I have read in several places that Padre Pio prayed up to 35 Rosaries in a day, but how can this be possible?

If they meant 35 15 decade rosaries, then that clearly is impossible for there is just no time at all in a 24 hour day, but 35 5 decade rosaries is possible, but that would take at least 15 hours at the minumum, and up to 18 hours max.

So lets say he did pray 35 5 decade rosaries, and lets say that would have taken 18 hours to accomplish, that only leaves 6 hours to sleep, say Mass, confess etc.

I really don't think that's possible.

Didn't he used to confess hours and almost the whole day?

St Padre Pio was given many special graces.
Many saints have been granted some of the following extraordinary gifts, such as miracles, bilocation, reading of hearts, perfume, the stigmata and prophecy. Padre Pio possessed not one, but all of these gifts.
Have you read much about him?
It's weird, but I read about him and am astounded by his holiness.
Not in a disbelieving way.
You know?

I've read he was able to pray while performing his duties.

So lets say he did pray 35 5 decade rosaries, and lets say that would have taken 18 hours to accomplish, that only leaves 6 hours to sleep, say Mass, confess etc.

I don't know the answer but how did you work out 18 hours?

Just say he could say a 5 decade rosary in 15 minutes, then he would have spent 7 hours on the Rosary. If he took 20 minutes each Rosary, it would take 11.1 hours to say 35 Rosaries.

If he "prayed without ceasing" (as we know he did) it would not be impossible. Also great saints spend little time in sleeping and eating, unlike we more lowly creatures.

Yes, he did. And, since he spent so many hours in the confessional on most days, it certainly would be impossible. Add in the hours he was under strict obligation to devote to the Divine Office, mental prayer and the two-hours-long Mass he offered daily, the claim is patently ridiculous.

Besides, what would be the point of such an exaggerated "devotion"? Certainly, the Church could never prescribe this kind of excess.

Such is usually the product of an immature, overactive imagination on the part of the whichever devotee came up with this "claim"; something from which the hyper-pious (i.e., "well intentioned" but badly formed and undisciplined souls) seem far from immune.

I have read many books on Padre Pio, some of which I regretfully no longer have and are now out of print, so I don't know where to find the quote to substantiate what I am saying, but I do recall that he was allowed to shorten the Hail Mary to just the first part, ending with the words "Thy womb, Jesus."  My recollection is that he was permitted to do this so as to be able to say as many Hail Mary's as possible for the salvation of souls.  When you think of all the sins he heard in the confessional, how he knew so well the condition of mankind and at the same time was having apparitions of Jesus complaining to him about how souls offended Him so much, it is more than understandable that he would use every free moment to pray for them and we all know how efficacious the Hail Mary is.  Of course, this abbreviated form was given to him by permission and we are obliged to recite the entire Hail Mary.  I have a book of his letters to his director and it may be in there.

Anyway and more to the point, Padre Pio, as all great saints, knew the value of even one single Hail Mary for the salvation of souls.  All Religious did.  That is one reason they wore a Rosary hanging from their belts -- so that at every free moment they could say as many Hail Mary's as possible.  I witnessed this in person in the Sisters who taught me pre-V2.  It was very edifying to see them supervising us kids on the playground and fingering their Rosary at the same time.

If one's attention is always recollected in God and one's intentions are always focused on helping souls, as should be with Religious, then throughout the day one can make use of very many opportunities to say Hail Mary's, even if only a few at a time.  Try it yourself.  Wear a Rosary hooked onto your belt or tucked into your waistband.  When waiting in traffic or in line at the bank or grocery store, sipping your morning coffee, preparing dinner, rocking the baby to sleep--if you finger the Rosary you will be surprised at how many Hail Mary's you can say in just one day.

I do not see this as an "exaggerated devotion" when souls are at stake.  Love of neighbor impels one to do this, not Church mandate.  But reason should always be used and no two individuals are the same.  One may be able to say many Hail Mary's or a decade or two at a time while others can devote less time/have fewer opportunities.  We are not all monks living a contemplative life but we can do what we can.  Every Hail Mary counts.  "Many souls fall into hell because they have no one to pray for them." ~ Our Lady.

I have absolutely no doubt Padre Pio did this.  

I have had a devotion to St. Pius of Pietrelcina since the 1980s and I, too, have read several books about him.

Furthermore, I concur with everyone who has expressed astonishment at the holiness of the man. There is no doubt whatsoever that he was one of the greatest saints that ever lived.

I was not attempting to discount any of that.

He was also an eminently practical and down-to-earth priest and I think he would have sided with those of us who think that ONE Rosary said very well is worth much more in pursuit of the glory of God and the honor of the Blessed Virgin than a thousand said badly (rushed, or carelessly, or with continuous distractions, or endless interruptions, etc.)

Now, if ever he did such things and sanctified himself and others (which in his case is not impossible to grant, although not easily on the grounds of common sense - another virtue of St. Pius) by doing so, then all glory to God that he did.

One writer, remarking on a similar claim, put down that he did this while bilocating. If that counts in Heaven (praying simultaneously while one is in two geographical locations - simultaneously), then that would halve the time requirement. But that doesn't cause me to reverse my initial concerns about the efficacy of such a "machine-gun piety", either.

In the end, barring hard evidence (and not merely wishful, pious conjecture), not a one of us will ever prove the claim one way or another, anyway. And, were St. Pius to offer but one Ave! for any of us, right now, I strongly suspect its importance would be substantially greater than ever "resolving" this controversy, anyway.

As he could bilocate, maybe he would be in one place hearing confessions, and simultaneously somewhere else saying the rosary!

.

Our problem understanding how Padre Pio lived prayer from moment to moment is the following:  

We are attached to the world, and we have a problem losing our attachment to sin. This is due to our fallen nature.  As Catholics we are obliged to do battle against our fallen nature and to rise above it, which we can ONLY do by the grace of God, because it is not a naturally human act but rather it is a supernatural and spiritual act.

Padre Pio, while being human, developed his detachment to sin at an early age and lived that virtue throughout the rest of his life.  He was unrelenting in this virtue.  That one strength and power and virtue that he perfected is the secret to his great holiness.  All his signal graces and prodigious faculties branch off from that foundation as a tree's many tributaries emerge from the trunk.  

When we pray the Rosary, we generally have to stop doing everything else and focus on the Rosary.  While this is not a bad habit or a poor plan, it is nonetheless the first step toward perfection, a step in the right direction, and a necessary one, a good thing, but it is not the end of the road.  It is, rather, the beginning.

Once we have learned how to concentrate on the mysteries of the Rosary while reciting the words of the prayers, and experiencing our thoughts go from the actual words over to the mystery at hand, and back to the words, and over to the mystery, and back to the words, and so on, the demands of daily life also do not fail to interrupt us.  Most of us have a very hard time finding 17 to 25 solid minutes that we can devote to the Rosary several times a day.  

I have a friend who complained about this difficulty, and I told him what Fr. Gregorius Hesse said in one of his recordings, and as he likewise was wont to say when speaking to people, such as he did to me, that when he gets up in the morning he says his morning prayers immediately upon rising, then begins his preparations for the day.  He begins his Rosary, and if possible carries his rosary beads, but for some things it's not possible to hold the beads all the time.  For men who have to shave, as he did, he would say a decade while shaving, which requires the use of both hands, so he did that without holding his beads, as with brushing his teeth and washing his face and hands, which he would do while continuing his Rosary, and so on.  While getting dressed he would continue to pray.  While walking to the train or waiting for a bus, he would say another decade or two.  By the time he was engaged in the work of the day he had already said one or more Rosaries that day.  When you can't hold the beads you can keep track of which Hail Mary you're on by bending one finger on one hand for each prayer, or else, by saying "ONE - Hail Mary full of grace... at the hour of our death.  Amen.  TWO - Hail Mary full of grace...," etc., and count up to ten.  Hearing yourself say the number before the beginning of the prayer is enough to keep track for 13 to 15 seconds.

Obviously, there are some things we have to do that require our complete and undivided attention and we cannot pray then, and such a time would be when a priest is saying Mass or hearing confessions or giving the sacraments such as Baptism or Extreme Unction.  Likewise for the rest of us, while we are driving the car or if our job entails driving or operating machinery, or performing tasks that demand our complete attention, we cannot be thinking about our Rosary at the same time.  If a student is attending a lecture or doing lab work or taking a test, he can't be also praying his Rosary.  If a mother is following a recipe and trying to not make a mistake, that is not the time for the third mystery of her Rosary.  But while waiting for water to boil, there is plenty of time for one decade!!

What about a security guard or an emergency worker?  A sentry keeping watch has to pay attention to the object of his watch, but he can also think about his Rosary prayers at the same time.  Perhaps he can hold his beads and finger them (for which there is an indulgence attached), but maybe he cannot, due to regulations, for example.  And maybe when we drive a car or other vehicle, we are unable to also hold our rosary beads while we pray.  But if you have a passenger, he can hold the rosary beads and lead the Rosary, and both of you get all the graces attached to the fingering of the beads during the Rosary.  When 4 people pray the Rosary together, EACH PERSON gets the graces and indulgences for all 4 Rosaries -- a total of 4^2 Rosaries (four squared = 16).

Yesterday I passed an accident scene on the highway, where there were several emergency vehicles lined up behind the cars on the shoulder of the road, out of traffic.  The first vehicles were the ones that had been involved in a minor collision, then behind those were the police cars and the officers talking to the accident victims.  Behind those were the fire truck and the paramedics, and finally, at the very end of the row were several uniformed emergency workers standing around in a group, but they were not praying their Rosary!  They were all holding cell phones, showing each other pictures and talking, and texting messages, perhaps to each other.  There is a great example of how we humans in our fallen nature choose to take time that is available to us, and WASTE it doing things that probably are USELESS in regards to our salvation, and are most likely a DETERRENT to our salvation.

How about standing in line at the bank or at the grocery store, or sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office or the hospital?  How much time is wasted there?  I have had to wait at the DMV (motor vehicles) for over an hour.  That's long enough for 15 decades!  

It seems to me that it's a matter of being in the HABIT or developing the habit of looking for a chance to return to prayer.  We are saturated today with suggestions of thinking about entertainment, gossip about other people, watching TV, listening to talk radio, going to see a movie, watching a performance, or just watching people -- "people watching."  At some point, what 'famous' people are doing becomes our main concern, and the object of our attention.  Is that then not our god?  When someone's fame is the overpowering draw of our thoughts, are we not giving our devotion to a false god?  

When our hearts are turned instead to God, and we look for the next opportunity to return to our Rosary, we have to let go of our attachment to worldly concerns, and let go of our attachment to sin.  

We have to put the inclination to be worldly aside, and turn our thoughts to God, at which point our prayer becomes true:  "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..., Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen."

.

In my opinion, whether he said 35 rosaries(why that number?). we need to remember a truth, dogma.  That is the Communion of Saints.  When we pray, they pray with us.  And Oh, Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day....  Whether it be true or not of the 35 rosaries, it is our hearts that will be read.