Richard F Epstein

My Brother's Keeper: Padre Pio: from a Man to a God Richard F Epstein

Publisher Marketing: Capuchin monk and Catholic mystic, the spiritual career of Padre Pio unfolds in his correspondence with his spiritual mentors and a close circle of his confidants. The letters reveal the vicissitudes: personal struggles, temptations and fears encountered on the way to his God realization. In his lifetime Padre Pio received worldwide attention. Not only were his charisms noted: his healing powers, his stigmata ect., but many penitents were transformed at his confessional, as were pilgrims spiritually uplifted during his Masses. Sympathetic biographers arrived as well and documented in detail the extraordinary events of his life. Aside from the many biographies about Padre Pio, this account uniquely parallels the broad and generous universalism espoused through the personal experiences of three great seers of India: Ramakrishna, the god-man of modern Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda his most famous apostle and his messenger to the West, and Sri Sarada Devi, Vedanta's Holy Mother. In terms of Advaita non-dual Vedic philosophy, Vivekananda broadens the dualism of Western mystics without invalidating their experiences which he empowers with his goal of proving that all religions stem from a single root.