Padre Pio and American Servicemen

General Bernardo Rosini of the United Air Command reported that:

“Each time that the pilots returned from their missions, they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back. Everyone was talking about these incredible stories. But since the episodes kept recurring, the Commanding General of USAF General Nathan F. Twining, who happened to be in Bari, decided to pilot himself a squadron of bombers to destroy a target near San Giovanni Rotondo. When he and his pilots were in the vicinity of the target, they saw the figure of a monk with upraised hands appear in the sky. The bombs got loose from the plains falling in open areas, and the planes made a sharp turn to return to base without the pilots intervening. Back on the ground, everybody asked everybody else about the happening and wanted to know who was that friar. The General was told about Padre Pio and decided to visit him with the pilots in that squadron. The pilots immediately recognized Padre Pio, and he told the general: ‘So you are the one that wanted to destroy everything.'” The general became a friend of Padre Pio.

Infallible Catholic, Padre Pio on Bilocation, April 23, 2012

The Feast Day of St. Pio of Pietrelcina is September 23. You can read more about the incident of the “flying monk” here:

Research provided by author Frank Rega about Padre Pio, The Examiner, May 9, 2011

In adulthood Cadoc refused to take charge of his father’s army, “preferring to fight for Christ”. He founded his first monastery at Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan, and from there he went to Ireland to study for three years. Returning to Wales, he studied with Bachan, a teacher of rhetoric from Italy. He then travelled to Scotland where he founded a monastery at Cambuslang. Back at Llancarfan, his influence helped it to grow into one of the chief monasteries in South Wales.

Catholic.Org

His Feast Day is September 25.

St. Vincent Strambi, 1745 – 1824

In 1809, Napoleon issued a decree annexing Macerata as part of the French Empire. Despite orders from the French to have this decree read in all churches, Vincent refused. In a similar action, he also refused to provide the French with a list of all the men in his diocese who would be suitable for military service. In September 1808, Vincent was placed under arrest for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the French invaders and was then exiled to Mantua.

His Feast Day is September 25.

TOWARDS the end of the reign of Licinius, on a Friday, in September, in the year 642 from the death of Alexander the Great, that is, of Christ 318, a persecution was raised at Philippi, not the city so called in Macedon, which was at that time comprised in the empire of Constantine, but that called Philippopolis, anciently Eumolpias, in Thrace. Agrippa, the prefect, on a certain festival of Apollo, had commanded that the whole city should offer a great sacrifice with him. Theodota, who had been formerly a harlot, was accused of refusing to conform, and being called upon by the president, answered him, that she had indeed been a grievous sinner, but could not add sin to sin, nor defile herself with a sacrilegious sacrifice. Her constancy encouraged seven hundred and fifty men (who were, perhaps, some troop of soldiers) to step forth, and professing themselves Christians, to refuse to join in the sacrifice.

Blessed Pica Bernardone | Saint of the Day | AmericanCatholic.org

“What a tightrope Pica walked! Her son and her husband were hopelessly at odds. She watched her boy [St. Francis of Assisi] ride off to war with a pain familiar to too many mothers. And when he returned with his dreams of glory shattered, she surely worried about him. When he rejected his father’s wealth—indeed, his father himself—part of her surely rejoiced, for it was she who had tried to teach him that there are more important things in the world than earthly glory. Still, the rift between father and son must have continued to grieve her. She is surely a friend to any parent who suffers the same perplexing difficulty.”