Padre Pio's Prays for His Grandfather

Fr. Scott Haynes

Padre Pio was once being examined by a doctor who noticed that the friar was quietly praying. Curious, the doctor asked him for whom he was offering his prayers. Padre Pio replied that he was praying for the holy death of his grandfather.

The doctor was surprised and said, “I knew your grandfather. He died at least twenty years ago.”

Padre Pio answered calmly, “Yes. But God knew twenty years ago that I would be here at this moment praying for my grandfather. And in His mercy, God applied the grace of this prayer to my grandfather at the moment of his judgment.”

When Padre Pio spoke of praying for his grandfather twenty years after his death, he was not offering a pious paradox. He was unveiling a mystery of divine mercy that we often forget. God is not bound by clocks or calendars. What seems late to us is never late to Him.

We live imprisoned by time. We regret prayers not said, words not spoken, conversions delayed. We think, If only I had prayed then. Yet Padre Pio reminds us that God already knew this very moment, this very prayer, this very sigh of the heart. Before the doctor spoke. Before the grandfather died. Before the world itself was formed, God had already foreseen the plea of love that would rise from His servant’s lips.

This is not sentimentality. It is theology soaked in mercy. At the moment of judgment, when a soul stands naked before eternal truth, God can apply graces prepared long before, or long after, according to His sovereign will. Love offered in time can be received in eternity. A prayer whispered today can reach yesterday because God holds all moments in His hands.

This should change the way we pray for the dead. No soul is beyond the reach of mercy while God is eternal. When we pray for those who have gone before us, we are not rummaging through the past. We are standing at the threshold of eternity, placing our prayer directly into the hands of a God who sees all moments at once.

It should also change the way we pray for the living. A mother’s prayer today may uphold a child decades from now. A single Hail Mary offered in fatigue may be the grace that steadies a soul at its final hour. Nothing offered to God in love is ever wasted.

Padre Pio’s quiet confidence teaches us something else. God does not merely hear prayers. He anticipates them. He weaves them into His providence long before we know we will pray. Our task is not to understand how this works, but to trust that it does.

So pray, even when it feels late. Pray, even when the situation seems closed. Pray for the dead, the dying, the forgotten, and the lost. God already knows that you are praying now. And in His mercy, He knows exactly where that grace must fall.