The
book Words
of Light: Inspiration From the Letters of Padre Pio was
released at the end of February of this year. This book is edited by
Father Raniero Cantalamessa who is also a Franciscan Capuchin lke St.
Pio and of course Fr. Cantalamessa continues to be the preacher to the
papal household.

Previous editions of this book
 have been released in Italian and the
recent edition is by Paraclete Press.  After the very good
introduction by Fr. Cantalamessa we get a very brief biography off
Padre Pio and his life.  The thrust of the book though are his
letters and we end up getting a biography of St. Pio’s interior life. I
had previously heard that during his lifetime at one point he was
receiving more letters than anybody else living at that time and it is
quite obvious that he wrote quite a large number of letters to people
giving spiritual advice.

What Fr. Cantalamessa has done with this
book is to select portions of St. Pio’s letters and to divide them up
by topic into various chapters.  By doing this we get a very
good idea of the type of advice he gave and about his deep prayer life.
 The dark night of the soul is quite evident in his letters to
his spiritual director and to other priests and when you combine this
with the spiritual and physical attacks by Demons you can see just how
stark his sufferings were.  Like the Cur of Ars, St. John
Vianney. who also poured himself out in the confessional and suffered
similar attacks we see a life of pure faith.  That even as he
cries out in suffering he is crying out to the person of Christ, Mary,
and the saints.

Many of the segments of letters written in
some of the earlier chapters lets you feel to some extent the torments
that he suffered.  There are many tensions in what he
describes.  Like St. Paul there is the driving desire to be in
Heaven while at the same time to be totally obedient in using his time
on earth to save souls.  For him Fiat is a continuous living
of his live. The love of Christ and love of neighbor is so evident in
St. Pio as it is with all saints, but you get to look into his though
process on this to a greater extent than we can with most saints.
 Much of what he has written in his letters reminds me also of
the struggles that Blessed Mother Teresa also wen through and I find it
rather interesting that so much was made of her dark night of the soul
in the press and nothing as far as I am aware of was mentioned about
this in regards to St. Pio.

Though there is so much more to this saint
than the behind the scenes torment and total faith despite
deprivations.  I found the letters that referenced Mary to be
quite beautiful, for example this one snippet. “May she who entered the
world without stain, obtain for us from her Son the grace to leave the
world without fault.”  The chapter on letters in reference to
his spiritual direction show the wonderful effects of his deep prayer
life and the encouragement he would give others.

So often when we hear of St. Pio it is
focused on things like his stigmata and the supernatural events
surrounding his life such as bilocation.  It is quite moving
to see the supernatural movements of grace in his spiritual life that
directly lead to him helping so many towards repentance and growing in
grace.  Fr. Cantalamessa selection of segments of letters
helps you to get a much better of St. Pio the person.  I
certainly recommend this book to anybody interested in Padre Pio.

This being the 150th anniversary of
the apparition in Lourdes of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette,
Paulist Press commissioned Elizabeth Ficocelli to do a book covering
Lourdes – Lourdes:
Font of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The author
found that while there was a wealth of books on
the
saint and Lourdes in other languages, that there were not that many in
English.

This book is not just another biography on
Saint Bernadette, but goes much farther. The first three chapters do an
excellent job of going over Bernadette Soubirous early life and the
history and circumstances of the time along with a nicely detailed
description of the apparition and the reaction by Bernadette and the
towns people.  You get easily drawn into the times and the
reactions both positive and negative that occurred. Also covered is her
life in the convent and just how accurate was the Virgin Mary telling
her “I cannot promise you happiness in this life, only in the next.”

A subsequent chapter covers the growing
coverage on Lourdes and some of the battled between various authors
documenting the events and the errors that cropped up. I found this
chapter highly ironic for those covering the life of the saint were
quite willing to expose the errors of other authors while never
correcting there own.

The next two major sections of the book
cover the start of the pilgrimages to Lourdes, Bernadette’s
canonization, miracles both physical and spiritual, and the reality of
Lourdes today.  One thing I really liked about the book was
that it was pitch perfect in its theological descriptions.  It
contained one of the best descriptions of canonization and sainthood
that I have read and even got the detail right that papal canonization
are in fact infallible. Throughout the book this same attention to
detail is quite evident.

Another aspect of the book I enjoyed was
the descriptions of Lourdes today and the large number of volunteers
that help make possible the throngs of pilgrims who visit possible in
the first place.  Since a large number of people who visit
Lourdes have physical disabilities a lot of care and attention is
needed and these volunteers certainly see there work as a sacred
responsibility and as a service to Christ himself.  These
chapters also cover some of the authenticated miracles in the history
of Lourdes along with an explanation of the extremely thorough process
for recognition and why only a relatively few number of miracles are
recognized.  Also covered are spiritual conversions at Lourdes
and while these would not be considered officially by the Church as
miracles, they are obvious examples of God’s grace.  While the
large majority who go to Lourdes will not experience a physical
healing, there are quite a number of spiritual healings that occur
there and of course sometimes there are both physical and spiritual
healings.  One interview of a person who was healed and his
healing recognized as one of the authenticated cures is quite
interesting in that he had pretty much given up hope and that his
brother was the one who brought him to Lourdes.  He now brings
pilgrims to Lourdes everywhere himself.

The is really quite an excellent book even
for those who are quite familiar with St. Bernadette’s biography and
even includes an excellent introduction by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR
where he say he owes much to his recovery after the accident to Our
Lady of Lourdes.  Normally I am quite skeptical to books put
out by Paulist Press, but I have zero qualms over this one and highly
recommend it.