And this video is, The Devil Exists And I Met him."
And it is about Padre Pio's struggles and fights against the diabolical world.
Hello friends, and welcome to our channel, Following Padre Pio, where we have a series
of short stories on the life of our great Saint Padre Pio.
He was a Capuchin friar, a mystic and a tremendous miracle worker.
Do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and also to see what his intercession
could do for you.
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Now we ve seen how in an earlier video, there were these diabolical appearances in Padre
Pio's life.
And it was something very real and other people were aware of it happening.
And it was always something horrific that people could never get used to.
These appearances of the demons to Padre Pio, they continued to happen throughout his life.
And we're going to take some things from Padre Pio's writings to his spiritual director.
And we'll see that Padre Pio also received help from celestial visitations, our Lord
and other notable celestial personalities.
They would arrive and they would help him through these difficult times.
And of course, if our Lord is arriving to help you, then in that time Padre Pio took
advantage to develop a real, intimate, personal conversation with our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, something really good came out of it and the devil was trying to prevent this from
happening.
So we're going to see from Padre Pio's writings, his conversations, how he describes him with
our Lord.
And this is from the book, The Last Mass of Padre Pio.
Here he is, writing to his spiritual director.
And Padre Pio says, "Every morning he comes to me."
That is our Lord.
"He comes to me and pours into my heart, all the effusions of his goodness.
I wish, if I could do so, to wash my blood with those places that have scandalized so
many souls," So, he wants to make his soul absolutely pure after having been visited
by our Lord, "but forever praise the mercy of Jesus.
This merciful Jesus always asks me for love."
So, he's having some pretty intimate conversations with our Lord himself.
And then Padre Pio goes on to contrast the delights of meeting our Lord with the reality
of these battles that he had to go through.
And this is, once again, from his letters to his spiritual director.
And Padre Pio says, "Blue beard," that's his way of referring to the devil, "does not want
to give up.
He showed himself under almost every shape possible.
For several days now he comes to visit me together with his minions, all armed with
sticks and iron contraptions, and what is worse, even worse than those sticks and iron
contraptions, those instruments of torture, is under their own appearance, under their
own shape as they are.
Who knows how many times he threw me off the bed, dragged me all over the room.
But patience, because Jesus, our mother Mary, their little angel, their guardian angel,
Saint Joseph and father Saint Francis, they almost always are with me."
Helping him through these difficult battles.
And so, we see this conforms exactly with what the church teaches about the diabolic,
and that is, that they are monstrous, and they have a terrifying aspect to them.
And they act as a compact, as a legion.
And we know this as well from the gospels where our Lord was driving the demons out
of a person into the swine.
They referred to themselves as legion.
They beat and they drag their victim around the room, so it's a physical fight.
But when our Lord, his mother, the saint, saw the guardian angels appear, then the fight
is over.
It's inevitable and Satan flees, he has been defeated.
So, we must always ask for the assistance of these celestial visitors, our Lord himself,
his mother, the angels, and the saints.
They can really help us in our struggles and battles.
Of course, we might imagine that these things are happening in some long gone, medieval
times, but in fact, this was quite recent, and it was taking place around the time of
World War II.
And so now, Padre Pio, he's met and seen the demons and the names he uses now to describe
them are not very complimentary.
So, these are some of the names that Padre Pio uses to refer to the demon.
So he's describing them through their names.
He calls them, "The Ugly Moustache Bearer, Blue Beard Scoundrel."
These are names for the demons he uses.
"They are Wretched Evil Spirits; Horrible Thing; Ugly Rubbish; Ugly; Revolting Animal;
Ugly; Unhappy Junk; Bad Faces in Pure Spirits; The Miserable Ones; The Ugly Beast; The Damned
Beast; Infamous Apostate."
He continues later on, "Roaring Wild Beasts with a Spiteful Temper; and the Prince of
Darkness."
So that is how Padre Pio is describing the demonic world, all of these things.
And now in another little example, we'll see how the demons are completely unfair, and
they have these ongoing assaults against our Lord, against Padre Pio.
And this is also from his writings to his spiritual director.
"I went through the other night very badly," Padre Pio says, "that revolting thing from
about ten o'clock, when I went to bed until five o'clock in the morning, all he did was
beat me up continuously.
He put into my mind many diabolical suggestions, thoughts of despair and distrusting God even.
But praise be to Jesus because I defended myself by repeating to Jesus these words,"
and this is in Latin, "Vulnera tua meritum mea," your wounds are my merits.
He just repeated this again and again to our Lord himself.
This got him through the difficult time, and we can see what a spiritual battle this really
is.
So, vulnera tua meritum mea, your wounds are my merits.
Despite Padre Pio having the strongest faith possible, it was not easy for him to go through
this time.
And in fact, he thought that perhaps the end had arrived or that he was losing his mind.
That is how intense these battles, these struggles, really were.
And so we've seen here, the unpleasantness of the diabolical, they are really something
horrid and hideous, and they're able to push one to the very limits as far as God allows
him.
But thanks be to God, we have victory through Christ.
Next time we're going to be having a look at how the devil tries to isolate and to cancel
Padre Pio.
We're going to see some of the strategies he uses and that he is, in fact, a very intelligent,
shrewd being with a strategy, and Padre Pio refers to his priesthood as a hard trade in
this time.
Please do join us next time.
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