Today, we're going to be having a look at how an angel pierces Padre Pio's heart with
a weapon.
This happens in a vision.
It's called the transverberation.
Why did this happen?
What is the meaning?
Is it even something real or just a mystical phenomenon?
So, do stay tuned to find out more about this.
Hello, friends.
Welcome to this channel, where we look at the life of our great saint, Padre Pio, who
was a Capuchin friar.
He was a mystic, a tremendous miracle worker.
Do stay tuned, to find out more about his life and to see what his intercession could
do for you.
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We're looking at the mystical piercing of the heart with a lance.
Apparently, this is a very rare phenomenon, that only occurs to a handful of the greatest
saints.
For instance, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross St., Therese of the Infant
Jesus, St. Philip Neri, and of course, Padre Pio, have all experienced this phenomena of
the transverberation.
Of course, what is it?
What does it involve?
So let's have a look at the definition or the explanation rather, of the Great Mystic
of Carmel, St. John of the Cross.
This is how he describes it, the transverberation.
He says, "The soul is inflamed with the love of God.
The soul then feels a Seraph, an angel attack her, the soul, with an arrow or with a dart,
all incandescent in the fire of love, transverberating right throughout the soul.
It is ignited like an ember or bitter like a living flame."
He says, "It cauterizes in a sublime way."
St. John of the Cross continues, "In that moment, the soul is cauterized or the soul
is pierced by an arrow.
The inner flame impetuously bursts forth and rises upwards with a vehemence, as in a blazing
oven or when a bonfire is stirred up and stoked and ignites into flame."
"The soul being wounded by this fiery dart feels the wound," he says, "but with great
delight.
In addition to being stirred up by great gentleness, that fiery and impetuous flight that the Seraph
causes in the soul, leads to great fervor and to loving ecstasy."
Then he says, "At the same time, the soul feels this penetrating wound and the force
of the poison with which that arrow carries, like a sharp point, to bury itself right in
the substance of the spirit and to pierce the intimate, the most intimate part of the
soul."
So, although it sounds a wonderful and good thing and it really is, it also brings with
it unprecedented suffering.
For there's only this meaning, he tells us, in this enlargement of the heart.
That is to love more and to love as Christ loved.
His love, for which the greatest proof was his surrender, to be nailed on the wood of
the cross.
So, that is the description of St. John of the Cross on the transverberation.
Certainly, something physical.
He says, "Something extremely painful."
In Padre Pio's case, it opened a chest wound, a wound in the side of his chest.
But the important thing, the outcome was greater love.
So, as we say, this was precisely what happened to Padre Pio.
It occurred in August of 1918, even before the visible stigmata appeared on Padre Pio.
It is worth noting, of course, that this grace is strongly linked to the passion of Jesus.
The transverberation is, in fact, God's loving invitation to certain select souls.
It's an opportunity for them to take part in the work of redemption, as kind of co-redemptorist
with our Lord.
Because he asked one of his disciples, one of his apostles, "Can you drink the cup that
I must drink?"
He's offering this to Padre Pio.
Let us see now from his letters, how Padre Pio himself describes what happened to him,
what he has to say.
It's taken from various letters and diaries.
Padre Pio tells us, "I was hearing confession of the boys of the college," and he relates
this to his spiritual director, "when suddenly, I was seized with an extreme horror at the
site of a celestial personage, an angel, which presented himself in the eyes of the intellect.
He had in his hand, an artifice of the shape of a long iron blade, the short point which
seemed all on fire."
He says, "Watching all of this and seeing the aforementioned character suddenly, violently
drive this instrument right into my soul, it was something extreme.
After that, with difficulty, I managed to groan in desperate agony.
I felt like I was dying."
I asked the boy whose confession he was hearing, if he could leave, because he felt so bad.
He didn't have the strength to continue.
His martyrdom, he says, lasted until the morning of the seventh, sometime later, some days
later.
"But what I suffered during this period was more than I can explain," Padre Pio says.
"I even saw my viscera, my insides being ripped and torn apart with that instrument.
Everything was now put to the test."
"Since then," Padre Pio says, "I have been mortally wounded.
I feel in the very depths of my soul, a wound that is always open and continuously makes
me suffer."
It wasn't something obvious or clearly good to Padre Pio because it got him to wondering,
is this not some punishment inflicted by the divine justice?
So, it was confusing.
Was God punishing him?
Father Agostino, who was his confessor, attests to the truth, to the veracity of this phenomenon.
He describes it in his diary, that Padre Pio felt his heart physically being torn apart
and that in fact, there was blood flowing.
He says, "The blood came partly from Padre Pio's mouth and partly from the chest wound."
It's a physical reality, very painful.
In another letter to Padre Benedetto, Padre Pio says that, "The agony increased more and
more.
I feel immersed in an ocean of fire."
Imagine how painful that is, an ocean of fire.
"The wound that was opened in me, bleeds nonstop."
"This alone," he says, "would be enough to cause me a thousand deaths."
"My God," he asked, "why don't I die?
Can't you see that for that soul you have wounded, life has become a real torment?
The extreme pain of the wound, that is always open and makes me annoyed against my will,
it drives me out of my mind, drives me to delirium, but I find myself powerless to resist."
In this way, through this transverberation, Padre Pio had taken another step into that
transfiguration, which St. Paul himself describes in his letter, "That it is no longer I who
live, but Christ who lives in me."
So this is the journey.
The saint was taken, been transformed into Christ himself, mystically.
We do ask you to join us next time.
We'll have another video on the life and times of our great saint, Padre Pio.
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