My Personal Devotion

>Calendar / Contact Us / Light a Virtual Candle / Join

Greetings everyone, my name is Pia Viselli-Ramadanovic and I am the President of the St. Padre Pio Society of Bridgeport, Connecticut. I am a strong advocate of the teachings of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina and would like to take a moment of your time to tell you why I love this man and saint as well as to share some personal experiences that have changed my life because of his intercessions.

Growing up in an Italian home and having had the privilege of knowing my grandparents and my great-grandmother Lucia, stories about Padre Pio were often times the topic of conversation during many Sunday gatherings. At the time, I was still in my teens and really didn’t know much about this “Saint of the 20th Century” yet for some unknown reason I found myself drawn to him. Was it his name whose spiritual namesake I follow, or was it something deeper? Many years would pass before I realized why I held a strong devotion towards this Saint and intercessor to our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Mother.

Padre Pio bore the stigmata for over 50 years while enduring the struggles for all mankind. This in itself is a captivating story. Through the power of prayer and the recitation of the rosary many miracles occurred during his lifetime and after death. All of us have our crosses to bear and mine are not unique. For me, praying to St. Padre Pio has lessened to some extent the burden of some very personal and challenging struggles in my life. I have never spoken about this privately or publicly, but now feel the time is right for me share with you what I witnessed firsthand and believe the outcome to be, a direct result of the miracle of prayer through the intercession of St. Padre Pio.

In 1999, my dear father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Dementia. The entire family endured many hardships because of this illness but we never wavered and did what was called of us. We listened to the doctors and prayed incessantly. As a result of both, he recovered albeit it being for a short time. This was cause to celebrate! So, we went to Italy and made a special trip to San Giovanni Rotondo to offer thanks to Padre Pio. Once there, we were instantly transformed. Padre Pio’s presence was everywhere and our spirits soared. We were among the lucky ones whose prayers were answered. But we were also mindful that God’s Will Be Done because my dad relapsed in 2002. Despite our hopefulness, we knew in our hearts that this time dad would not recover and so for three tireless months, as he lay in a semi-conscious state unable to eat or speak, we prayed for our strength and his well being. What's more I placed a prayer card of Padre Pio under his pillow alongside a photo of his beloved grandchildren. I cried and prayed interchangeably. At times there were glimmers of hope but in reality it was all a prelude to the inevitable.

One day as my mom and I made our daily pilgrimage to the hospital, I was overcome at the sight of a beautiful young girl who lay in a hospital bed in the next cubical next door to my dad’s. She was motionless with tubes permeating her entire body. She was all but 17 years old and had been in a very serious car accident. She was in a coma and her family was inconsolable. I watched as her anguished mother gently caressed and kissed her face, while her dad read passages of a favorite book. I couldn’t help but cry. When I asked the attending nurse about the girl’s prognosis I was told it was hopeless. My heart ached for this family and in that moment I seemed to forget about my own tribulations. I reached inside my purse for a handkerchief and found instead another Padre Pio prayer card. I kept an extra prayer card with my great-grandmothers rosary beads. I didn’t know this family or what faith they practiced except that I felt a strong desire to reach out to them. I motioned to the nurse if it would be all right to speak to one of the family members and the girl’s mother greeted me. We exchanged a brief and compassionate dialogue after which I asked for her permission to pray for her daughter’s recovery. I then gave her the Padre Pio prayer card and told her to place it under her daughter’s pillow and pray for his intercession. She was captivated and extremely grateful. That was last time I saw them. A few weeks later when my dad was moved out of ICU to another room until his final days, I came across the same attending nurse and asked about the young girl. She was overjoyed because the girl had come out of her coma and sent to a rehabilitation facility for an expected full recovery. I too was overcome with joy. I immediately went to the hospital chapel and wept while giving thanks to Padre Pio for his intercession.

Thank you for taking the time to read my personal devotion story. I hope that sharing my experience will in some way inspire people to open up their hearts to the message of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Prayer is a powerful tool. God wants us to pray. The Blessed Mother wants us to pray. And in the words of Padre Pio himself, “To my spiritual children, my prayers for you will never be lacking”. God Bless You.