Padre Pio: “You are now to be especially devoted to Our Lady of Knock”
In the 1960s, Padre Pio told one of his Irish disciples that the time had come for him to honor Our Lady of Knock in a special way and that he was to lead as many people as possible to her. Pio’s disciple immediately started organizing pilgrimages and took busloads of people to the Marian shrine in the West of Ireland. When he made known what Pio had said, the number of pilgrims dramatically multiplied and the buses were always full to bursting and people organized carpools.
The word “Knock” is the English translation of “Cnoc Muire”, which translates from the Gaelic as “Our Lady’s Hill”. This little hamlet of rocky ground in the wind-blasted West coast of the Emerald Isle was where Our Lady came on August 21, 1879. On that evening, Our Lady appeared before 15 ordinary Irish people who recited the Rosary for two hours. Rain gushed down the whole time. According to their testimonies, the witnesses were all in total agreement that Our Lady was life size, hovered two feet above the ground clothed in a brilliant white robe that fastened at the neck and reached her ankles. Her hands were raised to the height of her shoulders – they were joined in prayer – and her eyes were turned towards heaven. She was ecstatically beautiful. On her head was a coruscating crown of dazzling yellow gold, and a rose of darker gold was at the center and the top parts of the crown had sparkling crosses.
At Our Lady’s right hand was St. Joseph, his beard was sprinkled with gray hairs and his head was bent respectfully towards Mary and his hands were joined in prayer. To the left of Mary was St. John the Evangelist, or “John the Beloved” who was dressed as a bishop with a miter. He held in his left hand an open Book of Gospels while his right was raised as if he was giving a blessing and was turned towards an altar that was behind him, it was a plainly clothed altar and on it rested a tiny Lamb, of about five weeks old, and the Face of the Lamb was facing the west, looking right at Mary and Joseph. Around the Lamb appeared a circle of gold stars like a halo. Behind the Lamb was a large cross, and angels circled the Lamb, their wings fluttering. The apparitions took place at the gable wall of the parish church. Later, the people ate little pieces of that wall, feeling that Our Lady’s presence had bathed it. It has been said to me that they ate tiny bits of the grass under the spot Our Lady hovered. Regrettably, it was not unusual for the times for the people to succumb to eating grass, especially if, like so many, they were starving (and dying) in the famine caused by the potato crop failure. My grandmother told me of the “green mouths”, the people who had as a last resort taken to gorging on grass.
At the time the parish priest, Archdeacon Cavanagh, had just finished offering a hundred Holy Masses for the repose of the souls of the recently departed. Archdeacon Cavanagh was not present for the apparitions; he was visiting a sick person. But later he found out that Mary, Joseph and John the Beloved had been totally silent. No words were spoken by Mary, Joseph or the Disciple whom Jesus loved. Not one message or secret given. The only sound was the people reciting the Rosary with utmost conviction.
It has been said to me that perhaps the heavenly visitors were silent because the people would have been too dim-witted or uneducated to understand. Yes, the Irish, long treated as the slow child of Europe, and lacking the essential potato that was their staple food were treated as one chromosome from a potato. But whatever their intellectual standing, they had the Faith and knew to kneel before the Queen of Heaven. They had remained dedicated to prayer even when the deepest desires of their heart had been denied and loved ones, the little ones and the old had dropped dead. They also had an eminently holy parish priest who led them in reverence by way of example.
Why Our Lady of Knock Now?
At this point, we need ask ourselves why did Padre Pio, at least 85 years after the Knock apparitions stress so strongly the importance of being devoted to Our Lady of Knock “now”? As I’ll explain, I believe it is the Marian Shrine for people who are already confirmed in their love of Our Lady and her role in our salvation but are being called to go from holy to holier still. Let’s start with the man to whom Pio gave this insight – Donal Enright – an intrepid Irishman from County Cork, Ireland who used go as often as humanly possible to San Giovanni Rotondo. He helped certain few of the penitents who came in and out of Padre Pio’s confessional. He was happily married with five children and a red-headed wife. Pio entrusted Donal with shepherding and befriending the hard cases, the people who had often been refused absolution because they lacked true contrition and/or wanted Pio to say their wayward way of living was just fine and dandy, and generally resistant to personal conversion. Donal accompanied men who’d cheated on their wives, post-abortion women, the drug-addicted and quite a few women who had been about to have abortions, but who did not go through with it because Padre Pio appeared to them in bi-location and commanded them not to abort. Cases like these are an integral part of my book, Padre Pio and You. Something I did not mention in the book is that Padre Pio – after his death in 1968 – appeared to women in the 1970s who were on the operating table about to abort and he commanded them to leave. Donal knew these ladies who, per Pio’s order, gave birth to their babies and went to San Giovanni Rotondo to pray at Pio’s tomb and give their thanks. So, in essence, Donal remained both an advocate for Pio and his fellow spiritual children in the decades after the stigmatist went to the Lord.
When Pio lived, Donal worked extremely hard, he faithfully executed every task given him by Pio, some orders given telepathically and some given verbally and he had put in 14-hour days, and he said countless rosaries a day, as well as being in his own words, “a slave to Our Lady”. But after some years of serving Pio, at the end of one trip to San Giovanni Rotondo, Pio commanded Donal, “Go to Knock!” Donal was caught off guard, he had been to Knock before, but Our Lady of Knock was not often in his thoughts, which is something Pio sought to correct. When Donal looked baffled, Pio asked in his rhetorical way, “You’re Irish aren’t you?” Then he repeated, “Go to Knock! Love Our Lady of Knock, make her loved!” Furthermore, Pio strengthened Donal’s will by telling him the time had come, “You are now to be especially devoted to Our Lady of Knock”
Padre Pio gave Donal a side mission – this was not to take the place of Donal’s official duties as a disciple who came to San Giovanni often to help distressed penitents – but Pio asked Donal to make pilgrimages to Knock and take as many people as possible, and Donal was first to spread love of Our Lady of Knock among his fellow Irish. This needs to resound in the ears of everyone of Irish blood, no matter where they find themselves in the world. If we do not honor the apparitions that took place on our land and the land of our forefathers, how do we expect people of other races to honor it? But perish the thought if we think it is only for the Irish. We’re merely meant to make it known and go forth by our modest attempts. Pio was full-blooded Italian and himself expressed a love of Our Lady of Knock to Donal. Though he never left his native Italy by the usual means, Pio had been a pilgrim to Knock. Pio made known he had gone to Knock by means of bilocation – Pio had been present in his monastery in Southern Italy – and in the West of Ireland simultaneously. Yet, Pio waited ‘til his disciple, Donal had grown sufficiently in holiness and charity before making him an emissary of Our Lady of Knock where she appeared alongside John the Beloved. Only the holiest can approach the Book of Revelation, written by John the Beloved, which concerns the End Times. It is fitting that John the Beloved came to a humble people who did not have advanced degrees in theology, had not written books and could not take part in debates about eschatology. So much havoc has been wreaked by the “smart people” who think they can make judgments on the Book of Revelation and order other people to fall in line. When the first requirement for reading it is humility, deference to Mother Church and a will to be led by those who can interpret Holy Scripture soundly and humbly. As a young woman, I was hurt by a troubled young man who I would not date, and he said I reminded him of the Beast from the Book of Revelation. Only years later did I think to tell him that I only date my own species.
I was born and grew up in Ireland, and Knock was the first major Marian shrine I visited. And even after I had finished Padre Pio and You, I still had to work hard to do as Pio led Donal and be especially devoted to Our Lady of Knock. But there is a time for everything under heaven. And my love of Our Lady of Knock is growing in tandem with my slow study of the Book of Revelation. Truly, the silent witness of John the Beloved on that stony, rain-logged Irish ground, will stand in the minds of those who will live through that which he prophesized and they will be called to be as the witnesses at Knock, to kneel and pray.
I wish everyone a blessed and joyful feast of Our Lady of Knock on August 17 and a day of great graces on the anniversary of her appearing there on August 21. Please consider reading and reviewing Padre Pio and You, available at Sophia Institute Press.
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Statue_of_Our_Lady_Knock_Shrine.jpg
