Visiting Padre Pio & St. Michael the Archangel’s Cave

Our goal in traveling to Italy a few days before the University’s pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi was to see Padre Pio. 

Mission accomplished!

We drove from Naples on Italy’s west coast to San Giovanni Rotondo on the east coast (about 2.5 hours away).  

Padre Pio was born in 1887. In 1903 he entered the monastery and a year later received the Capichin habit. In 1910, after being ordained and transferred to several sites, he arrived at San Giovanni Rotondo, where he remained for the last 50 years of his life. 

Padre Pio’s body rests in the huge Shrine in San Giovanni Rotondo that can hold up to ten thousand pilgrims.  

Next door we visited the shrine of Our Lady of Grace, where many of Padre Pio’s relics are kept. 

Padre Pio spent many, many hours hearing people’s confession. He has the gift of reading souls and knew if you left something out! Here is his confessional. 

As the kids looked at his relics, I heard Francis say, “Maybe I’ll be a BIG priest!” And they both talked about how they’re going to be saints! It’s overhearing conversations like this that make all the traveling drama worth it :)

In 1918, while praying before a crucifix, Padre Pio received the sacred stigmata. He was pierced with the five sacred wounds of Christ and he bled from these wounds until his death in 1968. 

Pictured above the crucifix is a painting of St. Michael the Archangel, which was fitting because our next stop was the angel’s famous cave where he appeared about 15 miles away. 

Ellie in front of the Sanctuary of St. Michael the Archangel in Monte Sant’ Angelo. 

The shrine is built over the cave.  At this grotto, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Gerard Majella, St. Louis de Montfort, and at least six different popes have knelt and asked St. Michaels protection. We are happy to have done the same!

St. Michael appeared here in 490, 492, and 1656.  After the third apparition, the bishop comissioned a chapel built at the entrance of the grotto. Upon completion, the bishop dedicated but did not consecrate the church. It was not consecrated because St. Michael had already performed the consecration. It is the only building of worship in the Roman Catholic Church that has not been consecrated by humans.