The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Two great pillars of church have Norristown ties
NORRISTOWN >> Here in Norristown there are two very important and celebrated saints prominent in our community: Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Padre Pio. They were contemporaries, but in fact they had never met — even though they coincided for many decades as prominent holy persons in the Roman Catholic Church. However, there is evidence that Padre Pio had heard of Mother Teresa and her work in India. In addition, we know for sure that Mother Teresa visited the tomb of St. Pio of Pietrelcina in 1987. To commemorate that visit 25 years later a mosaic depicting Mother Teresa was unveiled in the left of the central nave of the church at St. Giovanni Rotondo.
These two saints were both mystics. Padre Pio is the highly celebrated Italian Capuchin who had the extraordinary gift of reading minds and hearts, of bilocating, levitating and bearing the visible stigmata—the five wounds of Christ on the Cross—-for more than 50 years. He, like Mother Teresa, went through the dark night of the soul: “dark clouds gathering in the heavens of my soul that not even a ray of light can penetrate.”
Vera Calandra of Norristown had traveled to Rome in the late 1950s and early 1960s to see Padre Pio in person and have him lay his hands on her daughter, Veramarie. This child was a sickly girl born with many urinary tract infections and defects and had lost her bladder in one of the surgeries done by the well-known, future Surgeon General of the United States Dr. C. Everett Coop at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Vera Calandra and family traveled to San Giovanni Rotondo to see Padre Pio, bringing the child to him to receive his blessing. When she returned to Norristown, she took her daughter to the doctors who discovered that her daughter had, in fact, a bladder. The doctors were confounded and said that this was a miracle. Since that time there has been a wonderful Padre Pio Prayer Group that was founded in the late 1950s at Holy Saviour Parish in Norristown —my home parish—where it is still going strong.
Mother Teresa also went through the dark night of the soul for more than 50 years as she recounted in her letters. She sacrificed dearly in order to serve the poorest of the poor. She wrote: “a missionary must die daily and must be ready to pay the price. Jesus paid for souls by his death.” However, there was redemption at the end of the darkness for the two saints. Suffering is redemptive.
Mother Teresa accepted darkness as part of her spiritual journey and her love of the Cross. She worked endlessly to help those in need with prayers and service. Padre Pio accepted pain even the agony of the stigmata. Asked if his stigmata hurt, he replied: “Do you think that the Lord gave me them for a decoration?” He later would write that the pains were so strong that they were “absolutely indescribable and inconceivable.”
Both Mother Teresa and Padre Pio accepted a life-long mission of charity to others. Mother Teresa taught her sisters to divide the day into contemplation and active service. They are to make a half an hour of meditation each day, twice a day the examination of conscience and the full rosary and the litanies of Our Lady and the Saints. Then, care for and feed the poor. Padre Pio founded many prayer groups, but he was also well-known as a great confessor. He spent seventeen hours a day hearing confessions. In addition, he also built the Home for the Relief of Suffering in 1956—a hospital for the poor in Sant Giovanni Rotondo.
Mother Teresa visited Norristown many times and had often attended Mass at St. Patrick Church where I am the pastor. She first visited this borough in 1984 when she founded the convent of the Missionaries of Charity —- my convent. From there the many sisters have been a wonderful presence in our community — helping all especially the poorest of the poor and the immigrants from Latin America. They still continue to do great and holy work.
Both of these saints are great pillars of the Church who intercede for us all. Both have wonderful connections to Norristown and both suffered and taught us to love both God and neighbor. Pray for us Padre Pio and Mother Teresa. The Rev. Gus Puleo is pastor of St. Patrick Church in Norristown and served as an adjunct professor of Spanish at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Norristown High School and attended Georgetown University, where he received B.A. and B.S. in Spanish and linguistics. He has master’s degrees in Spanish, linguistics and divinity from Middlebury College, Georgetown University and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Pennsylvania.