And today we ask this question, was Padre Pio a disciple of Divine Mercy.
So, we, in Lent and heading towards Easter and Divine Mercy devotions are so important
at this time.
Let's have a look at the connection.
Hello, friends of Following Padre Pio.
On this channel, we bring you a series of short stories on the incredible life of our
great Saint Padre Pio, Capuchin friar, mystic, a tremendous miracle worker.
Do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and also to find out what his intercession
could do for you.
Quick reminder, that we do have a Lenten selection of videos at the moment, and to see the Lenten
selections, you can go to the video description directly below here and click on the link.
And in today's little story, as we said earlier, that Lent and Easter are right here and, in
these times, we often focus on the devotion of Divine Mercy because we have the Sunday
of Divine Mercy, and also the novena of Divine Mercy, established, brought to us or requested
by Saint Faustina.
Now, the message of Divine Mercy is one celebrating Jesus's great love for all of humanity and
his love, our Lord's love took expression, took its greatest expression, in the passion
and the crucifixion of our Lord ending in only when the lance pierced our Lord's side
and the final blood and water flowed out.
This separation into blood and water happens only under extreme stress so that indicates
the type of death our Lord would've died.
Now in Saint Faustina's writings, she indicates the meanings of this when she talks about
the mercy and the love and other meanings associated it with our Lord's crucifixion.
So, we're going to just delve a little bit into this now.
But now were Padre Pio and St. Faustina, were their lives and their concept of divine mercy,
was that aligned or did they kind of go in cross purposes, in different directions?
Let's investigate this by taking some of the writings from the diary of St. Faustina, of
Sister Faustina, and compare this with a mystical life of our great Saint Padre Pio.
We're going to compare these two now.
Saint Faustina said the following.
She said she heard that during prayer, she heard inwardly these words, so this would
be our Lord speaking.
"The two rays represent the blood and the water, and that the pale ray represents the
water that justifies souls," I guess that's through baptism.
And He said, "The red ray represents the blood which gives the life to souls."
As Christians, we receive the Eucharist, and we believe we are receiving our life for our
souls from Christ himself in this.
She continues, "Both Ray were poured out from the depths of my mercy," of our Lord's mercy,
"When on the cross and my agonizing heart was opened with the spear.
So, these rays, in fact He says, "defend the souls from my father's wrath."
We know that our father in heaven, he has both justice and mercy, and the wrath would
be associated, obviously, with the justice.
"So, these rays defend the souls from my father's wrath," our Lord says, "And happy he who lives
in our Lord's shadow for he will not be struck by the arm of God's righteousness.
I wish the first Sunday after Easter to be the Feast of Mercy."
This is our Lord speaking to Saint Faustina.
Now let's just briefly compare this to Padre Pio.
We know that for 50 years, our great Saint Padre Pio, he bore the same wounds of Christ's
on his hands, his feet, and in his side, and he felt the same pains, these excruciating
pains that our Lord felt in his passion.
He was strongly united to our Lord in this.
The wound on the side may not have been the one that bled the most, but it certainly was
the one it expressed the greatest love of Padre Pio for humanity.
Of course, because the heart is pierced and so everything has been given with that.
Now how many times we can ask, did Padre Pio not intercede with God for the graces to placate
God's justice by presenting the infinite merits of our Lord Jesus Christ sacrifice?
Obviously during Mass, Padre Pio was quite united with our Lord and offered our Lord's
sacrifice for this, to placate God's justice.
That's very similar, of course, to what Saint Faustina indicates.
To illustrate this, there are some excerpts taken from Padre Pio's writings to his spiritual
children.
Here he's speaking of God's mercy in particular, and in the first little excerpt, Padre Pio
says, "cast out from your heart and once and for all uncertainties and anguishes and share
in the peace the sweet pains of the Lord and His mercy."
Mercy's a big thing for him there.
In the second little example, second excerpt, Padre Pio says, "We need to go out against
anxiety and restlessness because these prevent us from progressing on the path to perfection."
And he continues, "Put your heart gently in the wounds of our Lord, never by force.
Have great confidence in the Lord's mercy and goodness, that He will never forsake you.
However," and then Padre Pio says, "do not stop because of this confidence to continually
embrace his cross as well."
We can have the confidence in our Lord and his mercy, but we also embrace the cross because
this life will always have a cross for us.
Third point Padre Pio says, "In the tumult of the passions and adversity, our support
is in the beloved hope of God's inexhaustible mercy."
Padre Pio says that, "And we run confidently to the court of penance," obviously to confession,
"where he, with the promptness of a father, attends us at all times."
God wants to forgive us all of our sins he's saying.
Then still talking about the confessional he says, "And with our Lord's knowledge of
our failure before Him, let us not doubt the solemnly pronounced forgiveness of our mistakes,
and then let us place upon them a sepulchral stone as the Lord did in forgiving us so our
sins will now be forgotten forever."
In the fourth point, Padre Pio says, "Terrible is the righteousness of God, but let us not
forget His mercy is also infinite."
Finally, there's another point here Padre Pio advocates, "May your misery be the throne
of God's mercy."
We can turn our miseries and our struggles into something tremendous, into the throne
of God's mercy.
We can receive mercy through this.
These are just a few examples.
We see Padre Pio strongly believed, trusted, advocated for God's divine mercy.
Let's just have a look how he lived it as well.
Now, every form of Padre Pio's apostate was in fact drawn from the springs of God's mercy.
A few quick examples on this.
In the confessional, Padre Pio would spend 8, 10, 12, or more hours per day, bringing
the sacrament of mercy in the sacrament of confession, forgiveness to sinners through
the precious blood.
It was vitally important to him, this mercy, to bring it to sinners.
At holy Mass, when Padre Pio was offering the renewal of the sacrifice of the cross,
he was in fact asking God for mercy for all, for everyone, both the faithful and for the
whole world.
This mercy comes to us through the Mass.
Another example is when Padre Pio, he was responsible for building the house of the
relief of suffering that's his hospital and he built this, this was done with the greatest
effort, everyone was involved in this project that was built way up on the mountains, very
dry region, difficult to access region.
He made sure that he had the best hospital built there for the greatest relief, to bring
the greatest relief of suffering of the sick.
He wanted God's mercy on the sick to be shown through this.
Now, wherever Padre Pio passes, we actually see God's mercy there clearly at work.
In fact, the reason is he describes his own heart was like the heart of Jesus, a burning
furnace of charity and mercy.
Let's consider one final act of mercy that Padre Pio demonstrated.
He had this famous phrase, "I will stand," Padre Pio said, "at the door of paradise until
the very last of my children enters."
Of course, this demonstrates a great love for his spiritual children, but it also shows
Padre Pio's desire, his great desire, that everyone would receive God's mercy.
We know this mercy is only going to be available here on this earth during this life and then
after death there's judgment.
It's important to make use of the mercy now because it enables everyone to work out their
salvation, as scripture says.
As Catholics, we understand that we have to cooperate with God's grace.
There has to be an amendment of life.
If we do this, then we will be able to enjoy God's presence face to face forever in the
next life.
That is the tremendous news of Divine Mercy, just a very short prayer; O Blood and Water,
that you have poured from the Heart of Jesus, as a source of mercy for us, I trust in You.
And the next time on this channel, we're going to have another story about the life of Padre
Pio, so please do join us for that story.
Our videos come out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
A very quick reminder that we do have a Lenten selection of videos designed to make everyone
or assist everyone making a better Lent, so please do go to the video description directly
below and click the link to the Lenten selection of videos.