CEBU, Philippines - Day 1 of our Rome pilgrimage we missed going to St. Michael the Archangel's hilltop sanctuary because our long distance driver pretended that he did not know that we were to pass by that area on the way to our overnight stay in San Giovanni Rotondo. Of course, a lot of us 48 pilgrims of the Clergy Group of Land & Sky/Del Mar consortium felt bad. Fr. Jun Gutierrez & I - as tour leaders - met with the driver after dinner to make sure we backtracked to the shrine the next day. (I told Fr. Jun that the devil was testing my patience - what with an inept driver after a long day that started at the airport after our arrival in Rome.)
Day 2 started with an anxious waiting for our pick up bus, as our tourist coaster was too big for the winding road to the Church of Our Lady of Grace where we had a concelebrated Mass at 8am, for two tour groups that congregated there that morning. The silver casket of St. Padre Pio's incorrupt body is in a chapel in the complex. We all filed past the casket to whisper our prayers up close, touching it as we did.
San Pio, at 16, joined the Franciscan Cappuchins as Padre Pio da Pietrelcina (a small village in Benevento). His superior assigned him to the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in cool San Giovanni Rotondo on July 28, 1916, as he was suffering from ill health. He stayed there until his death on September 23, 1968. (His feast day). In the afternoon of September 7, 1910, the wounds or stigmata appeared and caused him unceasing pain. There followed the other phenomenon of the scent of jasmine whenever he was around - whether physically or spiritually, as Padre Pio was known for bilocation many times when he was alive. His unending rosary manifested his deep Marian devotion, a devotion shared by a young Polish priest named Karol Jozef Wojtyla who visited him. Padre Pio prophesied that the young priest would become Pope and told him that his white Papal vestment would be covered in blood. (Foretelling the assassination attempt.) As Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla canonized Padre Pio on June 16, 2002!
Padre Pio founded the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (Home for the Relief of Suffering) beside the Church of Our Lady of Grace. It is purportedly the biggest hospital in Europe, with well over 1,000 beds. In life, San Pio's strongest charisms were healing and conversion (through Confession). He continues his miracles to this day.
Off we went to Monte Sant'Angelo, 15 km east of San Giovanni Rotondo in the Foggia Province of the Apulia Region in Southern Italy. Foggia - jutting out to the Adriatic Sea -- is the "spur," while Apulia forms the high heel of the boot that is the peninsula of Italy.
Monte Sant'Angelo is the oldest shrine in Western Europe and one of the most sacred in Italy, dating back to the apparitions of the Archangel in a cave in Mount Gargano on May 8, 490 AD, and twice more in 492 & 493 AD. St. Francis of Assisi came as a pilgrim to the grotto with the altar to St. Michael, leaving a cross he carved in the stone wall(now in a glass window at the right side of the cave entrance). This is a popular pilgrimage destination since the Middle Ages. In the 7th century, the Longobards connected Monte Sant'Angelo to Le Mont Saint-Michel where the Archangel also appeared to a bishop in 708 AD. It is a medieval rock-island stronghold, way across France on the Normandy coast. Thus, Monte Sant'Angelo (a medieval settlement established in 875 AD) was annexed to the Sacre Langobardorum Road, the ancient pilgrimage highway for royalty, the papacy, saints, as well as common pilgrims. (I visited Mont Saint-Michel in 2008 and it was one of my most memorable trips!)
The site is now in the National Park of Gargano, on the edge of the Umbra Forest, the only remnant in Italy of the legendary Black Forest that straddled Central Europe.
Despite shopping temptations in the sidewalk market and quaint shops, we called everyone back to the coach by 2pm for our next stop: Lanciano.
We arrived late afternoon in Lanciano, missing lunch because of our driver's inadvertence. We nonetheless looked forward with excitement and curiosity to view the Eucharistic Miracle. When we did, some of us shed tears due to overwhelming emotions that made us feel we just encountered the Living God! It helped a lot that our tour guide, a scholarly young man, was passionate and articulate. Words beggar the transcendent reality we experienced. Allow me to quote the epigraph at the Church of St. Francis where the Eucharistic Miracle took place and where the Holy Relics are kept until today.
"Around the year of our Lord 700, in this church….a monk doubted the reality of the Body and Blood of our Lord in the consecrated Host and wine. He celebrated Mass, said the words of consecration, and saw the Host turn to Flesh and the wine to Blood. He showed it to the bystanders and it was announced to all.
The Flesh is still in one piece and the Blood divided in five unequal parts, which, when weighed together, are equal in weight to each separate piece. This can be seen today in the Chapel built by Giovanni Francesco Valsecca at his own expense in the year of our Lord 1636."
Dr. Odoardo Linoli, head physician and university lecturer in Anatomy, Pathologic Histology, Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy at the well-known Riuniti Hospital of Arezzo, collected samples on November 18, 1970 and the laboratory testings lasted until March, 1971, and continued some more in 1981. Results showed that they were able to establish the blood to be human, Type AB; the Flesh they have dissected as "striated muscular tissue" of myocardial origin - a human heart tissue! How modern science was able to do a thorough examination on ancient Blood and Flesh and came up with astounding results, go figure! The realization can give you goose bumps!
A tourist shared of his regained serenity: "seen from so near, oh Lord, I have more strength and hope." And we echoed that sentiment as we left Lanciano to head back to Rome for the canonization of Beato Pedro Calungsod, which was our primary reason for this pilgrimage.