Saint Padre Pio and His Devotion to the Eucharist and Mary

Statue of Padre Pio - Blessed Sacrament Church, Paterson, NJ

Padre Pio and the Eucharist

Padre Pio was truly a servant of God. He had a lifelong love affair with Our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist. To him, the Eucharist was the center of all spiritual benefits. It was the life breath of the soul. We believe the Lord gave him an insight as to the power and the magnitude of the Eucharist, from a very early age. As a young man, before he entered the priesthood, he spent hours in the church, adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. After his ordination, he took a long time for the Consecration of the Mass, to the point where parishioners complained about all the time he spent, in ecstasy, before the bread and wine as they became the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus. He had to control himself, to break out of his ecstasy, and force himself back to the Mass, at the orders of his superiors...

Padre Pio and Mary

We can track Padre Pio's love and relationship with Mary, the Mother of God, back to age 5. It continued all his life. He mentioned at various times in his life that he received apparitions from Mary on a regular basis. He derived a great deal of his strength from these apparitions, especially when he suffered the onslaught of demons, and grotesque monsters, sent from hell to torture him...

You can read the rest of both parts of Bob and Penny Lord's article here

H/T to Sue