And the title of today's talk, The Devil Exists and I Met Him.
And this is the third section in which we are going to see the devil making Padre Pio's
life hell with his cunning and all of his strategies that he uses.
So please do stay tuned for this talk.
Hello friends, and welcome to our channel, Following Padre Pio, in which through a series
of short stories, we take a look into the life of our great Saint Padre Pio.
He was Capuchin friar, he was a mystic, and he was a tremendous miracle worker.
So do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and to see what his intercession could
do for you.
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So we have a mass every Friday dedicated to Padre Pio in which we bring your intentions
to Padre Pio.
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Previously, we saw how the devil and demons would appear physically to harass Padre Pio.
And they would beat Padre Pio, anything they could to prevent him from taking his whole
mission and ministry ahead.
And this happened right from the very beginning when Padre Pio first joined the monastery,
until he was much, much older.
And now we are going to be having a look at some of the cunning strategies that the demonic
world used against Padre Pio.
And as we said, that for most people our battle with the devil really only takes place in
the interior of our souls where we have to resist these temptations, any suggestions,
and on the contrary, we have to practice acts of virtue and piety.
But these encounters with the demonic world do show us how real this demonic world is
in Padre Pio's case.
And in the first instance, we see that Padre Pio was put through a diabolical censorship.
And the devil tries by various means to isolate Padre Pio, and in fact, to cancel him here.
Now, firstly, Padre Pio had a correspondence going with his spiritual director, who was
a father, who was someone sure and able, an expert to guide Padre Pio spiritually.
So the devil wanted to interfere in this correspondence.
And he tells us that frequently these letters, and it may sound like something out of Harry
Potter, these letters from his spiritual director, they would frequently arrive with Padre Pio
and they would be stained and unreadable.
It sounds a little bizarre already.
A series of letters would all arrive, stained and unreadable.
And Padre Pio said they only became legible, that is readable, after they were touched
to a crucifix or sprinkled with holy water.
So how bizarre is that?
And then often at the same time, while Padre Pio was doing this, the demons would be making
these incredibly strong suggestions to Padre Pio.
We're going to read one of these instances.
And this is from the book, The Last Mass of Padre Pio.
Padre Pio says, "Those ugly things lately upon receiving your letters.
Before I opened it, told me to shred it or to throw it into the fire.
And I answered them that nothing would be able to make me change my mind.
And then they hurled themselves at me like many starving tigers, cursing me and threatening
me to make me pay for this.
My father, they have kept their word.
From that day on they have beaten me daily, but I am not terrified".
And at other times the demons would try different strategies on Padre Pio.
They would try flattery and they would try good manners and being very suave and that.
But they very quickly changed to the old strategy of beatings as soon as these traps failed.
So we see here something akin to a duel going on between Padre Pio and the diabolical world,
right to the death.
It's an absolute enmity that exists between them, exactly as described right back in the
book of Genesis where enmity was placed between the serpent and the Woman and all of her offspring.
And now we're going to have a look at Padre Pio's reaction to this.
And he says, "Quite the country.
Rather than getting scared, I got ready for a fight with a mocking smile on my lips towards
them.
And then for sure, they showed themselves under the most abominable shapes, trying to
make me cross the line.
They started giving me the golden glove treatment, but thanks to heaven, I chastised them severely,
handling them for what they were worth.
And as they saw all their efforts go up in smoke, they jumped on me and they threw me
onto the ground and hit me so hard.
Stream pillows, books, chairs, and all the while uttering desperate screams and pronouncing
filthy words".
So that is the reality Padre Pio exposed of what they are, but they come across also as
a very intelligent enemy.
And so not just an isolated attack is made on Padre Pio, but they attack from all sides
as part of their strategy.
And Padre Pio tells us this, showing what an intelligent strategy they have.
"Satan with his evil ways never gets tired of engaging me in battle and storming my little
fortress by laying siege to it far and wide.
In other words, Satan is for me like a powerful enemy, who having resolved to take by force
a town square, is not satisfied to assault it on one side or an inner bastion.
But he surrounds it from every side and assaults it everywhere at once and torments it everywhere."
So he knows that's his strategy that's most likely to work and doesn't hesitate to use
it.
And now we have a look at another example, one called a very strange penitent.
And one morning a tall, slim, very elegantly dressed gentleman came to confession with
Padre Pio.
And often kneeling down, he started to accuse himself of all of his sins in his faults.
And Padre Pio tells us that his faults were all horrendous.
They were absolutely horrendous and they were all against God and they were against neighbours
and they were against the morals.
All of them absolutely revolt him.
But this left Padre Pio quite disturbed.
Something about this.
And so later on, he went to discuss this with another priest, Padre Tossiso.
Obviously, discreetly discussing it, respecting the seal of the confessional.
And about this incident Padre Pio tells us, "One thing struck me regarding every one of
his accusations, even after my rebuke made by sighting as witness the word of God, the
Magisterium of the church, and the morals of the saints, this enigmatic penitent rebutted
my words, justifying with extreme ease and ability, and with very polished gentleness,
any kind of sin, emptying it of its malice, and trying at the same time to show all his
sinful actions as if they were absolutely normal, natural, humanly indifferent.
And this was not only regarding the horrific sins against God, Jesus, the blessed mother
of the saints, whom he addressed using irreverent circumlocutions without ever naming them.
But also regarding sins, which were morally so filthy and loutish, to touch the very bottom
of the nauseating sewer."
So this was his experience in confessional with this person.
As we said, it left Padre Pio somewhat worried and he discussed it with this other priest.
And so we see he had a lot of ability.
He's kind of like a politician or one of our polished leaders nowadays who makes every
sin and every vice seem into something natural and normal.
But this whole incident had Padre Pio quite worried.
And we can perhaps understand why when we see the intentions of this penitent.
And so he continues with the story.
"And the answers this enigmatic penitent gave from time to time to my augmentation with
skilful subtlety and muffled malice.
They shocked me", Padre Pio said.
"I was asking myself the question, who is this person?
Where does he come from?
Who can he possibly be?
And I tried to take a look at his face in order to read there among the wrinkles on
his face.
At the same time, I sharpened my hearing at each word that he spoke so that none of them
could escape my attention in order to weigh them up, to understand their reach.
And then at a certain point, by a vivid and a very bright interior light, I perceived
who was in front of me.
And so with a decisive and imperious tone, I told him, say, Praise Jesus and Hail Mary,
and as soon as I pronounced these most delightful and most powerful names, Satan disappeared
in an instant, in a blazing flame, leaving behind him an unbearable and suffocating stench."
And so we've seen how Padre Pio experienced Satan as a father of lies and deceit.
But when he was told to pronounce the words, "Praise be to Jesus", or to honour our lady
with hail Mary, the greeting of our lady, then the demon is defeated and his true nature
comes out leaving behind an utter stench.
Then next time on this channel, we are going to be having a look at a story about Marquis
Giovanna, and it is Padre Pio's very first bilocation and an amazing set of coincidences
that go with this bilocation.
So please do join us for that story.
And once again, please do enrol your mass pre-intentions, just watch the video on the
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