Faith in a Secular World

When I was hospitalized from a near death experience not so long ago and recovery was frustratingly slow, what time I had (and there was a lot of it) was filled by going through a voluminous tome on the life of St. Padre Pio. From dawn to dusk I would pore through each page driven as much by how compelling his life story was as well as a strange sense of succor, as if the words were taking me out of a calamitous predicament and transporting me to a place which brought peace. Moreover, the ward nurses became curious an asked me about what I was reading. To my great surprise, whatever I shared about the life of this humble yet remarkable man whose simple faith allowed him to transcend considerable travails was not met with cynical skepticism but with openness and interest.

Then again, such an enlightened reaction from the nurses should not have surprised me. Every day they see death in all its ugliness, yet soldier on giving their patients hope, knowing that while there life has valleys aplenty, it also has peaks.

Every night I would drift, staring up at the large ceiling fan as it made its languid circles in the heavy air, posing questions into the ether, and thinking about the book. When your existence is reduced to your bed, the machine pumping oxygen into your airways and you have tubes sticking out from you like some sort of human hedgehog, existence is reduced to a very small scope. I wondered about Life, the Universe, the very concept of God, and saints like Padre Pio.

Sometimes we should view our association with our saints in the same way we see our friends. Our true friends. These are the people who seem to always know what’s going on in our lives or always seem to show up at just the right time when we need their support or affirmation the most. Those who show up to console our losses and broken hearts, or to tell us when we are wrong, or to provide a different perspective which ends up becoming catalysts for altering how we view the world or help us realize a measure of personal growth through nuggets of insight. They don’t judge us, tolerate our foibles, and will chide, even blast us for dumb decisions. They take into account the totality of our being, of our relationship to them, and see things through the prism of the person they know. They put up with our foibles, are comfortable with our conceits, our inconsistencies. And they see value in who we are, the experiences that we share, and they look for the good in all of us, even when we are being inconsistently human.

Our patron saints will pursue us, revealing their presence in our minds and hearts if we can open ourselves to them. They seek entry into our hearts and souls and place themselves before us to accept their invitation.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina is a fascinating kind of saint, but also a bit intimidating. He represents very well that our encounter with the supernatural is not an experience that we can easily comprehend or control. The faith, which is, at its sacred center, a holy meeting with the mystery of the living God, is not something that can be domesticated or made easy. Nor is religious experience something that reduces itself easily to the standards of modern rationalism. In Jesus Christ, God not only takes on our flesh, but he also becomes, in his Incarnation, peculiar and strange. As the Gospel of Mark notes, the encounter with the Lord left people “amazed and afraid” (Mark 10:32). Attempts to sentimentalize how God presents himself to us in Christ and his saints inevitably falter and fail. God is not controlled by who we think he should be or what we think he should do. Our freedom is contingent. God’s freedom, though always directed by his nature—which is good—is radical. An encounter with the Lord will inevitably draw us out of what is predictable and safe. Only when we accept this do we truly progress in the spiritual life.

St Pio teaches me to humble myself before God and others. He says: Always humble yourself lovingly before God and man, because God speaks to those who are truly humble of heart, and enriches them with His gifts. But with what gifts does he enrich them? First, meditation. On the latter Padre Pio says: Whoever does not meditate, is like someone who never looks in the mirror before going out, doesn’t bother to see if he’s tidy, and may go out dirty without knowing it. The person who meditates and turns his mind to God, who is the mirror of his soul, seeks to know his faults, tries to correct them, moderates his impulses, and puts his conscience in order.

The second gift God gives to us, if we are open to his working within us, is the grace of not complaining. He says: You complain because the same trials are constantly returning. But look here, what have you to fear? Are you afraid of the divine craftsman who wants to perfect His masterpiece in this way? Would you like to come from the hands of such a magnificent Artist as a mere sketch and no more?

Another grace which follows those who really love or want to love God from the deepest recesses of their heart is that of not losing time. On this very important point Padre Pio has this to say: Oh, how precious time is! Blessed are those who know how to make good use of it. Oh, if only all could understand how precious time is, undoubtedly everyone would do his best to spend it in a praiseworthy manner!

The fourth gift with which God embellishes our souls is, certainly, hardships. Here Padre Pio says: In order to attract us, the Lord grants us many graces that we believe can easily obtain Heaven for us. We do not know, however, that in order to grow, we need hard bread: the cross, humiliation, trials and denials. On this point Pope Francis was so clear when, in his apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness in todays’ world, Gaudete et Exsultate, he tells us: Humility can only take root in the heart through humiliations. Without them, there is no humility or holiness. If you are unable to suffer and offer up a few humiliations, you are not humble and you are not on the path to holiness. The holiness that God bestows on his Church comes through the humiliation of his Son. He is the way. Humiliation makes you resemble Jesus; it is an unavoidable aspect of the imitation of Christ. For “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). In turn, he reveals the humility of the Father, who condescends to journey with his people, enduring their infidelities and complaints (cf. Ex 34:6-9; Wis 11:23-12:2; Lk 6:36). For this reason, the Apostles, after suffering humiliation, rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for [Jesus’] name” (Acts 5:41) (no.118).

Courage naturally follows upon humility. Padre Pio, who knew very well what it means to combat evil and the devil, always encouraged his hearers to have courage when they are attacked or annoyed by the evil one. He says: Have courage and do not fear the assaults of the Devil. Remember this forever; it is a healthy sign if the devil shouts and roars around your conscience, since this shows that he is not inside your will. Being himself subject to many attacks of the devil both personally as well as through other people, Padre Pio started realizing that life is worthwhile when lived with joy. He said: Joy, with peace, is the sister of charity. Serve the Lord with laughter.

The sixth gift which God gives us as we approach him with a humble heart is that of tranquility. Even when, because we are weak, we sin. In fact, and as Pope Francis taught us, that moment should be for us a wake up call to raise up and walk again. Padre Pio teaches us: The spirit of God is a spirit of peace, and also in the case of grave sin, it makes us feel tranquil sorrow, humble, confident, and this is due precisely to His mercy. The spirit of the demon, on the contrary, excites, exasperates, and makes us in our sorrow feel something like anger against ourselves, whereas our first charity must be to ourselves, and so if certain thoughts agitate you, this agitation never comes from God, who gives tranquility, being the Spirit of Peace. Such agitation comes from the devil. How much we presently need this tranquil, humble, and confident sorrow, which is the result of God’s mercy which is calling us back to the Father’s House!

Padre Pio, whose name reminds us of his utmost dedication to God up to the point of offering himself as a loving victim for the salvation of souls, is busier now than when he was living amongst us. He himself admits: After my death I will do more. My real mission will begin after my death.

Let me end this essay as I began, in that hospital ward full of folks in various states of distress. Next to me was an Indian gentlemen, obviously advanced in years, clearly in a vegetative state, it seemed for a very long time. Every day and night he would make horrible, painful, agonizing sounds as his body fought to breathe. Every day the nurses would speak to him clearly with limited expectation that he would respond. And occasionally family members would stop by, and mount vigils.

Padre Pio, I thought. What about this poor man who is reduced to this rasping, kept alive by machines. How much of his life is his will, and what portion is the machine keeping his husk going?

One day I heard the doctor on duty come by on his rounds. Even as he examined the bedridden patient I sensed something had changed. What was it, my medication-fogged brain was trying to determine.

Then I realized it: there was no gasping for air, no terrible, yet so familiar rattle. It was the sound of relative silence.

"Oh my God," the doctor said, loud enough for me to hear. "He's breathing normally."

Something dawned in me. Could it be possible? I hung on for the physician's next words. In a world so often bereft of hope, I found myself trying to do just exactly that.

"He's breathing on his own...his eyes are open and they're blinking..."

I only knew one thing for sure: in that week, the hospital had seen me return from the edge of death, and this senior citizen with the shriveled, wizened body who'd been in this state for what surely must have been years, was back from living death.