Homily | September 23, 2026 | Padre Pio And Real Change (Episode 282)

There are some saints you admire from a distance, and then there are saints who somehow become your friends.

For me, Padre Pio is one of those saints.

If you've ever really read his life, I would encourage you to do it.

Not simply because his life is fascinating.

It is.

There are extraordinary stories associated with him, the stigmata, the healings, the remarkable spiritual gifts, thousands of people traveling to the little town of San Giovanni Rotondo just to attend his mass, speak with him, or go to confession.

But if we reduce Padre Pio to the miraculous, we miss the man, because his greatest concern was not that people be impressed by him, it was that people come back to Jesus Christ.

Padre Pio was born Francesco Ferragini in 1887 in Petrocina, a small town in southern Italy.

He entered the Capuchins as a young man, was ordained a priest in 1910, and eventually was sent to San Giovanni Rotondo where he would spend most of the rest of his life.

And from that rather obscure friary, something extraordinary happened.

People came and came and they really came.

They came because they were suffering, they came because they needed healing, they came because they had lost their way.

They came because they heard of the miracles and the love and the compassion, and they needed confession.

They came because they wanted somebody to tell them that God had not forgotten them.

And Padre Pio received them.

For decades, enormous numbers of people came to his confessional and sought his spiritual direction.

He became known for his profound compassion for suffering, eventually helping establish the great hospital called House for the Relief of Suffering.

His life revolved around prayer, the Eucharist, confession, and the care for the souls.

But here's what I love about Padre Pio.

He could be extraordinarily fatherly.

He could also be extraordinarily direct.

Because Padre Pio understood something our culture sometimes forgets.

Love does not mean leaving someone exactly where you found them.

Sometimes love says, You need to stop this.

You need to go to confession.

You need to forgive that person.

You need to change your life.

You need to come back to God.

And perhaps that's why today's gospel fits him so beautifully.

Jesus sends the twelve out with power and authority to confront evil, to heal, to proclaim the kingdom of God.

And then Jesus tells them to take almost nothing with them.

No money, no food, no second tunic.

Why?

Well, because the power of their mission would not come from what they possessed.

It would come from the one who sent them.

And Padre Pio understood that.

Behind all the extraordinary things associated with his life was actually something very simple.

A priest, an altar, a confessional, a rosary, a crucifix, a man who believed that his entire being, that Jesus Christ was real.

Maybe that's what we need today.

Not a more complicated Christianity, a more serious Christianity.

Because some of us have become very good at keeping Jesus close enough for comfort, but far enough away that he cannot change us.

We want Jesus to calm our fears, but not challenge our habits and our sins.

Sometimes we want to keep the sin.

We're comfortable with the sin.

We want peace, but not conversion.

Padre Pio would never have understood Christianity that way.

He knew that mercy is not God saying, It doesn't matter.

All will be washed out in the end.

Mercy is God saying, It matters so much that I refuse to abandon you here in this mess.

That's why the confessional was so central to Padre Pio's priesthood.

Saint John Paul II called him a generous dispenser of divine mercy.

People came burdened with sin and encountered a priest who took both sin and mercy seriously.

Maybe today Padre Pio would look at you and me with the same fatherly love and ask, What are you still holding on to?

What have you been excusing?

What have you been postponing?

Where have you settled for being comfortable when Christ is calling you to become holy?

Don't be afraid of that question.

Because a saint who challenges you is not necessarily condemning you.

He may love you too much to leave you where you are.

Padre Peel died on September 23rd, 1968, after a lifetime centered on prayer, suffering, the Eucharist, reconciliation, and the service to others.

But his message remains remarkably simple.

God is real, grace is real, sin is real, mercy is real, and your life can change.

So today, through the intercession of Padre Pio, perhaps we should stop asking Jesus merely to make our lives easier.

Maybe we should have the courage to pray.

Jesus, show me what needs to change, and then give me the grace to change it.

Because the greatest miracle Padre Pio can help bring about in our lives is not something extraordinary happening around us.

The greatest miracle Padre Pio can bring about is Jesus Christ transforming something within us.

Amen.