Apppreciation

Dear Padre Pio, I come to you for refuge
from my troubles, humbling myself in the
dirt at the foot of the cross where i belong 
because of my sins. Please listen to me
patiently and hear my petition from heaven
where you dwell with Jesus forever.
amen.
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 I have gained new insight and appreciation of St. Padre Pio since the sudden onset of arthritis in my hip and wrists. Aspirin and some pain patches I can wear together alleviate some of the pain, but not all of it and stiffness doesn't help. Consequently, I don't write as much as I have been used to.

If you have serious illness crop up suddenly, A prayer to Padre Pio will be a big help; he has helped me so many times, I am in danger of forgetting what all he has done.

A humble heart and spirit will open his heart.

Discipline

 

Some people hear discipline and immediately associate punishment. Yet, discipline motivates us to take care of important things, like taking medications on time, and avoiding eating certain things because of heart health. Without discipline, nature herself would not be able to function.

And still, I am not talking about flagellation or beating one self. I  know people who are religious and "take the discipline" regularly. I never thought it accomplished very much for spiritual growth, whereas fasting allows us to awaken spiritually and to show the world that one loves God more than himself.

While there is nothing dirty about the world, the people in the world can readily choose things that they know lead to the commission of a sin. Fasting can give us strength that avoids sin, or it can awaken us to weakness by which we excuse ourselves from something important. taken over a period of time, that weakness, like water freezing in a crack, can break rock apart along faults that no one realized was there.

It is amusing to see people defending themselves when they know they may be leading people into sinful thinking, such as women who insist that it is perfectly wholesome to display as much of themselves as possible, and they pride themselves that they can still tempt a man to sin. They can draw a person to the edge of a precipice no normal person would attempt to jump off of. The water below may be very deep, but tocks below that are not immediately visible can cave in a man's head.

Our flaws appear in the light of God which have an uncanny effect of interrupting a beautiful picture. The flaw can be devastating, seen in such brilliance, but we can grow used to the incredible power of God's light and we may not respond as we first did when He revealed Himself to us. But people who love Him respond by loving Him more in response to our reaction.

He waits for us with great patience to avail ourselves of the greater abundance of His grace, and we do, we grow, and a deeper resonance develops. 

Peace be with you +

Passage

 Passage

Pope Framcis, dead at 88 Monday April 21, 2025

Pope Francis has died, and we gather to speed him on his way into the light of Christ which he tried to reveal at every turn regardless of what he suffered. He participated in the cross of Christ by His invitation, and so having suffered, he has participated in the salvation of each man, woman and child of the whole human race.

We commemorate the beloved of this world in order to count the passage of so many flames of His love. The light of God is always present in the world; let us never forget we are family, and try to reconcile differences so that we might live in peace and defeat the hatred and violence which continually assaults the world to destroy it and all of us.

Let us remember the life of Jesus in order to conform to it. Let our prayers never cease, and let no prayer be lacking to those who most need help. 

In the conflicts of the world, let our love prevail and our love of Christ prevent violence and defeat it as the failure not of love, but of the inimical being that hates what we love. Never give up praying, and never forget those we promised to pray for and add to our efforts, the intercession that saves souls, mindful that we are all on our own way to depart from this life of struggle. God help us and fill us with His light to guide us and His love to overcome evil. 

Good Friday

 

He was hidden in His humanity, yet His humanity
desired our love and we did not see what He wanted
until the lance had passed into His Heart.
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I love watching planes take off in videos on Youtube. My understanding of the phenomena involved is the same as everybody else's. so I am grateful to be able to understand at all.

Similarly, I love when Jesus shares His pain with me on Good Friday as He has done this year. He does not choose to share the bleeding, and that is fortunate because it would be messy, and, unlike St. Padre Pio, I lack a community, being a hermit, and the service rendered by such a community.

One of the sweetest impressions one gets from movies on the subject of Padre Pio, is the respect and dignity rendered by them toward one of their own. Let us be clear about stimata; they are a share of Jesus' Body and consequently, of His passion, and one way or another, His bleeding and His pain.

This year i turned 78, and He has been most generous sharing with me, and I do not deserve it. He has allowed joy to seep in around the edges with quiet little moments in which to enjoy His presence; the pain is like a violin to a fine wine or a sumptuous chocolate bar. I don't see the future as some have, but I can guess what may be around the corner, and it is frightful to say the least. People will be desperate to find one person sound and whole enough of mind that they might attempt to find some sense in the mélange from him or her. Be clear, the sharing they want cannot be, and God will not grant it except if it meets His criteria, and He judgment is high indeed.

People have already been suffering enough, or I would not suffer anything consequential. As it is, I can suffer rejection, physical pain and ill judgement enough for any ten men, and endure it by myself. There is only one person I would like for company as it is, and  He is my divine Lord, Jesus.  People respond in all sorts of way to His presence, many having no idea who He is, yet they can find comfort and delight in Him the same as me, and it is lovely to celebrate that together in Garden.

Some people do not make the connection between the pleasure of His company and the presence of Jesus in prayer, and that is a gift of contemplation in which all manner of wonders may be seen, stigmata being only one of them. They share His Body, who suffer His passion and His Spirit, and He does not spare  much for their sake. Padre Pio suffered day and night, and frequently at night at the hands of evil and demons, when he would be mercilessly beaten and mistreated, so that at one point he required surgery to repair a hernia, a procedure he underwent without anesthesia. We can glimpse his state in the Mass he celebrated with such devotion that his face wat stained with tears, contorted in suffering. Only a block of wood could be impervious to what was seen by people then. It was silent, very silent in the church during Mass with Padre Pio. People knew He was present, though it is unlikely many had any vision during that time, to explain.

And again, visions are often manifest in the lives of those who lived to pray and prayed with Jesus at their side, united into His happiness and His life itself. That is the essence of a mystical life. Life as a mystic has no subtitles, ordinarily, but there again, there are signs enough that any observer of someone in that kind of prayer cannot be mistaken. A mystic may be defined as someone who shares in the life of Jesus by experiencing His life by His grace and charity. People who were around Padre Pio while he was praying saw him transfigured, and awesome things often happened in his prayers.

A person can share in great joy and happiness, who share in His life through prayer. I know, because I shared with people whom I would unequivocally call mystics. There are many places in Scripture of this week that it is stated strange things happened during the time of His passion.

For everyone, we are called to share together in the penitence of forgiving and being forgiven, which is to say, that they shared in His healing power through means none of us can understand. To forgive is to shed mercy like a rain the desert, and forgive like men freed from the yoke of slavery and the lot of the starving and dying, impoverished and some blessed to have their burden borne by Christ Himself.

He bore all our pain and suffering, but it is a special gift when He bore our wounds and bleeding pain, and shared with us so we could witness His absolute solidarity with the human race. All this evil has forsaken and repudiated, unable to endure the goodness and holiness of Jesus, let alone His light and peace which are His abundant gift to those disposed by divine love to be enabled.

He has enabled me. He loves me and forgives me and the human race may witness His love if they wish, if they can stand to repudiate evil and we can endure His embrace, pierced and bleeding on this day we commemorate forever. 

Sin is to obtain what is desired, forsaking Christ in the process, since either we choose Jesus in a moment, or we choose our own gratification, hoping He does not see and does not know. But He does see, and He does know, and all of Heaven does, and certainly those who choose suffering instead of pain and loneliness instead of His company and His light. But there is a difference between foregoing a good thing for His sake and sinning to satisfy our needs.

I bear what He chose to give me, and I have found impervious joy in having chosen, and having been granted the opportunity to choose the divine Lord, beaten, forsaken and forgotten, denied and not chosen. What little things such treasure rest upon; it is amazing that such little implements as nails in hands and feet, and the one great lance that opened the Heart of Jesus the Lord so we may be physically present to Him in our choices and He may be present to us in His embrace.

Make no mistake, the wickedness of evil is very plain to see, and contemptuous of all who serve Jesus Christ. His light waits to fall on the dawn of this day and all souls good or bad, with the hope that He may be reunited to those who have gone astray. Therefore let us do penance denying ourselves little things, remembering what He chose to forsake so He could bless His cross with obedience to His Father. If we accept our cross, our portion of is nails and lance, it cannot be otherwise than that He will rescue us from evil and keep us safe in that way which is eternal union with the bliss of Love.

The world He created was not evil; it was perfect, created out of His perfect love as an example and statement to  all who would serve Him in life. He has spoken that word to us, and we must still finish our trials by which we attempt to make the right choices in life, and to ask to be forgiven so that He knows we have chosen Him and desire to be with Him, and not with the ones who have forsaken life.

Weeping Silence

Nature itself has been formed into a specific shape
to speak a certain word, and we are impoverished
if we pay it no heed.

Spread wide the palms of your hands, and bare your side to receive His love, that incomprehensible gift of agony which is love and without no man can draw a breath. Walk on those feet cruelly fastened to the tree, look through your blood clogged eyes on the savior of the human race.

How few they are who do, or even dare the think they could bear, such incomprehendible weight on their own frailty.

He drives in each nail on His victim loves, and cries out the lamentation that cannot be spoken because it hurts too much. He waits for His turn to say "It is is finished" without voice, without sound, without encompassing all He did in His short life.

Now, when He arranges for my frail limbs to be raised up to greet His deeds, the world still does not see what He is doing, but every deed requested by those lovers of His love are granted in spite of it all. It is a short span of time, the nailing of the innocent man to the abominable cross. His final act is to cease, to stop, to let out the last breath and not take another. His lovers mimic Him the best they can, and the world goes by in silence because there is nothing else to be done.

All His deeds will be revealed, and all our love unveiled in the midst of the unbelieving. 

They could not even disbelieve if it were not granted from above. Their haughty, arrogant snarls give way to the wave of love that will transfigure the whole earth, and reveal everything.

With my hands spread fixed to the cross I cannot reveal what He has done; I only stand still in the silence and the nothingness of the wilderness. Surely He will come soon to reveal His love to me so that I may be finished, completed His love having succeeded even with me. You cannot see, but He will reveal, and the pain will cease in the glory of His light.

Causes

 

If it can be said that a God causes or permits disasters among men, then the twentieth century has to be the epitome of evil times. All the fascist communist dictators that have paraded their arrogance on our stage have been acting out the ultimate culmination of evil over the world. If we don't want it, we should not elect narcissistic mental cases to be president of the United States, and we do not tolerate the invasion of peaceful countries because they defy the selfish obsessions of former communists.

Yet it is still possible to find traces of civilization which epitomize what humans can achieve of love and piety. That the enemy should be incapacitated is obvious to those who enjoy civilized society prcisely because it fosters diversity and freedom. 

Nations should have the right to choose their govenment and organize their lives in profitable pursuits, education and the exercise of divine love in the world.

It seems to me that coincidence is too random; that juxtaposed states among human beings happen for a reason, and the opportunity to choose in life is a treaure.

If the Lord offers you the opportunity to live your life as a religious life, dedicated and avowed to Him, you should avail yourself, because He does not always make His offer more than once in a lifetime.

There are planty of examples to follow in history, and a little research will turn up people suitable for emulation.

If tyrants walk the stage and strut their selfishness on the world's stage, it is a clear offer from God to act a different way and be promoted in that way with all His assistance. He died on the cross for the success of that enterprize.

May you be blessed to find the way, and may your way be like His, who has loved us so very well.

Pearls

Pearls result from irritation

Saint hood , of a sort, can be briefly won now and again. I suppose it is like a patch of sunlight burning through a heavy cloud, warming the earth below for a moment, to gladden the heart. In this way, we might be won over by the Lord, if only for a moment, long enough for Him to make our heart incandesc in unspeakable, and unforgettable light.

Strung together like pearls, one may fashion a whole life, even if carved out of stoney hearts, and it may make a whole wall intricately and ornately carved to stand forever in the day, for someone to see. Moved to replicate what was seen other lives may be strung together as well, miraculously from the cross itself, where our poor hearts beat bravely on until too tired to carry on.

Oh live to be pearls in the bright noon-day sun and shine with glowing hearts of joy, to be what you are in the moment, for Him. All those moments that belong to Him paint a picture that is like Him. For a moment, let Him forget the nails of the cross, to listen to the little sounds of joy.