As Christmas approaches each year, we are reminded of how deeply Padre Pio loved the Christ Child. From his earliest days in Pietrelcina, when he would carefully shape small clay figures for his family’s Nativity, to his final years in San Giovanni Rotondo, where he requested that a Nativity scene be placed outside his confessional so he could always see the Infant Jesus, his heart was always drawn to the manger.
For Padre Pio, the Child of Bethlehem revealed the boundless humility and tenderness of God. He once wrote, “When the Holy Novena begins in honor of the Baby Jesus, it felt as though my spirit was being born again to new life. I felt as though my heart was too small to embrace all our Heavenly blessings.” These words capture the wonder and renewal that Christmas brought to his soul, and the invitation it extends to all of us: to make room in our hearts for the newborn Savior.
As we prepare to celebrate this holy season, the Padre Pio Foundation of America invites you to join us in prayer. The intentions you include with your gift will be lovingly remembered in our Christmas Novena of Masses, beginning on Christmas Eve and continuing through New Year’s Day 2026. Together, may we honor Padre Pio’s devotion to the Christ Child and welcome the peace and grace that flow from the manger of Bethlehem.
and then