A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. As Jesus was walking along the Sea Of Galilee, he watched two brothers, Simon, now known as Peter, and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea. They were fishermen. Jesus said to Simon and to Andrew, come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. They immediately abandoned their nets and became his followers.
Jesus walked along farther and caught sight of two other brothers, James, Zebedee's son, and his brother, John. They too were in their boat putting their nets in order with their father, Zebedee. Jesus called them, and immediately, their boat, their nets, and their father to follow Jesus. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
I hope Saint Andrew, doesn't mind my sort of skipping him this year in favor of a few well chosen remarks, of course. I mean, they're very well chosen. About Padre Pio, Padre Pio, p I o. Now, father Pio was a Cappuccino monk, died about 1968 or '70 in there someplace. Lived in a monastery for most of his life a little south of Rome.
Now I first came into contact with him, not directly, I never I never met him, but yesterday's paper in the style section had a lead article about father Pio, Padre Pio as he's called. Now notice it's in the style section, because that's where we put religion with women's hems and how big a skirt or how long a skirt you're going to have, you know. So we put religion where I guess some people thinks think it belongs. Anyway, in the style section of the post yesterday, the lead article was about father Pio, Padre Pio, Capuchin monk, died about around 1970. I first came into contact with him indirectly through a gentleman, a parishioner of blessed sacrament up the road of peace.
That's about thirty some years ago. And at that time he, that is this friend of mine, was gung ho about father Peale. He'd been over there and was going over there every other summer and so forth, and his wife was almost equally enthusiastic about this Capuchin monk. Then I then he lost track of him. The next speaking only myself now, The next contact I had with him was in Jerusalem where I met a Jewish woman who was staying in the in the Franciscan Poncion.
And she had for years spent her vacation and a lot of money annually coming from The United States and visiting father Peel and staying down there, spending a good bit of time. And this had gone on for years. Finally, she had become a Catholic. And then more recently still, I met a young marine, met him over at the Marriott who, again, had come into contact with father Peel and had gone down on several occasions to spend some time around the monastery and, of course, talked and met with father Peel. Now, of course oh, then another little thing that I that I recall, depending on a very fallible memory about, oh, say about two or three years ago, there was a book published about him by one of the mainline publishers.
And I recall distinctly, distinctly I recall, one of the reviews referred to it as slush, slush. That is the accounts of some of the miracles attributed to father Peale. So this and it was a Catholic a Catholic reviewer, in a Catholic journal. I remember this distinctly. Don't ask me the names.
You see, that's how we are unbiased and unprejudiced. We dismiss these things like that, you see. They may deserve being dismissed. I don't know. But they it's just possible they don't.
Sometimes it's it's healthy to look at the facts. I mean, facts. Now now father Peel is once again in the news, in the style section of the Washington Post for Tuesday morning, November the twenty ninth. I hope that he won't be too proud of this wherever he'd be. I hope he's in heaven.
Now this man was extraordinary. I mean, I'm I'm not depending on books. I'm depending on the people who who went down there and not just for one afternoon on a tour, but went down there year after year, spent time with him, talked with him, knew him pretty well. Not the marine, but the Jewish lady and my friends from Blessed Sacrament. He was scarcely ordained when he got the stigma.
Not the stigma. You know what that is. Wounds in his hands and his feet, and they bled. He had to change the bandages any number of times every day, which means the man was losing a lot of blood. I mean, now this is a fact, and this happens right after his ordination.
He didn't do anything to get it. He got it. And I recall, I think I recall, someone asking him, are they painful? And he said, these weren't given to me for fun. He was a great man for the confessional, and he had a terrific well, let us say memory.
Memory. Memory. But I I don't wanna emphasize all these miracles that he's supposed to have done. Now when I say that, I am not casting any doubt upon it. I'm only saying that you can't dismiss it as slush because you're dealing with something where there are plenty of people living today who can verify it or deny it.
And there are all kinds of things attributed to him. All kind. Absolutely all kinds. Not just the astigmata because that's who knows? That's not an uncommon occurrence.
I know that. I'm only saying he had it. He bled. He scarcely ate enough food to keep a normal person alive, and yet he was for notice this happened right after his ordination, yet he was bleeding and losing all his blood. How did he stay alive?
Well, now this is a fact it's not slush. Now another the the thing I wanna bring bring home to you is that the the man deserves a little more attention than being put on the style section of the Washington Post. Although, maybe that's a step forward. I don't know. It may bounce out all the all the absolute, overwhelming concern we have for the latest thing in fashions and Ann Landers.
She's there there too, you know, in the style section. This man insisted on an honest to god relationship of a human being with god, with god. And this reminds me of something I from Lewis, C. S. Lewis, Clive Staples Lewis.
In his book on miracles, he points out how remember Lewis just died. He died well, he's dead about fifteen years now. But he's talking about miracles and about God, and he's talking about how people are searching for God and how they're finding God within themselves. But then he Lewis says, what if they hear a footstep in the corridor? In other words, that they actually have some kind of an experience of God as he himself had on the way to the zoo in a motorcycle.
I say in because he was on the sidecar with his brother Warren. See, I've been reading about the Sadducees and the Pharisees. What in the world was wrong with these people that our blessed lord was so absolutely severe with them and and John John the Baptist? How why was he so severe with these Sadducees and Pharisees? Because they were the good people.
They were the they were the outstandingly good people. They were the cream of the cream of good people. And most of the Jewish men belonged to either one or the other sect or party or whatever it was. You see, we've got to come back to this idea that if there's a god and if I'm his creature, then I am committed to him, not to anything else. Everything else will will fall into line.
Everything else will fall into line if I fall into line with god. And this is the thing that Peel insisted. From what I heard from these people going down, there wasn't anything playful or joyful, in a sense joyful. There wasn't anything like fun about Padre Pio. Some people would try to go to confession and make bad confessions.
And you know what he'd say? Get out of here, you pig. P I g. Pig, he called. You can't you see, today, there's so much clat trap about religion, and we have a lot of it going on in the Catholic church.
And God can be lost in it. And my personal relationship, my personal obligation, my personal responsibility, that can be lost just as it was with the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And so I bring Padre Pio before you as a man of our time, an extraordinary man in many ways, but an extremely ordinary man in many ways in many ways. And he had this one message, that your one and supreme obligation is to god almighty, and you cannot play games with him. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.