

Over the years the family developed a deep respect and devotion for St Pio and decided to “give over a little part” of a house they had close by so that people could receive a blessing from Fr Alessio with greater ease and less disruption. Eileen was also given the gift of a glove that Padre Pio had worn which can be taken by a visitor to the Oratory in the centre for a moment of quiet contemplation and prayer.

The Office is now an official charity affiliated to the friary in San Giovanni Rotondo and is also resource centre for reading materials, videotapes, devotional objects and medals of St Pio, with their role, according to Eileen, being “to spread correct literature and an exact spirituality of Padre Pio”.

According to Eileen, one of the main reasons St Pio continues to garner so much attention is because of how recent a saint he is, and that many people still have first-hand accounts about him.

“First of all, he is a saint from our time – many, many people were alive when he was alive. We hear about saints from the far distant past but Padre Pio lived in our time. When I went to San Giovanni, I met many friars that lived with Padre Pio and had such conviction about him, about his holiness, about his spirituality, about everything about him,” Eileen says.

In 2004, the Sanctuary of St Pio of Piettreclina was built, which is a Catholic shrine in San Giovanni, and Padre Pio has been moved to the crypt beneath it, which Eileen describes as a “work of art”.

“It is an amazing place to see. People are coming from all over the world. I heard someone recently say last year that they had more pilgrims than Lourdes, so it really is a busy, busy place,” she says.

The Irish Office arranges two trips to San Giovanni every year where people have the opportunity to explore the area where Padre Pio lived and visit his tomb.

“Groups go out to San Giovanni throughout the year. It’s like Medjugorje, Lourdes, or anywhere else, you have groups going out all the time. We have a group going out now in June and that’s already full. We have another group going out in October which is filling quite fast”, Eileen continues.

“We would take out roughly around 45-50 people each time and it’s looked after by Marian Pilgrimages. Groups are coming out from all over Ireland. The group leaders organise that in various parishes,” she says.

On March 17, Pope Francis visited the shrine in San Giovanni and celebrated Mass there, being the third Pope to visit in the last 50 years.

“There has always been Irish input in these ceremonies. As the Director of the Irish Centre for St Pio I have been present on all occasions.  I read a prayer in Irish for the Beatification of Padre Pio in Rome and I read a reading in English during the canonisation of St Pio,” Eileen explains.

“They recognise the work that people all over Ireland put into it. We have been represented in all of the ceremonies,” she says.

Although being involved in spreading the message of Padre Pio has many positive aspects, points of difficulty and sadness also arise. In January 2000, Fr Alessio died and his successor, Fr Joseph Pious, who was an American priest attached to the friary in San Giovanni also died in May later that year. The Capuchin priest, Fr Sean Dooley, who was “very interested and devoted to St Pio” also passed away that December.

“We lost three or four friends that year who were a tremendous help here, and we relied on them a lot. That was a difficult year,” Eileen says.

However, when asked whether she faces any challenges in running the centre, Eileen says that because they do not actively advertise it, there aren’t any difficult challenges that they encounter.

“We’re just here. And if people want to come, people who are ill, we have an oratory here where they can bless themselves if they wish with the relics of St Pio. We don’t in any way advertise anything. They just come. It’s spreading,” Eileen says, adding that the Padre Pio weekend which takes place on the third Sunday of September every year is proof of this.

“People come from north, south, east and west and from England to that event,” she says.

Although Eileen plays an incisive role in the centre, she holds that it would be impossible to run without volunteers and helpers who sacrifice their time to make Padre Pio more known.

“I have lots of voluntary help here and without that it couldn’t happen. When it comes to Knock every year, it’s all hands-on-deck and I’m in contact with group leaders all over Ireland who have prayer groups, who order literature, who want books and they get it through us. I suppose that’s the role we fulfil, to spread literature all over Ireland. So, it’s nothing that I do on my own. I do it with help, with lots of help,” Eileen says.

For more information on Padre Pio, see: http://www.padrepio.ie/index.htm