Born into an Italian peasant farming family on May 25, 1887, Padre Pio was a humble Capuchin priest who lived the last 50 years of his life in a remote part of the Gargano Mountains, in a small town called San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. He was blessed by God in many outstanding and mysterious ways. He is the only priest in Catholic history to bear in his body the Stigmata, the five wounds of Jesus Christ Crucified.

God also blessed Padre Pio with the gifts of miraculous cures, bilocation, prophecy, conversion, perfume and the reading of souls. People are still experiencing healings today through his intercession in ways that cannot be explained by medicine or science.

Just as impressive and important as the physical cures are the spiritual healings experienced by people throughout the world who place their prayers, hopes and troubles in Padre Pio’s heavenly care. Beyond a doubt, Padre Pio is a powerful intercessor for us before Almighty God.

Padre Pio had prophesied countless things during his lifetime, including his own death, nine years before it happened, to the exact day. Seeing that moment coming, he got up from his bed, put on his Capuchin Franciscan habit, offered his last confession, sat down in a chair and whispered, “I see two mothers!” An hour later he was in Heaven. His passing was calm and peaceful.

Alongside the chair, on a little table, are the things that were in his Capuchin habit when he died: a relic of the True Cross which he always carried on his person, and religious medals that he would give to the faithful as he walked through the crowds. There were also a few little white mints someone had given him that were still in a pocket of his habit.

A painting of “Our Lady of Purity” hangs on the wall at the foot of Padre Pio’s bed. He was uncomfortable with it being placed there because he considered it too rich for his sparse, monastic cell, but his Capuchin superiors insisted. That proved to be very beneficial because he could lay in bed and look up to the image of Our Blessed Mother during his many hours of sleeplessness; he could only manage to sleep about two hours a night.

As you look into his room from the door, you see that to the right of his bed is the window from which he would greet and bless the crowds of people who came to visit him. Directly in front of the window is the armchair where Padre Pio was sitting when he died on September 23, 1968. He was 81 years and four months old when Our Lord called him home at the end of his extraordinary devout, selfless and mission-filled life of suffering, sacrifice and holiness.