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August 9, 2018
Christina Gray
St. Pio of Pietrelcina’s devotion to the Blessed Mother inspired St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish in Sausalito to host a public tour of five relics of the saint the weekend of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sept. 8.
“I have this personal belief that anything we ask from Jesus through his mother Mary gets VIP attention,” Father Mike Quinn, pastor, told Catholic San Francisco. “Padre Pio had that same disposition.”
“Padre Pio,” as he is more commonly known, was born Francesco Forgione in Italy in 1887 and became a Capuchin Franciscan at age 15. When he was 31, the five wounds of Christ’s crucifixion appeared on his body, making him the first stigmatized priest in the history of the Catholic Church.
Of poor health from birth, the humble priest founded the Home for the Relief of Suffering (the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza) in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. Today it is an institution considered by some to be a model for Catholic health care delivery. Pope Saint John Paul II canonized Padre Pio in 2002.
Father Mike Quinn, pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish in Sausalito, indicates the altar in the church’s Fatima chapel where five Padre Pio relics will be displayed Sept. 8-9. (Photo by Christina Gray/Catholic San Francisco)
Earlier this year in a pastoral visit marking the centenary of the appearance of Padre Pio’s stigmata, Pope Francis celebrated Mass with about 30,000 people after visiting sick children at St. Pio’s hospital and later visited Padre Pio’s remains.
In his homily he called Padre Pio, “an apostle of the confessional.”
“St. Pio offered his life and untold suffering to enable his brothers and sisters to encounter the Lord,” he said. “And the decisive way of encountering him was through confession, the sacrament of reconciliation.”
In his letters to his spiritual directors, Padre Pio revealed the physical and spiritual suffering which accompanied him all through his life. They also revealed his deep union with God, his burning love for the Eucharist and the Blessed Mother.
According to Father Quinn, St. Mary’s is the first stop on the last part of a North American tour of the saint’s relics organized by the New York-based Saint Pio Foundation on the 50th anniversary year of his death on Sept. 23, 1968. Last year over 250,000 people visited relic tour sites in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Relics available for public veneration at St. Mary’s will include the saint’s glove, a crust from his wounds, a blood-stained piece of cotton gauze, a lock of his hair, his mantle and a handkerchief soaked with his sweat hours before he died.
The St. Pio Foundation will sell small religious articles with which the first-class relics can be touched, according to Father Quinn, creating a third-class relic. All proceeds and donations from the relic tour benefit the foundation, according to Father Quinn.
Father Quinn said that his parishioners were really the force that helped bring the relics to St. Mary Star of the Sea. One in particular promised his dying father he would maintain a devotion to Mary.
For Father Quinn, the significance of the relic tour is as much about Mary as it is Padre Pio. The parish is named after Mary and the Archdiocese of San Francisco was consecrated to her Immaculate Heart in 2017.
“The relic tour is an opportunity for people to come to rest with Mary at our beautiful church,” he said.
Admission for the relics tour is free but registration is recommended. Visit starofthesea.us.