I have had a difficult marriage due to my husband’s struggle with mental illness. In 2008, in the middle of a personal crisis, my husband left home. I felt into a deep depression and was unable to find a way to get out of the gloom and sadness that had engulfed my life. I had to make a business trip to Vienna which I could in no way postpone. I did not want to make the trip and was in no shape to be alone in a foreign city. I found strength in prayer and the Eucharist.

When my Rosary broke, I went to a shop to buy a new one. A gentleman in the shop gave me a prayer card, with a third class relic of a saint that I had never heard of, St. Pio. The prayer card had the Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the prayer for the intercession of St. Pio. I prayed the Novena and the prayer for St. Pio’s intercession every day, and I slowly started feeling better. I went to my mother’s house for the holidays. One night, my mother and I were watching T.V. As she was changing the channels, I told her to stop on one particular channel. “That man looks like the saint on the prayer card I was given in Vienna,” I said to my mother. I went to get the prayer card to look at it closer. The television program was a movie about the life of Padre Pio. The next day, I went to a Catholic bookstore and bought a book on Padre Pio. I found out that his feast day is September 23, the day of my wedding anniversary.

My husband came back home and is now taking care of his illness. Today is our 15th wedding anniversary. I am very thankful to St. Pio because I know he made it possible for me to accept what I have to live with and for my husband to return home and take care of his illness. I tell people that St. Pio rescued me. He found me in Vienna, there is no doubt about it. He reached out through that gentleman who gave me the prayer card. He touched my life and my heart and brought me closer to Jesus. We know the road is not easy, but I have confidence that I have Padre Pio’s help to walk as Jesus would want me to walk. Every night I pray to St. Pio for all the people I know who are sick, including my husband.

– Name Withheld