Padre Pio (now St. Pio) the famous mystic died in 1968, but his influence still continues today. In 1999 the Capuchin Friars who have been based at Pantasaph in Wales for 150 years decided to open a national shrine to him for the year of his beatification. Brother Loarne, who served as the first shrine director comments, “We felt it would be good to have a national centre for his devotees.” The opening Mass of the shrine on the feast of Pentecost attracted 1200 people and 1400 pilgrims came for the special canonisation event in 2002. For Bro Loarne, the vision behind the shrine has always been evangelistic. He was inspired in this by the Vatican Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy published in 2001, which has a special section on shrines and pilgrimages. He comments, “I thought if I read this, it will tell me what God wants me to do.”

As well as stressing the importance of good liturgy, the document says that shrines are to be places of evangelisation where the gospel of life is proclaimed. Shrines are also to be places of charitable assistance and cultural centres, which help define the cultural identity of the nation, as well as being sanctuaries of ecumenical commitment to pray and work for Christian unity. Brother Loarne’s first step, he said, was to get a group of people to commit themselves to praying for the shrine and the pilgrims who come. They now have about 100 of these people. He also set about organising regular St Pio days. These involved Mass, a talk, adoration, confession and prayer for healing. “We had a team of lay people standing across the front to pray for people. They were people not necessarily involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, but God gave them the grace to pray for healing.” These St. Pio days continue although the responsability for them has passed onto another brother.

Excellent fruits have came from these days and lives were turned around, Brother Loarne says. People who hadn’t been to confession for years were reconciled to the Church. He comments, “ It was a great window of opportunity for the Lord. We had many prophetic words too. It showed how popular piety and the gifts of the Holy Spirit can work together.” The Little Portion Festival, which happens at the end of July started a few years ago. He says, “I was in the shrine one day near the statue of St Pio and I asked him “What do you want me to do?” My eyes were drawn to the fields around the shrine and in my mind’s eye I saw it covered in tents. It is really beautiful countryside round here. I said to him “You want a festival?” So we organised one. The festival is a mixture of Franciscan spirituality and charismatic renewal. Something like this had never happened before at the shrine, but it has been growing every year. We have a big circus marquee and people camp or stay in our retreat centre. We have the Blessed Sacrament exposed for 40 hours day and night during the conference which includes talks, music and Mass and youth ministry. About 150 people come to the festival.” (see coming events page 36 for details)

The more direct evangelistic outreach of the shrine came as a result of Brother Loarne reading Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Church”. “I was very fired up by it and in 2004 geared up one of the Padre Pio days of prayer to be a seekers’ day and encouraged pilgrims to bring their lapsed or non-church going friends. I invited Mgr Keith Barltrop from CASE to speak. I was a bit disappointed because only 20 people came, but the day itself went very well and we had words of knowledge for people and they were dropping like flies as they were prayed for.” Mgr Barltrop was so impressed with the idea of days for seekers that he suggested that CASE and the team at the shrine should go into partnership and run other days and special seeker events. This has included even a weekend especially for New Age people, seeking to dialogue with them and help them to understand the gospel.

CASE (the Catholic Agency to Support Evangelisation) helps Brother Loarne to train a new team each year to run these seeker events. The first team came from the local parish, but now members of the team can come from all over the diocese and elsewhere. He comments, “Through this more and more Catholics are formed with a catholic evangelistic mind set. It’s amazing how they grow during this time. Some of these people would be those who have never even done reading in church before, but through the training and their experience they get the confidence to give their personal testimonies, or pray for people and run whole residential retreats.” The ages of the team vary. Last year they were all quite young, coming from a Youth2000 background, but this year the age range is between 40-60.

The fruits from the work of the teams, although small, have been good and several people have wanted to become Catholic as a result. Bro Loarne comments, ‘One man who was totally unchurched, said to me when he saw the Blessed Sacrament, “I don’t know what that round thing is but a bolt came from it and hit me in the chest.” This has made me realise that it is simply a matter of letting Jesus do the work!’