April 6, 2011

Padre Pio's Many Gestures

Our friary has a statue of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, which is no surprise given that we are Capuchins. What's funny about it is that his right hand attaches to his forearm with a square peg. Because of this, the friars being the friars, poor Pio might be found with his hand in any one of four positions:

The "nice to meet you"



The epiclesis



The collection



And finally, a favorite of somebody in this house, "The screwball"

6 comments:

Adoro said...

LOL! That's awesome! And you know, knowing dear Padre Pio's sense of humor, he probably approves!

Jeanne said...

I also had a good laugh at this. First of all, poor Padre Pio vaguely resembles either a garden gnome or a Jedi knight in this statue. And then the hand! Yikes! Thanks for the laugh.

Sara said...

Nice. In my parish there is a crucifix that comes apart in pieces like this. I didn't know until right before I was baptized, when they were getting the church ready for Easter Vigil, and I saw some guys walk by with Our Lord's arms. It is the "welcome to the family" image in my head now.

Mark D. said...

As one of my professors at FST (Michael Guinan) once commented during a lecture on the book of Job: "The importance of humor in religious life should never be underestimated."

Cheers!

Lisa Graas said...

I love it!

merkusa said...

The Marquette University family just lost Fr. Naus, SJ. He was well known as a Clown (seriously) for breaking out a guitar and singing the "going to the zoo" song, for feeding peanuts to the squirrels on the quad, and for teaching the "Philosophy of Humor" course. I know he'd appreciate this post. Thanks for continuing to remind us that we should never lose our sense of humor, or simple joy.