The Diocese of St. Augustine invited parishioners and others to attend a presentation on the life of St. Padre Pio, an Italian friar and priest.

"Join Deacon Bob DeLuca for a presentation on St. Padre Pio as part of our 'Lenten Speaker Series: All You Holy Men and Women' on Monday, March 21, at 7 p.m. at Marywood Retreat and Conference Center," the diocese said on a Wednesday Facebook post. "Padre Pio, an Italian Capuchin Franciscan Friar and priest, is widely known for his piety and charity, as well as the gift of the sacred stigmata which has never been explained. Come and learn about the life of St. Pio: the Capuchin friar, the priest, the stigmatist and the mystic."

Padre Pio was born in Italy in 1887, a release on the St. Pio Foundation website said. When he was 15, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Friars. Pio overcame poor health to complete his studies, and he was ordained as a priest in 1910. 

In 1918, the stigmata appeared on Pio's body, making him the first priest in the history of the Catholic Church to bear such marks. 

Stigmata resemble the wounds inflicted upon Jesus when he was crucified, a report on Britannica.com said. The wounds appear on the stigmatized person's hands, feet and sometimes head. More than 300 people between the 14th and 20th centuries have become stigmatized, including St. Faustina Kowalska, St. Rita of Cascia and St. Catherine of Siena.

"The presence of stigmata is a sign of mystical union with the suffering of Christ, and a genuine stigmatic must have lived a life of heroic virtue," the report said, quoting the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1940, Pio decided he would build a Home for the Relief of Suffering (the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza), the St. Pio Foundation release said. The facility opened in 1956 with 300 beds. 

"Today, with over 1,000 beds and services comparable to most academic research centers of excellence, the Casa is thriving by God's graces in one of the most remote, desolate and poorest areas of Italy," the release said. 

When Padre Pio passed away in 1968, more than 100,000 people attended his funeral. Pope St. John Paul II canonized Padre Pio in 2002.

"Padre Pio was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making himself available to all by welcoming them, by spiritual direction and, especially, by the administration of the sacrament of Penance," the pope said in his canonization homily issued on the Vatican website.