When I was back in London, Father Damian suggested that I join the SVDP (St. Vincent DePaul Society) which met there at the Oratory. I did so and things really started getting interesting. Life took on a whole new colour.
One of the members of this group was John Farah. He was around my age and we immediately became good friends and I would spend a lot of time with his family. John and I would go together, under the SVDP patronage, to St. Botolphs in Bishopsgate where we would help to look after alcoholics and drug addicts or go to visit the sick in the Royal Marsden Hospital. John was a great favourite with many of the patients. I remember one nurse pointing out an old African patient to me. “Do you see that man,” she said. “He lives just to see John come to see him on a Saturday. It is the highlight of his week.” I believed her as I had seen it for myself. I had watched John during one of these visits. He would listen so intently as the man struggled to talk and his face seemed to change colour as he empathised with his suffering.
These were the ‘saints’ that the Lord had chosen to surround me with but, as I struggled along, I needed more reassurance that I was still on the right road. I was assigned to go and see some elderly people who lived in the Chelsea Trust Houses. Mrs. McCormack was totally blind and I would bring her a supply of audio tapes to listen to. Another was Mrs Linehan. “Are you hungry?” she would ask as soon as I entered her tiny little apartment. I looked pretty gaunt as I rarely ate so, whether I answered or not, she would insist on giving me a sandwich. I talked to her about Padre Pio and what my grandmother had told me about him, how people wrote to him and were helped. She said “I’d like to write to him.”
“Go ahead”, I told her.
“Then why did you never write to him?” she asked.
“Because I don’t see why he would answer me but he will definitely answer your letter,” I replied.
“O.K.”, she said, “I will write”.
Somehow, I had it in my mind that, if I wrote I would not get a reply but I was sure he would answer this kind woman. At that moment, I had a cunning plan. “Tell him to pray for a friend of yours,” I said casually. “But don’t mention my name.” She agreed happily and the letter was posted.
Some time later, I went to see her again. “I got a reply from Padre Pio,” she said. “What did he say?” I asked.
He said, “tell that friend of yours I have been praying for him for a long time!”