Memorial Day

Rest, brother and be at peace.

 I have no explanation for the joy of your heart within me, except to plead you never leave  me or bandon me. 

Forgive my sins as a sign to your children that you love them enough to pardon them, and give each one your grace and strength.

I cannot say I was a good steward, or even a good son of your gifts, except to say, You are so boundless in your love and happiness, that it spills over like a spring bursting out its confinement to leap up to heaven to be near with you.

I am not unvisited, and I am not ignorant of your passion, but in the manner you desired I have been fixed to a cross as real as life, and as incomprehensible as light.

Let your Light shone on me, and on all your children Lord, and bless them with Yourself.

Amen.

A Unique Position

 

The Mother of God, Mary, has never been seen bearing the wounds of Jesus, Her son. However, A different perspective may be obtained by dedicating our silence to Her in a penance that makes us not just worthy to participate, but ready and willing for Her love.

I am glad She was never made to suffer that kind of pain, but She was present when He was nailed to the cross, and in a mystical way, She experienced the passion fully, and on occasion, has been present as someone else received the Stigmata as She enabled her to do so. I refer to Saint Gemma Galgani.

If anyone can bear the unbearable, it is Mary the Mother of God. And yet, because of Her love, She is able to free us from sin and heal us of all things wrong with us.

All the things wrong with the world today are solvable by asking Her intercession to the Father through Her son. And for this reason, we should pray the Rosary daily, and ask for the solving all things wrong, the wars, the insolent rejection of Jesus and the Church, and the crimes committed everywhere which burden our hearts with pain.

The Mother of God knows what is wrong and how to fix it. At the same time, a great deal of gratitude and humility must be present to obtain our answer. If at first you do not receive what you ask, ask Her how to obtain the gift you seek.

Anyone willing to recall Her life and stand by Her side in the passion, should receive what they ask because they love the Mother of God.

The children of God are not afraid to endure suffering or pain in order to obtain the salvation of souls and the things necessary for salvation.

Useless

If He has given us light, let us do what we can
to be illuminated by it. Let no one think he is
useless in such great light as God provides.

 It is not alright to let someone crumble down to nothing and do nothing to help. At the very least, one should ask if there is anything we can do. The trouble is, that, in crumbling, they take others with them as the mountains fall apart atop of them.

One of the most egregious such events is the disintegration of donald trump, who, having torn up civilization as we know it, now loses control of himself and does nothing useful  in the process.

I can't help but think, there is something we can do, each and every one of us, to help save as much of our civilization as possible.

Nuclear war is no more inevitable than any other kind of war. And it is not alright to stand by and watch as aggressors attack peaceful countries and start destroying their civilizations without at least the dignity of a declaration of war. Flying in dozens of military airplanes loaded with bombs and missiles without provocation to drop them indiscriminately on helpless people is not alright.

On the other hand, cooperating with other nations whose  policies are the annihilation of entire populations is genocide, and unacceptable. Plainly, either we are for civilization or we are for annihilation. Religions that permit or foster the planned destruction of people because of their religion is genocide, and I will say it again, is genocide. There is zero tolerance in God' eyes for the planned destruction of peoples.

God permits many things, defying imagination and comprehension. The things He permits may means loved ones die, lives are disrupted and civilizations disrupted irrevocably. But those who are praying for the salvation of other people are righteous, and in enduring the unendurable, God is glorified by them in their suffering.

Before we were born, He planned to come down and live a life among us and give us the opportunity of participating in salvation and the exaltation of those suffering by being glorified by Him. The participation is living in and with bliss as much as agony, and for some, the two coincide in an unspeakable moment of understanding and peace which supersedes all that has gone before.

I can ask myself, have I really suffered enough to be worth enough to Him to be loved? The answer is always "yes", and when I can comprehend and encompass my experiences, I am speechless that there is nothing appropriate to say. To be silenced in such a way is astonishing.

My prayers are not always granted in the way I wished, but they are acknowledged by Him and He may be edified by our love.

Silence is exquisite, allowing us to experience peace, and in the peace, the love of God, and therefore, the silence is unspeakably valuable. Whether He answers us in a way we immediately comprehend or not, is not important; He made us, and gave us gifts that are immensely powerful; more powerful than armies, navies or air forces. But if we create them, then we must control how we use them. What He does with us depends on our actions. Dropping another megaton of TNT on top of human beings does not bring anything enjoyable on us, adds nothing to the bottom line and gains no favor from the Lord. Any religion that things otherwise is destined to a dark and miserable end.

In the end, if all we actually got out of bombing people was a little thrill, then we have lost our humanity, and our civilization has proved a worthless waste of time. We did not surpass ourselves in the last two world wars; our weapons have dehumanized us and our victims, and perhaps has cut us off from ourselves by cutting us off from God. He stands seeing what we did and what we planned to do, and we will have to try again. If current trends continue as they are now, we will create devices capable of destroying our planet itself while we stand in empty space. The feeling of solid ground disappearing from underneath our feet in a dark and airless void is terrifying at least. Having to wait for a comet strike to kill us is no more edifying than waiting for a warhead to ignite above us and reduce us to radioactive dust.

Pain

 

Today, my hands are full of sorrow, of loneliness and suffering, bearing forward unseen, carrying a cross where every empty heart shines in the light of God's love and is filled with peace and joy for those whose eyes will not close so the soul might see the Face of Christ in peace, being filled by the Holy Spirit with power to love and to disclose divine love.

Comfort denied, prevented, hurts twice as much because it thrusts pain forward in every gesture. He bids me go with Him, to suffer with Him, and demonstrate His divine love until I may rest in peace again seeing the gift of love bestowed brightly visible.

He asks for prayers with which to comfort all those who were forced to die by dictators, without any comfort.

He asks for all to pray for all those whose homes were callously bombarded by greedy selfish animals, and all the young lives cut off from life without mercy, and destruction.

Let the tongues who cry out for war fall off the beasts who crave war. In their place, all those who suffer at their hand should ask God for forgiveness and mercy over the whole earth until the sounds of hatred and violence falls silent.

I do not know when I will realize the pain has been alleviated, and God has walked among us again to assert His reign, but I do not whimper; but move with Christ until He is satisfied that there are men and women in the world who do themselves love God beyond everything and move forward until they meet Him face to face and the meaning of the world we live on is made manifest to our darkness with the satisfaction of Almighty God.

Penetrare et Perforate, sed sola Amore tuo.

Many people wonder about the meaning, the "why" of St. Padre Pio's stigmata. I think it was not a matter of worthiness, so much as the Will of God being embodied to serve the salvation of souls and the Church Herself. 

it may be the Church will suffer a great deal in the coming years, right along with the faithful and even the unfaithful of the Church, and perhaps, for the sake of having something sufficient to the need of the human race.

It is eminently practical that rather than several million stigmatists, there should be only one, taking on himself miraculously, the sin and need of the human race, with Jesus, which was sufficient for the need, but not encompassing everyone.

So, anyone who feels the same charity that St. Padre Pio felt kneeling before the crucifix with the Corpus hanging so near, knows the weeping and lamentation as he undergoes the imprinting of His crucifixion on himself as on a parchment of the needs of the Church.

The world does not exist outside of the Heart of Charity of Jesus. which is to say, he who encounters the love surrounding the place of the skull, encounters the Person and personal suffering of the Lord, Crucified. And he who encounters that, encounters Jesus personally, and not in some empty desolation, but in the furnace of love which engulfed every sensation of the crucifixion of Jesus. One could not experience the passion except with suffering the true pain and suffering of a human being who is also the Divine Lord.

It was all too easy to deprive Padre Pio of happiness by preventing him from hearing confessions, saying Mass or the ordinary joy of the existence of another human being. So, the miracle of the imprinting of the wounds of Jesus on Padre Pio was three-fold deprivation of the kindling of love in an extraordinary heart. But the heart was the first to be wounded, so that, in fifty years of bearing the wounds of Jesus, he might be available constantly and continuously, to intercede on our behalf of and for the salvation of many souls.

 I do not think one can encounter the person of Padre Pio and not suffer with him. Surely, as we are sinners, we are in need of healing, which abundantly encompassed all who approached Padre Pio. No one was outside the sphere of his healing power, the power and efficacy of his Holy Mass or encountered some disembodied wraithe, but he was wholly and entirely loving as Jesus loved in him.

I wanted to write this down before it wafted away from my old mind. If someone wanted to, they could easily carry me off like an old chair; it would not be hard. By the same token, it was not hard to do what they willed with the Padre, because he was so surrendered to the Lord, that he had no strength to resist His Will. O Padre, help my poor tattered soul !

I do not know how, but He has imprinted me, and I do not feel I can resist either, but let me know His love in your love for me, and enable me to be an offering, but one that is worthy in your estimation.

Deeper

 

To be a saint it is only necessary to be ready to love Him as He asks. It is amazing to regard with what love He deals with us. He is always ready to reach out to us in our daily, ordinary lives, constantly vigilant of any opportunity to please Him, whether what He asks is very little, or very great. Thus, pain that appears suddenly might be a request for more of your attention. Your soul might be fortunate to be asked only for your awareness, presence and willingness to be at His disposal.

If one's cross is small, so might the pain you share with Him hanging on the cross. On the other hand, the unbearable pain that can make its sudden appearance can likewise manifest how small our love is by the unwillingness to share any more pain than what is already at hand.

Often, saints have been saints from an early stage in their lives. They became aware of Him and the extraordinary nature of the love He was extending to them. Therefore, if you find yourself pierced through with pain accompanied with no visible sign of its origin, let your first prayer be to be able to bear it for His love, whether it is accompanied with bliss, or not, which is often associated with great sufferings. 

The trappings of modern life are such that they are captivating in themselves. They are capable of fascinating us with awe for their beauty and appreciation of human imagination which all tend to a level of comfort. What a surprise when we discover how extraordinary are His intentions to engulf us in bliss and agony all at the same time. One might even be tempted to ask how it can be unreasonable to enjoy one's place at such a sumptuous table. But the Lord invites us precisely at the realization of happiness at possessing what is possible in the moment. I testify that he has asked me abruptly on many occasions for reasons not disclosed, to embrace the unembraceable suffering, fully aware of its connection with His passion, and of His audcity to ask us. Truly, if we would love Him, we must be willing. 

His audacity in asking might be a sign of great importance to us in growing holier and less selfish and, indeed, selfless. Whether you are actually asked in an explicit way to suffer on His cross, or not, you must consider that He invites you to greater, sweeter love of Him, if you are ready and willing. If you are asked without a disclosure of His intention to permit your suffering or to permit its increase,life is eternal and so is His reward. Consider, also, that many other souls depend on your vigilance in willing to be aware of His desire for your company in a particular.

In the present day, wars break out, unprovoked and unjust, such as in Ukraine, but also in Israel and the greater middle east and even among our allies, that threaten wholesale destruction. If it is not that, then it is a personal crisis, a life-threatening physical incident, or even simply to loss of someone we loved. Giving the heart without asking for the reason, is the highest step before union, a selfless loving surrender to His intent.

I do not say it is always easy to say "yes", though often it is, simply to build our trust so we can be strong enough to actually persevere. Put yes is never trivial, but is easier if we have already previously been asked a lot and we have given the best we have. we cannot help but be closer to Him, and in being closer, we might be susceptible of being asked more explicitly.

How can I refuse You Lord. My hands hurt so much, and the least movement reminds me immediately of your cross. You touch them and make them holy to receive your grace and gifts. Let them, thus, be occasions of you grace and love, since you have so abundantly forgotten my sins and continued to be my Lord. I am only afraid I cannot bear the pain I do not know.Let my misery be the occasion of the greatest graces needed by my friends and enemies, so that it can be seen that you are love and desire from us only love, we who have been so reluctant. Quell the surge of fear the enemy launches at us, and let us invoke your love to protect us through anything.

Embrace me so your people may come to know the sweetness of your embrace, and strengthen their love to withstand the violence of the enemy,  show the world what it is to live in God and He in us, through love.

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.
+

 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.