He is the one who will favour the designs of anyone, who manages to give birth to him. The ‘Man in Black’ is the man of the first encounter; then he is Christ who brings the stigmata, before becoming the “Provincial Father”.
He is also the witness of Padre Pio’s work and its commentator. He helps him, before abandoning him, discouraged, believing that Padre Pio has not been able to get to the bottom of his reflections on the power he wields.
But who is he truly? Does he comes from Heaven? I have left him his mystery, of course. Is he, as I have him say, “a thought incarnate”? He asks the question himself!
It is he who brought him transverberation. He talked about him elsewhere many times as well. We know that the whole life of Padre Pio was marked, from his youngest years, by ‘encounters’ as improbable as they were painful. When he was little, there were horrible black figures who came to strike him. When he was a monk, the devil often came to tempt him (wearing the features of a parishioner, or of the Virgin Mary - to whom the Padre Pio devoted a very filial cult -, or of the Provincial Father of the monastery). Sometimes naked women also came to dance before him, he said. So is Christ himself always who you think he is?
Not knowing the truth of the matter, I thought that this ‘man in black’ could be the central points of the enigma: and if not, a powerful dramatic spring… So in my story, he becomes the central pivot of the plot.
“Padre Pio e la Notte Oscura” (Padre Pio and the “Dark Night”) is explicitly inspired by Saint Padre Pio’s life. The life of this exceptional man attracted me for a long time.
Without the excellent biography by Joachim Bouflet (“Padre Pio”), so rich in original texts from the priest, I probably would not have chosen ‘opera mode’.
Joachim Bouflet, a historian, is dedicated to religious mentalities studies. He is probably the best biographer of Padre Pio (he also has had the chance to meet the Saint). In his biography, you’ll find lots of original texts form different letters written by Padre Pio or by his friends (who loved him) or, sometimes, by his enemies (who hated him!).
1) Joachim Bouflet describes ‘transverberation’ as an ‘experience lived in a mode of paroxysms of pain and internal agony’. The ‘stigmata’ are bloody wounds appearing without any apparent cause, and which are similar to those inflicted on Christ on the cross (on hands, feet and side)
