PADRE PIO: "CAN YOU SUFFER A LITTLE?"

 

Mary Beth Bracy went on a pilgrimage to San Giovanni Rotondo, she was having some health issues and she prayed at Padre Pio's tomb and received the answer in an inner locution, "suffering leads to love". Then years later, she prayed before Pio's relics in a church for the intention that a certain chronic pain she had endured be taken away. She heard Pio say to her, "Can you suffer a little?"  Pio was inviting her to suffer and offer up her pain in the same way he did. 

Mary Beth and her Mom have read many books on Padre Pio and have a fine collection.  But Mary Beth Bracy has very kindly hailed Padre Pio and You as "truly unique" in her heartfelt and generous review on Catholic 365. 

In particular, I was encouraged that Mary Beth said Padre Pio and You reads "like a novel". When I was in the throes of writing it, I had one stubborn insecurity, that my efforts to write it like entertaining fiction would make it seem as though I was pandering to the reader, trying desperately to keep their interest because the subject matter in itself was not sufficiently captivating. There's also the fact that I'm a failed novelist; in my 20s I wrote grim novels that were derivative of the romantic fiction I'd fed myself on, and which were always rejected by publishers. 

When I was writing such scenes from the life of Padre Pio, especially concerning his efforts during World War II (when he flew in the sky to thwart bombing expeditions) I fought against the memories I held in the recesses of my mind of emails with polite passes and the feeling that literary agents had winced when they had read the chapters I'd sent them. 

A good thing that I wasn't "well-known" or "well-connected" because often literary agents and editors were keenly honest with me and I developed some sense of that which holds the reader's attention, and that which has them with raised eyebrows and a bad taste in their mouth. And most especially to prioritize description that serves character, not that which serves my aim to be seen as clever. My years of attempting pulp fiction were put to good use in writing Padre Pio and You and it is not so much my first book, as probably my fifth. It just took me a while to get there. 

So, a very big thank-you to Mary Beth for her benevolence, she wrote that my book will help readers "draw strength from Padre Pio's sufferings to endure the trials of their own life." She does not speak in the abstract; she has known health problems and even though her exact prayer was unanswered she was invited to be more a replica of Pio which she embraced. May there be more like her.