‘Imitate Padre Pio’ in holiness
During Mass and veneration of St. Pio’s relics June 11, people urged to pray for priests, increase in vocations to make the Church holy
CHARLOTTE — The scene looked like one of Padre Pio’s famed Masses at the monastery where he lived, San Giovanni Rotondo, in southern Italy – hundreds of people crammed inside the church and spilling out of every doorway, just trying to catch a glimpse of the holy Franciscan monk who bore the wounds of Christ.
Except this was not Italy. It was St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte June 11. Nevertheless, Padre Pio was there – several of his relics were on the altar – and more than 500 people had come to attend a Solemn High Mass celebrated in his memory.
The Mass in the Extraordinary Form was offered by Father Joseph Matlak, pastor of St. Basil the Great Eastern Catholic Parish in Charlotte, assisted by Deacon Britt Taylor and seminarian Harry Ohlhaut as subdeacon.
People from across the Diocese of Charlotte and beyond came for the Mass on Pentecost Tuesday and to venerate the relics of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, as Padre Pio is more formally known.
The relics tour, sponsored by the Saint Pio Foundation, included his glove; crusts of the wounds, cotton gauze with blood stains, a lock of his hair, his mantle, and a handkerchief soaked with his sweat just hours before he died.
Also present for the Mass and veneration of St. Pio’s relics were young men from St. Joseph College Seminary, some of whom comprised the schola for the Mass, and participants of the diocese’s 2019 Quo Vadis Days vocations retreat underway this week.
It was to the college seminarians and the retreat participants that Father Matlak directed his homily on the vocation and importance of the priesthood.
As he looked out at the hundreds of people packed inside the cathedral, Father Matlak said, “Any young men out there, if you feel God is calling you, I can only advise you from my personal experience – and I resisted God for many years – go, because you don’t know how happy it will make you. God gives you happiness, and you’re happy only when you do His Will – whether that’s to become a priest or become something else.
“From the heart, I can tell you that the vocation of the priesthood, the vocation to be one with the Eucharist on the altar, is one of the most challenging things that a man could ever do, but also one of the happiest. And I can tell you from my personal experience there is nothing – nothing! – that compares to being at the altar.”
Christ, he continued, “calls you individually, and He says, ‘You! Come and follow Me. You do what I do, because you are members of the Body of Christ, you are members of the Church.’”
“The most important thing is that you imitate Padre Pio in giving himself to God, because he loved God, because he loved the Church, because he wanted to contribute … to making the Church holy.”
Father Matlak noted that in the Old Testament, a priest’s role was to offer a sacrifice to God in thanksgiving, for the expiation for sins, and intercession on behalf of the people. A priest was also God’s suffering servant, offering the sacrifice with “a humble and contrite heart.”
In the New Testament, Christ takes on this role perfectly, Father Matlak continued, offering not just a temporary animal sacrifice but a final and complete sacrifice of Himself.
“The priesthood of the old was temporary. It gets culminated, it gets summed up, it gets fulfilled in the One that the New Testament calls the Eternal High Priest.”
“In His suffering on the cross, He was made perfect and that was what saved us. That was the source of our salvation,” he said.
Christ gave the Church the gifts of the Eucharist and the priesthood to enable us today to be present in His sacrifice on Calvary, through the Eucharist.
“The priesthood exists for one thing, and one thing only – just like in the Old Testament, to offer sacrifice, but this time it is a different sacrifice. It is the one eternal sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and when a priest stands here at the altar he stands at the foot of the cross,” he said.
St. Pio, “who was so conformed to the Lord crucified on the cross” that he bore the stigmata and was a victim soul, loved the Mass and he loved Christ, Father Matlak said.
“That man lived our faith completely in himself and in his life. For him, being a priest, the Mass was the center of everything.”
St. Pio recognized the reality of Calvary in the Eucharist, actually seeing the angels and saints around the altar at every Mass.
“Think for a moment what marvelous mystery is taking place around this altar,” Father Matlak said. “If we could only see with our eyes what is happening here, we would be on our knees.
We would be here every day if we could!”
Pray for priests and for an increase in vocations, Father Matlak entreated.
“Nowadays it’s not easy to be a priest,” he said. “Once upon a time it was a privileged thing, but not anymore. I want you to remember that every man that you see enter (the priesthood) is going into a burning building, and doing it freely. Why? Because they love the Eucharist and because they love Christ, and because they love the priesthood.”
“We need your prayers,” he said. “We’re all members of the Body of Christ and we need one another.”
He prayed, “May God give us priests, may God give us good priests, and may God give us holy priests.”
At the end of Mass, Father Matlak blessed everyone present with the reliquary containing St. Pio’s glove, which the holy monk wore to cover the wounds of the stigmata.
St. Pio was born on May 25, 1887, in Pietrelcina, Italy, and baptized Francesco Forgione. He first expressed his desire for priesthood when he was 10. The future saint entered the Capuchin order when he was 15, taking the name Pio. He was ordained a priest in 1910 at the age of 23.
During his lifetime, Padre Pio was known as a mystic with miraculous powers of healing and knowledge and who bore the stigmata, wounds that correspond to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ. They can appear on the forehead, hands, wrists and feet. The stigmata remained with him until his death on Sept. 23, 1968.
Pope John Paul II canonized him in 2002.
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, editor
Fully accepted
Charlie Dobson is pictured with Deacon Mike Zboyovski and his son, Carl Dobson, at St. Eugene Church in Asheville. (Photo provided by Rick Lober) ASHEVILLE — Charlie Dobson, 93, may be the oldest convert to Catholicism in the history of the Diocese of Charlotte. His journey into the Church, although longer than many, has inspired others at St. Eugene Parish.
Dobson decided to formalize his conversion to the Catholic faith this year after attending the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults three times in the past five years since his son Carl’s conversion.
One of seven children, Dobson was raised a Southern Baptist and later embraced the Methodist and Presbyterian churches as an adult.
Dobson lived through the segregationist South, and he has a lifetime of experience in embracing change and relating to people from diverse religious and racial backgrounds. He served in the U.S. Navy for 11 years and then in the U.S. Army as a dentist. That’s where he met his late wife, Stella.
The two adopted Carl, who in Dobson’s later years served as a catalyst for his conversion to Catholicism. After his mother died in 2010, Carl went through a difficult time. A former Methodist minister, Carl started watching the televised Mass on EWTN. He found it to be very comforting and realized it helped him through his grief.
In 2014 Dobson visited St. Eugene Church, which also happens to serve as a polling place near the Dobsons’ home. After voting, he came home and, knowing that Carl enjoyed the chapel where the televised Mass was held, told Carl he would love the interior of St. Eugene Church.
“So both of us started attending church there and I took RCIA class in the autumn of 2014,” Carl recalls.
Carl entered the Church at Easter in 2015.
“I have my mother’s love of history, so I like the ritual,” he explains. “I think the Mass is beautiful. Of course, as the Eucharist is the climax of the Mass, I feel blessed being able to take the Eucharist weekly.”
Dobson shares that the final hurdle he needed to overcome to formalize his conversion was the understanding that he could keep his relationships with friends and family of the other denominations he had practiced over the course of his life.
“I didn’t want to give up my Presbyterian friends or my Methodist friends,” he says. He says he did not always find members of those former churches to be as accepting of his membership in other churches, so his complete acceptance at St. Eugene Parish has meant a great deal to him.
Deacon Mike Zboyovski assisted both Dobsons in their journey into the Church.
“Carl asked to continue participating in the RCIA process after he was fully initiated by serving as a sponsor and team participant,” Deacon Zboyovski says. “Carl’s call to RCIA ministry kept Charlie attending RCIA sessions.”
Deacon Zboyovski shares that the Dobsons’ story reminds him of how in John’s Gospel, “Andrew, a disciple of John the Baptist, was first led to Jesus – and who in turn grabbed his brother Peter to come meet the newly discovered Messiah. The rest is history!”
“One is called into a deeper relationship with the Lord and before you know it, the word and the enthusiasm spreads,” he continues. “That was the case with Carl and Charlie. Carl was the ‘first called,’ and his faith and enthusiasm became the catalyst that prompted Charlie to continue to ‘come and see.’”
Carl agrees, saying, “There was no pressure on my part. He started going with me and started mentioning to me that he could understand what was going on and he agreed with what our priest Father Pat (Cahill) was saying. He said he felt at home from the very beginning at St. Eugene.”
A lifetime of wisdom comes through in Dobson’s advice to others.
“I would say, if you don’t know Christ you are missing out. Everyone should know the Lord and try to live by His example,” he says. “If you don’t live by Christ’s example, you are going to pay the consequences.”
Father Cahill, pastor, notes, “Charlie’s life journey is a reminder to me that goodness really does exist in our world.”
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
