If COVID-19 was the storm, our faith was the sails. Surely all of us, at some point in these past two years, emptied our hearts to a listening God. The staff of St. Anthony Messenger began to wonder: How did our readers’ faith help them through this? What have we learned? Where do we go from here? Months ago, we asked you these questions; the answers can be found in the pages of this issue. We hope this article, pieced together by managing editor Daniel Imwalle, provides some context for what we endured with the pandemic.

It’s been a sad and frustrating time for all of us—worsened by ongoing social and political unrest. Let’s pray for cooler heads and calmer seas.

Two Franciscans look back on their experiences of that day and its ongoing impact on their lives.

Ministries come in many forms—preaching, teaching, service, and others. For Franciscans, the goal of those ministries is always the same, though, and that is to be living witnesses of the Gospel to others. Sometimes, that witness plays out in a very public way. That was the case on September 11, 2001. On that day, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were struck by two hijacked commercial airplanes. The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, was struck, and another airplane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after being hijacked.

Franciscan Father Mychal Judge is listed as victim number one of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. A fire chaplain for the city’s firefighters, Father Mychal was on the scene of the attack and praying for those who were jumping from the building when the first tower collapsed. The force of the collapse threw him backward across the lobby into the escalators. He died of blunt force trauma to his head. The photo of him being carried from the rubble has become a haunting icon of that day.

Franciscan Fathers Chris Keenan and Michael Duffy were both friends of Father Mychal. Through his death, they were called to minister, each in his own way, both during a very difficult time in our country’s history and still today.

These are their stories.

Father Chris Keenan: A Ministry of Presence

For many of us, 9/11 is an event that took place in the past. But for Father Chris Keenan, OFM, it is not only history but also very much a part of the present. Father Chris is a chaplain for the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), where he ministers to the current firefighters, as well as those who still carry the scars of 9/11.

Twenty years ago, after the planes hit the World Trade Center, Father Chris immediately wondered how he could help. He made his way to St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was within half a mile of the site, and offered his assistance.

“I was there helping people in the emergency room once they were treated to connect with their families, letting them know that they were alive, and find ways to pick them up and get them home,” he says.

Late in the afternoon, when things started to slow down, Father Chris decided to head back to the friary because he was scheduled to hear confessions that evening at St. Francis of Assisi Church. He recalls, “As I came out of the hospital, there is this sea of hundreds of medical personnel with stretchers waiting for all the people who never came [out of the towers].”

On his way home, he stopped at the fire station across the street from St. Francis of Assisi Friary and Church and asked if they had any news about Father Mychal. It was then that Father Chris learned his friend and mentor had died. The firefighters told him that Father Mychal’s body was in the back of the firehouse.

“They had draped it in white, and his body was there in a bag,” remembers Father Chris. “I just stayed with him for about an hour. Then the rest of the friars came across the street, and we, with the firefighters, said a prayer. We friars said a blessing of St. Francis, and [Mychal’s] body was put in the ambulance and brought to the morgue.”

Immediately, Father Chris began ministering to the firefighters who had returned to the station and the families in search of loved ones who were firefighters. The gravity of the situation quickly became apparent. Within 48 hours, rescue and recovery turned to just recovery.

“Everyone and everything was vaporized, pulverized, and cremated,” says Father Chris.

Moving Forward

Shortly after that day, Father Chris was appointed as a chaplain for the FDNY. It was not lost on him that he was stepping into some very big shoes. Mychal Judge had been a major influence in Father Chris’ life since he was 20 years old. He says that it was Father Mychal who influenced him to join the Franciscans. The two lived together at St. Francis of Assisi Friary.

As Father Chris says: “He got me in the business, and now he’s given me the business. When we’re commissioned in the fire department, we say, ‘I offer my life to protect the life and property of the people of New York City.’ So this isn’t just a job. It’s a calling.”

“For the next nine months, we had 343 funerals or memorials,” says Father Chris. Most of them were memorials because nothing was found. When remains were recovered and identified, the memorials would turn to funerals.

_{Father Chris Keenan (far left) stands with the firefighters from Engine 1 Ladder 24 in honor and remembrance of those who died at the World Trade Center.
Photo: Octavio Duran, OFM}

For seven months after the attacks, Father Chris took part in the recovery process on the pile two or three times a week. Rescue workers would rake the dirt looking for remains. “We would rake about the size of a basketball court. I said to them, ‘What am I looking for?’ and they said, ‘Don’t worry, Father, you’ll smell it.'”

“Those nights I would be there, it’s like, ‘How does one make sense of this?’ and I had the grace of an insight. As I was going down the bridge this one night I said, ‘I am descending into hell, and the face of God is on every one of those workers there in the recovery operation.'”

Along with Friar Brian Jordan, he celebrated Mass every week at the Ground Zero cross, a piece of steel that jutted out of the debris in the form of a cross and was kept as a symbol of hope. Little did he know, though, that those acts would greatly affect his life.

Ongoing Ministry

There were 343 families to relate to, both then and now, 20 years later. Those families included spouses, parents, over 800 children—some not even born yet—brothers, sisters, and other relatives. One of the connecting points he says that he has with the families is that he also had someone who died on 9/11.

The tragedy we’re still dealing with, points out Father Chris, is that in the years since 9/11, 250 more rescue workers have died, victims of the toxic brew of chemicals they worked in over the months at Ground Zero.

“I myself have five certified Trade Center conditions from my time of digging in the pit—cancer, esophagus, lungs, PTSD, sleep apnea. There are over 1,700 being treated for cancer in the FDNY alone.”

As the equipment would pull rubble off the pile, plumes of smoke would rise into the sky from the fires still burning underneath. Within that smoke was a toxic mixture of chemicals that had never been combined before. Because of that, Father Chris says, “There are 24 different toxic chemicals that they test our lungs for.”

When asked how he has sustained himself over the years, he is quick to praise his Franciscan brothers. “I really couldn’t have done this if I hadn’t been truly loved and supported by them in this effort. The other reality is that it was so wonderfully energizing working with and being with all of these wonderful people who offered the gift of their life to be there for others in their need.” He also credits spiritual direction and weekly therapy with helping him.

Father Chris will be retiring in January after 20 years on the job. And while he says that for most of the time he has been energized by his work as chaplain, the fire in his belly is beginning to die out. He says it is now time for another friar to be the next FDNY chaplain.

Now, two decades later, Father Chris says we need to keep the stories of 9/11 alive. For the past 10 years, he has lived in the dorms with students at the College of Mt. St. Vincent, where several of the children of 9/11 victims go to school. It’s a Franciscan fraternity of presence among the students.

For many of those students, 9/11 is something in the past. But Father Chris knows that’s only partly true. That is why he says: “They need to hear the stories of other people who have experienced 9/11 because those who fail to understand history will repeat it again. The greatest gift we have to give to one another is sharing our stories.”

Father Michael Duffy: A Ministry of Preaching

Father Michael Duffy, OFM, remembers that it was a nice, bright, sunny day when he and a fellow friar headed out on September 11, 2001, to pick up leftovers from a supermarket for St. Francis Inn in Kensington, Philadelphia.

While driving, he heard the news on the radio that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. He wasn’t overly alarmed, he says, because he assumed it was a small plane. As the radio became more descriptive of the scene, though, he began to realize the enormity of the situation.

At 4:30 p.m. a fellow friar called him and said, “Mychal Judge is dead.” That, Father Michael says, “is when it just hit me. It did cross my mind that, ‘I bet [Mychal Judge] is down there doing something.’ But not that he would die.” He sat down on the stairs and cried.

The two friars were longtime friends. They met in the 1970s, when they were assigned to the same parish in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Eventually, Father Michael went to work in Philadelphia. Father Mychal went back to New York.

The friends often traveled together, and Father Michael recalls that their trips were often impromptu. They were also often delayed, he adds, due to situations where Father Mychal felt he needed to provide help, such as accidents they would come upon while driving.

A Shocking Request

Given that friendship, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise when Father Michael received a call the day after the attacks from his provincial minister at the time, Father John Felice.

“Mychal Judge had you down as his homilist,” said Father John. Franciscans are required to fill out forms stating their funeral wishes—the church, the readings, the music, the homilist, etc.

Father Michael says his immediate reaction was: “I can’t do this. This is a world event. I told him: ‘John, you’re the provincial; you should do it. It’s an important thing.’ And he said, ‘But he wanted you.’ So what are you going to say to that?”

There was also another challenge to the request, says Father Michael: Public speaking is one of his greatest fears. In fact, he says, “I almost did not become ordained because I’m terrified of speaking in front of people.” Now he was being asked to preach in front of a church full of people about his friend, whom he had just lost in a horrible attack on our nation.

“Everyone in the world was stunned. No one knew what to make of it. We were still watching the skies for more planes to do things. No one could explain how something like that could happen. And I was supposed to go up and say something significant? The second thing is, ‘What do you say? What do you say to make sense of all that?'”

Those three days between the event and the funeral, he says, were some of the toughest of his life. He says he wasn’t even able to focus on the fact that he had just lost his best friend.

Preaching from the Heart

On the day of the funeral, when it came time to deliver the homily, Father Michael reached for his glasses only to discover he couldn’t get to them inside his habit. He was going to have to preach from memory. And he went on to speak to the spirit and goodness of his friend rather than against the situation that caused his death.

“Mychal Judge’s body was the first one released from Ground Zero. His death certificate has the number one on the top. I meditated on that fact of the thousands of people that we are going to find out who perished in that terrible holocaust. Why was Mychal Judge number one? And I think I know the reason. Mychal’s goal and purpose in life at that time was to bring the firemen to the point of death, so they would be ready to meet their maker,” Father Michael said.

“Mychal Judge could not have ministered to them all. It was physically impossible in this life but not in the next. And I think that if he were given this choice, he would prefer to have happened what actually happened. He passed through the other side of life, and now he can continue doing what he wanted to do with all his heart. And the next few weeks, we’re going to have names added, name after name of people who are being brought out of that rubble. And Mychal Judge is going to be on the other side of death to greet them instead of sending them there. And he’s going to greet them with that big Irish smile. He’s going to take them by the arm and the hand and say, ‘Welcome, I want to take you to my Father.’ And so, he can continue doing in death what he couldn’t do in life.”

After the Mass, Father Michael says he came to learn that with the people in the church—both upstairs and downstairs—the overflow crowd on the street outside, and the broadcast on all the major news networks, 81 million people around the world saw him preach.

“Someone later said, ‘Do you realize you, as a Franciscan, preached to more people than St. Francis did?'” he remembers.

Since that day 20 years ago, Father Michael has tried not to look back too much. He hasn’t visited the 9/11 memorial and says he has no plans to go. At one time, he received a painting of the poignant picture of a fireman, police officer, Port Authority officer, and layman carrying Mychal Judge’s lifeless body out of the rubble. Some refer to it as a modern-day piet√†. But he donated it to a firehouse in Maryland.

“Who in the world would want to wake up every morning and see a picture of their best friend dead?” he asks.

And though he misses his friend, Father Michael says he finds solace in the faith they shared. “The thing is, he had so much faith. And, hopefully, I do too. To me it was just, ‘Oh, I won’t see you for a little while, but I’ll see you later.’ And I really believe that.” Still, he says: “I can’t wait to see him. I’m going to kill him for putting my name down on that paper.”

Mychal Judge, OFM: 5/11/1933 – 9/11/2001

_{Father Mychal Judge’s twin sister, Dympna, looks on as Father Chris Keenan (at podium) and firefighters remember her brother. Father Mychal’s jacket and helmet (on display) were found intact in the rubble six months after the attack. Photos: Octavio Duran, OFM}

Prior to 9/11, not many people knew Father Mychal Judge outside of New York City. But inside the city, he was quite the presence. And while he is most noted for his role as a chaplain of the fire department for almost 10 years, his ministries expanded well beyond.

Over the years, he was known for his daily interactions with people, offering a blessing, sending a note, or just listening. He ministered to the homeless, recovering alcoholics—of which he was one—and those suffering from AIDS, visiting them when many priests would not. It was all those interactions that made him such a powerful presence to many, say those who knew him.

“Everyone thought he was their best friend,” says Father Michael Duffy.

Falling in love is easy; staying in love takes work. Here are five practices to strengthen the bonds of marriage.

Marriage can be the most gratifying relationship in our lives—but it can also be the most challenging. Even well-matched and committed couples experience real hardship during the course of their lives: Circumstances become overwhelming, partnerships can be exhausting, and raising children elevates the stress felt by everyone.

Without reliable tools in your marital toolbox, it’s all too easy to feel resentful of and distant from the very person to whom you pledged your life. But resentment and distance do not reflect the heart of God for our marriages, and we should never resolve to settle for less than God’s deepest desire for us.

Most couples benefit from marriage counseling at some point in their lives, no matter how healthy they believe their relationships to be. But aside from the important step of seeking professional guidance, there are plenty of smaller ways we can address the challenges in married life and see our homes transformed into a place where both spouses can not only survive, but truly thrive.

1. Make Space for Personal Needs

Spotting the most obvious needs in our homes on any given day is never a hard task: Get the kids to school, buy groceries, make medical appointments, get your work done, and the list goes on. Tangible needs are easy to check off a list, and meeting them gives us a sense of accomplishment.

Taking care of daily minutiae is one thing, but it can be harder to attend to our more personal needs with the same immediacy. After all, keeping our preschoolers updated on their vaccines is a more straightforward task than, say, spending a half hour in prayer or figuring out when on earth to exercise. The demands of child-rearing, work, caring for aging parents, or just regular old life have a way of eating up most of our free time.

But when we make a habit of ignoring our own inner needs for the sake of our families, the results can be disastrous. If family life keeps us from feeling like a whole, balanced individual with a healthy mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical life, eventually we begin to place the blame on the person closest to us: our spouse.

This was the case for me a few years ago. Our marriage was limping along, and I had a pesky habit of blaming my husband, Eric, for every frustration and grievance I felt. When my spiritual director guided me to identify and voice my unmet needs, it was like a light came on in my brain. Armed with a new self-awareness, I began advocating for my own well-being rather than drowning in the needs of my family. I gradually stopped feeling resentful when my husband expressed his needs, because I had committed to communicating and prioritizing my own too.

As I learned to slow down, check in with myself, and identify what I needed to really thrive, I fell in love with my husband all over again for his commitment to helping meet my needs for time away from the kids, physical exercise, and spiritual nourishment. As is so often the case with demonstrated love, the more he responded in support for me, the more I sincerely wanted to support him too. We by no means have a perfect rhythm, but now that we are more proactive about communicating our needs and making plans to have them met, we are healthier individuals, a healthier couple, and healthier parents for our children.

2. Rethink the Division of Labor

Families these days are balancing different dynamics than in generations past: Often both parents are employed, children are involved in more extracurricular activities, and time spent with the kids is more evenly distributed between mom and dad. Still, many of us are stuck in outdated ideas about the distribution of household chores. Human nature seems to slump back into “how it’s always been done” rather than thinking outside the box about what systems might work best.

After more than a decade of cooking dinner night after night, I finally faced the fact that I had come to deplore this evening ritual. It was making me frustrated and grumpy, and I was resorting to increasingly unhealthy meals just to put something on the table. Finally, Eric and I realized this was ridiculous. He enjoys cooking and has always done it here and there when he could, but once we sat down and reimagined how to navigate the division of household labor, we realized that most nights he could tweak his schedule and make it home in time to cook. So we simply switched roles: He now does the meal preparation, and I’m now in charge of kitchen cleanup afterward.

_{‘Since change is a fact of life, a marriage can often hinge on both spouses’ willingness to evolve and grow alongside the other.’
— Shannon K. Evans —}

3. Make time to be a Couple

At my bridal shower nearly 15 years ago, the married women in attendance were invited to share advice that might be helpful as I entered into this lifelong commitment. I’m sure I was given plenty of sage advice that day, but the only thing I remember came from an aunt who had lived out a lovely marriage to my uncle for two decades and counting. Her advice was to have a date night once a month to focus on nurturing your partnership in the midst of the craziness of life and child-rearing.

Rather than humble receptivity, my reaction was more aghast. A date only once a month? Not us! We’ll be having a date night once a week, thank you very much. And we did just that—until we started having kids, when suddenly all my smug certainty flew out the window, and I saw how wise my aunt’s advice really was. It’s easy to go on regular dates when you are young and life is unrushed and carefree; but prioritizing connection and romance after years of monotony, hectic schedules, and parenting responsibilities takes a good deal of intentionality.

As is the case for many couples, date night often feels like a luxury we can’t afford. Paying a babysitter on top of dinner and a movie makes for an expensive undertaking—and that’s if we can even find a sitter who is willing to watch five kids! These days, the stars rarely align for that kind of indulgence. But Eric and I have perfected the art of the at-home date night: We put the kids to bed early, pour ourselves some grown-up drinks, and sit on the couch for thoughtful conversation followed by a good movie.

It’s no replacement for a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant—and we still like to do that here and there when we can—but carving out special time to connect in our native habitat has a special charm of its own. It reminds us in the most mundane, familiar environment that we still have that old spark: We still like each other, we still make each other laugh, we still marvel at each other’s thoughts and ideas. And it reminds us that long after the kids are grown and out of the house, we’ll still have our best friend by our side.

4. Support Each other through Change

When we take our wedding vows, most of us young and starry-eyed, we have no concept of just how long “the rest of our lives” is really going to feel. So much can shift for a couple in even one year, much less 50, and it can be scary to figure out how to change together without growing apart.

Since change is a fact of life, a marriage can often hinge on both spouses’ willingness to evolve and grow alongside the other. Marriage partners must be committed to riding the waves that come: jobs lost or promotions earned, babies born or deaths grieved, faith lost or abilities impaired. All our life experiences serve to form us into someone slightly different than the person we were at our wedding ceremony. And while change can sometimes be fun and even unitive, more often humans experience change as threatening, disorienting, even deeply painful.

Eric and I started out in marriage taking the same approach to our faith. Over the years, the way we expressed that faith began to look very different. Initially, this was confusing and even a little scary as we struggled to feel unified within our differences. We worried that we were drifting apart; we worried about what that meant for the future.

But we found that change is not the end of the story. Eventually we learned to trust each other more and to trust God’s involvement in our lives. Through that trust, along with self-discovery and open communication, we eventually came to the healthiest place we’d ever been, both individually and as a couple. We’ve found that the most important thing is not to stay exactly the same as we were when we first met, but to be willing to appreciate the ongoing discovery of the person each of us is becoming.

5. Embrace a Shared Mission

While individuality is important, our marriages will flounder if we do not also possess the deep connection and unity that come with seeking a higher purpose together. When the busyness of everyday life makes our world feel small and insular, it’s easy to get sucked into the mentality that our problems are of utmost importance. By contrast, when our marriages serve a greater good or sense of mission, we gain perspective and can see our place in the world with gratitude and purpose.

Sometimes there are seasons of life when the best we can do is simply care for the people immediately in front of us. But those seasons are not permanent, and finding ways to get involved in communities, programs, or volunteer opportunities as a couple or family can draw us closer together as we seek to build a more beautiful world.

My family does not always have a surplus of time and energy to expend outside the walls of our home. Even so, we’ve tried to prioritize serving others as best we can, whether that be community outreach to the marginalized, college student ministry at our parish, or hosting holiday gatherings for those who might be feeling lonely. Our involvement in community service has ebbed and flowed at different points over the years, but it’s always something we insist on returning to together.

Do we hope our efforts positively impact the world around us? Of course. But we also know that’s not the only measure of success. Looking outward as a couple creates a deeper bond between us and propels us to love the world that extends far beyond our little home.

Committing to a shared mission together makes our marriage more transformative—for us and for everyone we meet.

In 2022, Dan Forester (Chris Pratt), a former Green Beret and current biology teacher, gets a job at a distinguished science research laboratory. As he watches the World Cup with his 9-year-old daughter, Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), and wife, Emmy (Betty Gilpin), a catastrophic event occurs. Soldiers from 2055 arrive to draft soldiers for a global war against alien “Whitespikes” that is due to begin in 2048. His deployment is for seven days but it will seem much longer. Emmy wants Dan to seek out his estranged father, James (J.K. Simmons), a mechanical engineer who fought in Vietnam, and ask him to remove the tracking band on his arm. Instead, Dan reports for basic training.

Using a wormhole called a “jumplink,” the new soldiers, after a minimum of training, arrive in the future amid a battle over Miami. The world is about to collapse unless something can be done. Colonel Muri Forester (Yvonne Strahovski), Dan’s grown daughter, is a field commander who eventually creates a toxin that will kill the female aliens, thus eliminating the Whitespikes. Dan returns to the present, where his team realizes that the aliens did not invade recently but during a millennial explosion around 1000 CE. They were buried and then frozen under a Russian glacier, which is now melting due to global warming.

The Tomorrow War is a boring sci-fi war drama, written by Zach Dean and directed by Chris McKay. It suffers from inane dialogue and a superficial story driven by explosions and aliens that reminded me of the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. The father-daughter relationship was supposed to provide the emotional quotient, but it was awkward and trite. The theme of global war is concerning because it normalizes conflict for the sake of conflict. Though I was happy to see the theme of climate change making its way into action movies, this is the kind of film that makes you beg for better stories and screenwriters.

Not yet rated, PG-13‚ Violence, some language, gore.

Cruella

Estella Miller (Emma Stone) is the only child of Catherine (Emily Beecham). Estella is very bright and creative but can be cruel. Catherine’s nickname for her is Cruella. The girl refuses to comply at school and lashes out at the students who tease her because of her poliosis, a pigment condition that makes half of her hair white. Catherine withdraws Estella from school and takes her to London. On the way, they stop at a wealthy woman’s house to ask her for financial assistance, and Estella sees a fashion show for the first time. She also witnesses three ferocious Dalmatians push her mother over a cliff to her death.

Estella makes friends with Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) in London, and they become thieves to survive. Cruella dyes her hair to better blend into a crowd. Later her friends get her a job as a cleaner at a fashion house owned by the baroness (Emma Thompson), and Cruella manages to get promoted as a designer and win her mentor’s trust. But when Cruella notices that the baroness is wearing her mother’s necklace, she realizes that she is responsible for her death. By creating havoc and competition at the baroness’ fashion shows, Cruella vows to get her revenge and learn the truth about who she is.

Cruella is a dark comedy based on characters created by Dodie Smith in her 1956 novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians. It is meant to be Cruella de Vil’s backstory, but it may surprise some who won’t expect a revenge-driven story from Disney, a studio that has made billions on tales of delightful orphans trying to make it in the world. I like both Stone and Thompson in the film—they play off each other well. A psychological workup of the key characters would be interesting. Perhaps a sequel to this film will show us another side to this character.

A-3, PG-13‚ Violence, revenge, murder, thievery, attempted infanticide.

Land

Robin Wright, in her feature film directorial debut, plays the lead role of Edee, a woman who has suffered great loss and wants to live alone. She purchases a huge piece of property in the Wyoming wilderness and begins to live off the land and the meager provisions she brings with her.

After a near-death experience from exposure, she becomes friendly with Miguel (Demián Bichir), the hunter who found her dehydrated and disoriented. He promises to come back in the spring and teach her to plant and in the winter to teach her to hunt. After a year or two, Miguel asks her to tend his dog because he will be away for a while. Months later, she leaves her hermitage to look for him.

The stunning cinematography of Land creates a contemplative space for this study in contrasts about people dealing with grief: how a rich White woman copes with it by running away and isolating herself, and how a Native American man negotiates grief and regret within his family and culture.

A-3, PG-13‚ Some peril.

As I watched my country cope with such grave trauma over the ensuing weeks and months, I felt simultaneously proud of the American spirit and newly fearful of Muslim people. Those were confusing times; many of us likely experienced prejudices and fears that we are not proud to admit.

Twenty years later, I understand just how painfully common it has been throughout history for one religion to do harm to another—Christianity included. How do we overcome fear and hatred of those who are different? Scripture tells us that perfect love drives out fear. There is not much action that most of us can take on the world stage, but we do have control over how we live our personal lives. In our own spheres, are we choosing to build bridges or walls? Are we being peacemakers in the spirit of St. Francis, who risked his life to befriend the sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil, during the Crusades? Or are we spreading further fear and division by refusing to focus on our common humanity?

Mystery of God

Since 9/11, I have attempted to educate myself on religions that differ from my own to combat the negative stereotypes and fears that arose from that tragedy. I’ve done this by seeking to learn about other faiths from people who sincerely practice them. The truth is that God is not exclusive: No single tradition or culture can communicate the entire mystery of God to the human spirit.

We Christians have an unfortunate tendency to assume we don’t need the perspective of anyone else, but that’s not true. Many of our beloved spiritual writers and thinkers formed their ideas through dialoguing with other religions or through secular philosophy.

I’ve heard it said that trying to understand God is like feeling an elephant while blindfolded. One person will describe a tail, another a trunk, another a leg—and all the descriptions are true! But they only accurately reflect the elephant when they are put together. When we take each other’s experiences of God into account, we are left with a picture of the divine that is truer to the mystery of the whole.

We need each other’s experience and wisdom. We gain so much by listening—and we only miss out when we write one another off as ignorant or heretical. All people are made in the image of God, and so all the ways we seek a relationship with God are beautiful and sacred. When interfaith listening is done with an open mind and genuine desire for spiritual growth, it can be a deeply enriching practice in the Christian life.

Fruits of the Holy Spirit

When we seek to know and understand those of other faiths, it becomes more natural to pray for them. Praying for peaceful relations between differing religions has enormous consequences in people’s lives. Christians have a responsibility to pray for religious leaders around the world—to dialogue and relate with one another. Our prayers for world peace must begin with prayers for peace between religions.

Additionally, our personal prayer life can benefit from interfaith experiences because they can unlock our spiritual imaginations. We all know the feeling of a dry soul; sometimes hearing a new vernacular and encountering different approaches to prayer can serve as a glass of water in the desert.

When our imagination grows stale and our relationship with God feels at a standstill, the curiosity piqued by new ways of seeing the divine can offer us new tools for the journey. Prayer might just become wondrous again.

And in making room in our hearts for different ways that others reach for God, we are likely to notice the Holy Spirit’s expansion of our ability to keep the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. As we honor the spiritual expression of others, we often find more mercy in our hearts. Instead of labeling others “wrong,” we find the fruit of the Holy Spirit at work in our world views and relationships. This, too, is building our prayer life. In fact, could anything be more of a testament to growth in prayer than experiencing increased love for others?

Harmony through Dialogue

Dear God,
I know you reveal yourself
to all people. Help me
honor my fellow humans
on their faith journeys,
knowing that doing so
deepens my own spirituality.
May the religious leaders
of the world dialogue
with one another in a spirit
of love and unity.
Amen.

My visit to this popular saint’s tomb deepened my appreciation for his life.

A few years ago, 14 pilgrims and I visited the tomb of Saint Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy. In this small town on a barren mountainside, Padre Pio in 1917 began an assignment at the Capuchin Friary and Church of Our Lady of Grace. There he remained until his death on September 23, 1968.

During those decades, many dramatic things happened at that Franciscan friary and church. On September 20, 1918, Padre Pio received the stigmata while making his thanksgiving after Mass in front of a crucifix in the friary choir loft overlooking the inside of the church.

As the story of this event spread, thousands of people began arriving by busload to attend his Masses or to confess their sins to this devout Capuchin friar known to have the gift of “reading souls.” Reports of remarkable healings performed by Padre Pio also began to circulate throughout the region and beyond, and continued to do so throughout the saint’s life—and after his death.

Padre Pio’s Shrine Expands

When our pilgrimage bus rolled into this greatly expanded town, we encountered a very different Church of Our Lady of Grace (Santa Maria delle Grazie) than Padre Pio knew. For one thing, our group did not see the small façade of the simple church, with which Padre Pio was very familiar in his early years there. Instead, we saw a new and greatly enlarged façade and structure that now houses both the “old church” that Padre Pio knew and a much larger “new church” built to accommodate the ever-growing number of pilgrims coming to attend Padre Pio’s Masses in his later years.

And now, a huge new Church of Saint Pio stands behind and a bit below the enlarged structure. It is able to hold 7,000 people within its walls. And the outdoor plaza alongside it can hold thousands more.

House for the Relief of Suffering

To the front and right of the enlarged structure (containing the two churches) is a huge five-story hospital gleaming brightly in the sun. This hospital, known as the House for the Relief of Suffering, has 350 beds and was a dream of Padre Pio from early on. In 1940, Padre Pio and two doctors came up with the idea of constructing such a hospital. Work began in 1947, and the hospital was already in operation in 1954. It continues to thrive as a highly respected medical facility.

This hospital, more than anything else, convinces many people of the spiritual balance of Padre Pio. Even though he is credited with performing more than a thousand miraculous cures over the years, he remained committed to building this hospital. This House for the Relief of Suffering suggests to the world that God’s everyday way of bringing about healing is through the skills of doctors and nurses, as well as through the support and care of community, family and friends.

Big Changes at Padre Pio’s Tomb

A central feature of Saint Padre Pio’s shrine today is, of course, his tomb. When we visited this tomb in the crypt of the Church of Our Lady of Grace, we found it often surrounded by groups of pilgrims. They were coming there to pray for personal favors or for the healing of loved ones. But not long after our visit, dramatic changes began to take place at Padre Pio’s tomb.

Archbishop Domenico D’Ambrosio, papal delegate for the shrine of Padre Pio, announced that the saint’s body would be exhumed, studied and later displayed for public veneration. According to Catholic News Service, the archbishop revealed that “he and the Capuchin friars of Padre Pio’s community had decided it was important to verify the condition of the saint’s body and find a way to ensure its preservation.” The archbishop also explained that the Capuchins, with Vatican approval, “have authorized the exposition and public veneration of the saint’s body for several months beginning in mid-April.”

According to Catholic News Service, Archbishop D’Ambrosio presided over the exhumation of the body of Padre Pio in a service that began at 10 p.m. and ended more than two hours later. A statement, released the next day, said the body of the saint was in “fair condition.” The archbishop told reporters that the saint’s hands were well preserved and “looked like they had just had a manicure.” He also said that the saint’s feet were clearly visible; the Capuchins traditionally are buried barefoot.

The Catholic News Service story also noted, “The Capuchins of San Giovanni Rotondo, who were represented at the exhumation, said the skull and parts of the upper body showed serious signs of decay,” which was blamed on humidity in the coffin.

Padre Pio’s remains were then moved to a room set up in the adjacent Capuchin convent where he lived for many years. Technicians worked to preserve and reconstruct the corpse of Padre Pio. The archbishop and the Capuchins hired the London-based Gems Studio, which makes lifelike sculpted figures for museums, to create a silicone mask—including a short mustache and ample beard—for the saint’s body.

Cardinal Saraiva Martins, prefect for the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, celebrated Mass at San Giovanni Rotondo before officially unveiling the new, crystal tomb in which Padre Pio has been reburied. Since then the exhumed body of Padre Pio has lain in a glass sepulchre in the crypt of the saint’s shrine—the same crypt in which his remains had been kept for 40 years. His body will remain there on display for public viewing at least until late September, but perhaps for as long as a year before the crystal will be covered.

A Special Crucifix and Other Features

Elsewhere in the shrine millions of visitors come each year and view the many items on exhibit. Pilgrims can contemplate the historic crucifix before which Padre Pio was praying when he received the stigmata on his hands, feet and side. Another significant exhibit for the visitors’ interest is the friary room or cell, now enclosed by glass, where Padre Pio lived, slept and prayed for many years.

There are many other interesting items and memorabilia laid out for exhibit in the corridors of the shrine, such as photos of Padre Pio, his parents and others. Visitors can also see, for instance, an old confessional where, hour after hour, Padre Pio heard confessions and gave spiritual advice to the thousands who sought it.

After our bus pulled away from Padre Pio’s shrine and the town of San Giovanni Rotondo, I began to ask myself: What are visitors supposed to learn from the life of a saint—indeed, from this “unusual” mystic, whom the whole world knows as Padre Pio?

Of course, we could say that Padre Pio’s main focus was no different from that of any thoughtful Christian—namely, a focus on the great love that God reveals to us through the passion and death of Jesus Christ. We are very familiar with the central formula of our faith proclaimed at the Eucharist: “Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the savior of the world.”

Among the people of God, however, we all know there are different levels of sensitivity to God’s love and goodness. Saints like Padre Pio and Saint Francis of Assisi might appreciate and respond to God’s gift of overflowing love in very dramatic ways.

On the other hand, other people may respond to the mystery of God’s love in ways that seem more ordinary. Yet, even these more ordinary people may encounter powerful moments of blessing (a wonderful prayer experience) and of crisis (serious illness or challenge). These moments may be very intense and dramatic—and they can bring us very close to the loving presence of God. And our faith tells us we are never far away from the love of God.

The Stigmata

Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) is widely considered the first Christian stigmatic. Franciscans certainly turn to this saint to help them understand what meaning the passion of Christ had in Saint Francis’ life and that of his followers.

Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), the renowned Franciscan theologian, mystic and spiritual writer, is a great help in this regard. When Saint Bonaventure, in hisLife of Saint Francis, describes the scene on Mount La Verna where Francis received the stigmata, he does so in the context of God’s overflowing love for Francis. Bonaventure relates that Francis, two years before his death, went to Mount La Verna around the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14). He went there to ponder the mystery of Christ’s passion. Bonaventure frequently uses images of fire and flames to describe the intensity of both Francis’ love and that of the crucified Christ, who communicates his love to Francis in a fiery manner.

Bonaventure writes that, as Saint Francis pondered Christ’s sufferings on Mount La Verna, his “unquenchable fire of love for the Good Jesus [was] fanned into such a blaze of flames that many waters could not quench so powerful a love” (see Song of Songs 8:6-7).

It was a short time after this that Bonaventure describes the scene of Francis receiving the stigmata: “Francis saw a Seraph [angel] with six fiery and shining wings descend from the heights of heaven. And when the Seraph [came near] the man of God, there appeared between [the Seraph’s] wings the figure of a man crucified, with his hands and feet extended [as if] fastened to a cross….

“When Francis saw this, he was overwhelmed with a mixture of joy and sorrow. Francis felt joy because of the gracious way Christ looked upon him, but the fact that Jesus was fastened to a cross pierced his soul with a sword of compassionate sorrow” (see Luke 2:35).

It was at this moment that Francis received the stigmata— the five wounds of Christ. The “fiery and shining wings” of the Seraph, as depicted by Bonaventure, suggest the flaming intensity of God’s love, which the crucified Christ was pouring forth from his loving heart into Francis.

Saint Padre Pio (1887-1968), closer to our times, is the most universally known Franciscan—and Christian, for that matter—to bear the marks of Christ.

Though ordinary people by the thousands sensed the holiness of this Capuchin mystic and considered him a living saint, Padre Pio was nevertheless much maligned during a large part of this life. He was often despised and mistrusted by envious priests, by some members of his own Capuchin community and by many top officials of the Roman Catholic Church. Many wrote him off as a self-seeking fraud. As a result, Padre Pio suffered greatly, yet complained little.

In the end, he was vindicated and exonerated by history and by the canonization process, which ultimately declared him a saint. Saint Padre Pio’s canonization ceremony in 2002 drew 300,000 people to Vatican City, filling Saint Peter’s Square and nearby streets.

Padre Pio’s personality and life experience in many ways differ from that of Francis. But like Francis—especially as portrayed in the writings of Bonaventure—the spiritual writings of Padre Pio are often filled with images and expressions of fire and flames and all-consuming love. These images tie Padre Pio intimately to the spiritual tradition of Saint Francis and Saint Bonaventure. Consider these passages from letters that Padre Pio wrote to his spiritual directors:

“I feel my heart and my inmost being completely absorbed by the mounting flames of an immense fire….While my soul experiences an atrocious agony caused by the flames that I have described, it is filled at the same time by an exceeding sweetness which calls forth immense love of God….

“Sometimes at the altar my whole being burns in an indescribable manner. My face, in particular, seems to go on fire.” Padre Pio speaks further of “this ever active volcano, which burns me up and which Jesus has placed in this very small heart. It can all be summed up as follows: I am consumed by love for God and love for my neighbor.”

Timeline of Padre Pio

1887: Francesco Forgione is born in Pietrelcina in southern Italy.

1903: Francesco enters Capuchin novitiate in Morcone, Italy, and takes the name of Brother Pio.

1910: Brother Pio is ordained a priest in the Cathedral of Benevento near Pietrelcina.

1916-17: Padre Pio goes to Naples for national service but is sent back to the friars because of poor health. After some months of rest, he returns to Naples only to be discharged from the army because of worsening health problems.

1917: Padre Pio begins his long stay at the Capuchin friary at San Giovanni Rotondo.

1918: Padre Pio receives the stigmata, visible signs of Christ’s passion. He has them until his death.

1968: At age 81, Padre Pio dies in his room at San Giovanni Rotondo at 2:30 a.m. His last words are, “Jesus, Mary! Jesus, Mary!” Over 100,000 people attend Padre Pio’s funeral (September 26) in San Giovanni Rotondo.

1990: Padre Pio is beatified by Pope John Paul II.

2002: Padre Pio is canonized by Pope John Paul II.

Learn more about Padre Pio!