One of the most powerful series of ongoing Miracles of the Cross that we have researched are those which were bestowed upon Padre Pio throughout his life. Jesus wrapped Padre Pio in the Cross and he accepted it as a gift. He spent his entire life as a Crucified Christ, desiring only the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. Padre Pio was gifted with the Cross of Jesus from his earliest days. His personal relationship with Jesus and Mary manifested itself to him from the time he was a child. His entire world centered around the little church of Our Lady of the Angels in his little home town of Pietrelcina. It might as well have been his home. He spent more time there than at his home. All the important events in his early life took place in that church. He was baptized Francesco Forgione there; he received his First Holy Communion and Confirmation there; he went into ecstasy for the first time in that church, and had an apparition of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at age five, there. "Our Lord Jesus appeared to Francesco, and beckoned him to come to the main altar." (Padre Benedetto da San Marco in Lamis, Padre Pio's spiritual director) He placed His hand on Francesco's head. We don't know what transpired between Our Lord Jesus and the young boy, but we do know that after this, the course of his life, and his vocation were sealed. He offered himself as victim of the Cross at that early age, although he probably did not know it at that time. He just said yes.