Padre Pio Saw the Power of One Single Hail Mary

Through one sincere Hail Mary, Padre Pio understood how heaven bends toward those who pray. Padre Pio said it could move the very heart of heaven. We're talking about one single Hail Mary. Just one. Padre Pio once said if you understood the value of a single Hail Mary, you would recite nothing else for the rest of your life. Every Hail Mary., he said is a kiss placed on the hands of Our Lady, and she never keeps even one for herself. She brings them all to Jesus.

There's one powerful story in the life of Padre Pio , that shows this even more clearly.

One evening when Padre Pio was in the choir praying quietly before the Blessed Sacrament.  According to one of the Friars, his face suddenly changed.  He grew pale his eyes. Filled with tears and he looked into an empty corner of the Chapel as if someone were standing there. The Friar approached him afterward and asked gently.  Father, what did you see? Padre Pio answered.  A soul from purgatory.  He paused, took a breath, and then said something the Friar would never forget. He came to thank me for a single Hail Mary offered long ago, which he had forgotten, but Heaven had not. Padre Pio explained that earlier that day, while walking through the courtyard, he had whispered A distracted Hail Mary for someone who needed help.  No name, no details, no intention, just a simple impulse of charity.  That one prayer, simple and small, had become the very thing that pushed a suffering soul into the light of heaven. He showed me the moment it touched him, Padre Pio said.

It was like a drop of cool water falling onto burning coals.  He felt relief not from punishment, but from the sorrow of being far from God. He explained it this way.  The Hail Mary is like placing a candle in the hands of the Virgin.

Diuturni Temporis Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the Rosary declares, Rosary is most efficacious for attaining eternal life.