God-given Conviction

Padre Pio on Women's Dress
from Prophet of the People, by Dorothy M. Gaudiose, pp. 191-2

Women received especially rough treatment from Padre Pio because of current fashions. He had always been a merciless enemy of feminine vanity. "Vanity," he said, "is the son of pride, and is even more malignant than its mother. Have you ever seen a field of ripe corn? Some ears are tall; others are bent to the ground. Try taking the tallest, the proudest ones, and you will see that they are empty; but it you take the smallest, the humblest ones, they are laden with seeds. From this you can see that vanity is empty."

Padre Pio wouldn't tolerate low-necked dresses or short, tight skirts, and he forbade his spiritual daughters to wear transparent stockings. Each year his severity increased. He stubbornly dismissed them from his confessional, even before they set foot inside, if he judged them to be improperly dressed. On some mornings he drove away one after another, until he ended up hearing very few confessions.

His brothers observed these drastic purges with a certain uneasiness and decided to fasten a sign on the church door: "By Padre Pio's explicit wish, women must enter his confessional wearing skirts at least eight inches below the knees. It is forbidden to borrow longer dresses in church and to wear them for the confessional."

The last warning was not without effect. There was a furtive exchange of skirts, blouses, and raincoats, that took place at the last moment in the half-lit church to remedy any failings.

The women made their adjustments, but perhaps not exactly enough. Padre Pio continued to send some away before giving them a chance to confess. He would glower at them, and grumble, "Go and get dressed." And sometimes he added, "Clowns!" He spared no one... persons he saw for the first time, or his long-time spiritual daughters. Often the skirts were decidedly many inches below the knees, but not sufficiently long for his moral severity.

As the years began to weigh on Padre Pio, his daily hours in the confessional were limited to four, equally divided between men and women. In addition to being dressed properly, they had to know the Italian language, even though he could somehow understand people speaking another language. But he knew Italian, Latin, and very little French, consistently refusing to hear confessions except in Italian or Latin.

Sometimes when Padre Pio refused to absolve his penitents and closed the small confessional door in their faces, the people would reproach him asking why he acted this way. "Don't you know," he asked, "what pain it costs me to shut the door on anyone? The Lord has forced me to do so. I do not call anyone, nor do I refuse anyone either. There is Someone else Who calls and refuses them. I am His useless tool."

Even the men had rules to follow. They were not permitted to enter the church with three-quarter length sleeves. Boys as well as men had to wear long trousers at church, if they didn't want to be shown out of the church, that is. But women in short skirts were his prime targets. Padre Pio's citadel was perhaps the only place in the world where the fashions of the 1930s still ruled in the 1960s

This stirs me to think that we are responsible for holding this conviction in our generation, it is not a badge we wear because of the title Apostolic, it is God given revelation and it doesn’t take a title to obtain it, when the people of God get close to God, His standard becomes their standard. I remember how strict my grandparents used to be when I was a boy and to look at our family today I can see the distance from the conviction of God that they have traveled (even from the natural mind), and it makes me so thankful to have been called into the beloved brethren (Apostolic Church) that gave me the strength and lead me to developing God given convictions through obeying the Truth (Acts 2:38) and receiving the Holy Ghost and to give this to others. If we stay close to God and dedicated to prayer, we will have a FRESH revelation of God's conviction which will bring a real fire to the Church in our present day.

Willing and Obedient

Isaiah 1:16-20

(16) Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

(17) Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

(18) Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

(19) If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

(20) But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The key to pleasing God is to operate both being willing AND being obedient.

I have seen folks that are willing but are not obedient.

I have seen folks that are not willing but are obedient.

They key to having the blessing of God and getting to eat the GOOD of the land is to operate both, I want to be on the edge of my seat during preaching, the most willing to praise God, excited with a smile to bring my tithes and offerings to the house of God, and shout the loudest Amen in the Church, but along with that willingness, I must obey God. This is where the promise comes to fruition, then I can be assured by the promise of God's Holy Word: I will eat the good of the land. But most of all, I will be pleasing Him, which should be the intent of the child of God above all else.