The Blessed Pain of the Homeless and all who Suffer Greatly

By St. Padre Pio

Jesus tells me that in love it is he who delights me, while in suffering, on the other hand, it is I who give pleasure to him. Now, to desire good health would mean seeking happiness for myself instead of trying to comfort Jesus.

Your most perfect prayer is your pure suffering united to Me and My Mother. The prayer of pure suffering is the sweetest fragrance that reaches and delights the Heart of our Father. This is also the prayer that produces an abundance of fruit. This is the prayer that is most united to Mine as I intercede before the throne of My Father.

Yes, I love the cross, the cross alone; I love it because I see it always on Jesus' shoulders. By this time Jesus is well aware that my entire life, my whole heart is consecrated to him and to his sufferings.

Ah, dear Father, pardon me for using this sort of language; Jesus alone can understand what I suffer when the painful scene of Calvary is enacted before my eyes. It is equally incomprehensible how Jesus can be consoled not merely by those who sympathize with his torments, but when he finds a soul who for love of him asks no consolations and only wants to be allowed to share in his sufferings.

When Jesus wants to make me understand that he loves me, he permits me to relish the wounds, the thorns, the anguish of his Passion. When he wants me to rejoice, he fills my heart with that spirit which is all fire and he speaks to me of his delights. But when he wants to be delighted, he speaks to me of his sufferings, he invites me in a tone which is both a request and a command to offer my body that his sufferings may be alleviated.

Who could resist him? I realize that I have made him suffer exceedingly by my failings that I have made him weep too much by my ingratitude, that I have offended him too grievously. I want nobody but Jesus, I desire nothing else (which is Jesus' own desire) that his sufferings. Allow me to say it, since no one can hear us, I am ready even to be deprived forever of the tendernesses which Jesus lavishes on me, I am prepared to bear his hiding his beautiful eyes from men as long as he does not hide from me his love, for this would cause my death.

(Saint Padre Pio (+ 1968) was an Italian Capuchin priest who suffered greatly the bleeding wounds of Christ in his own flesh for much of his life. He also suffered the despisement of many who hated him and imprisoned him for many years in his own monastery under the orders of holy obedience.)
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