Viginti Tres - More Instances

Yesterday, I found the used bookstore in West Chester and wandered on in. I found myself in the religious book section, and noticed a book on Padre Pio, the Catholic saint who received the Stigmata, so I brought it and several other books up to the cashier, a sweet and kind elderly woman who was evidently religious herself.

“Padre Pio?” she half-questioned, half exclaimed.

“What of him?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a shrine to him in this area of the US, you know. You head towards Atlantic City, and take some roads until you come to it. There’s always someone there”.

“What’s the shrine about?” I queried.

“It’s a shrine. People are healed there” she said.

So I looked it up just now, and here is what I found:

http://www.padrepioshrine.org/history.htm

Landisville, NJ is a small farming town located in the heart of New Jersey’s farmland. The town of Landisville consisted of predominantly Italian decedents who were mainly engaged in farming. It seems only fitting, that Italy’s beloved modern day Saint, who was born and raised on a farm in a small town of Pietrelcina, Italy, would have a Shrine dedicated to him in a similar small farming town. The D’Andrea family have been in the farming and in the produce business for more than three generations. Coincidence or not, one of Padre Pio’s favorite foods was squash and the location of the Shrine is on a former squash field, plus Padre Pio’s grandmother’s maiden name was D’Andrea.

Marie and her friends prayed the Rosary in the field with a small statue of Padre Pio placed on a piece of plywood. The group grew rapidly and the D’Andrea’s decided to build a monument to Padre Pio. The D’Andrea’s idea of a monument was a big marble block with a statue of Padre Pio.

You can see a picture of it HERE.

“No BFD” you say? Well, it gets more interesting.

Last night, my new friend and I went to another town to meet up with Dave. She made a comment on the lyrics by Tool: “The horror begins in Autumn” by saying “We just had the first day of fall on the 23rd of September, you know”. The day prior, she made a comment about how when she filled up for gas on the way here, the pump price was $23 and change.

Whatever.

As we were talking about this on the way to Dave’s we noticed an exit sign off the 202 - Route 23.

Yeah. Dismiss that, too, eh?

We hung out with Dave and listened to his stories at the local diner, and returned to his place, where he presented me a book entitled: “Youth of The Apocalypse“. It’s a damning indictment of modernism and post-modernism, written from the Greek Orthodox perspective.

“Cool” I thought. I have no clue how this all fits in.

It’s likely just my pattern recognition skills acting up on me, right?

Well, today, I was thinking about my friend’s comments about the first day of fall being on September 23rd.

I looked it up on Wiki, and it’s Padre Pio’s day of death.