The Prayer Groups in Gozo gathered recently at Our Lady of Graces in Victoria to commemorate the birthday of their founder, Saint Pio of Pietrelcina.
Knowing the fact that Padre Pio expressed his wish in 1905 to the General Provincial, Fr Bernardo D’Andermatt, to do missionary work in foreign countries and knowing that this request was refused because of Padre Pio’s ill health, members thought it fit to mark the occasion by presenting a donation to Fr Joe Alessandro, Provincial of the Capuchin’s Friars, to help two seminarians of the Capuchin Friars in Kenya.
Also, this gesture adheres completely to one of the five basic principles found in the statute of the Prayer Groups, namely, “generosity and self-sacrifice in undertaking works of charity for the suffering and the needy, as a practical demonstration of the love of God” – a binomial, prayer and charity, God and neighbour.
Prayer Groups of Padre Pio were formed in the winter of 1942, when Pope Pius XII launched an appeal for Christian people to gather and pray together for peace. Padre Pio urged his spiritual sons to respond to the call of the Vicar of Christ. This original response given to the appeal of the Pope has marked for ever the character of the ‘spiritual’ network: Prayer, as the statute states is “with the Church, through the Church and in the Church.” The Prayer Groups have had the ‘House for the Relief of Suffering’ as their organising centre since then.
At the end of the ceremony, a group photo was taken on the parvis of the Sanctuary.
Photo by Charles Spiteri shows members of the Saint Pio of Pietrelcina Prayer Groups in Gozo on the parvis of the Sanctuary.