Reservoirs of Love : Padre Pio. Reservoirs of Love : Padre Pio SEPTEMBER 23, ST. PIO (1887-1968) www.apostleshipofprayer.org Padre Pio, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, is one of the most popular saints …More
Reservoirs of Love : Padre Pio.
Reservoirs of Love : Padre Pio
SEPTEMBER 23, ST. PIO (1887-1968)
www.apostleshipofprayer.org
Padre Pio, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, is one of the most popular saints of modern times who spent hours every day in the confessional and is best known for having the gift of the stigmata. Yet he was also inspired to found a hospital in a very poor part of Italy and Pope Benedict visited it when he went to St. Pio’s shrine in 2009. As we reflect on his words at that time, let us renew the offering of our own sufferings so that they may be part of the “reservoirs of love” that alone can bring true social development to our world and an end to war.
Every time one enters a place of healing, one thinks naturally of the mystery of illness and pain, to the hope of healing and the inestimable value of good health, of which one becomes aware only when it has been lost. In hospitals one sees first-hand the preciousness of our existence but also its fragility. … Illness, which is manifested in so many forms and strikes in different ways, gives rise to disturbing questions: why do we suffer? Can the experience of pain be considered positive? Who can free us from suffering and death? These are existential questions that more often than not remain humanly unanswerable, since suffering constitutes an enigma that is inscrutable to human reason. Suffering is part of the very mystery of the human person. … “[C]ertainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering: ... but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power. This is simply because... none of us is capable of eliminating the power of evil,... which,... is a constant source of suffering" (Encyclical Spe Salvi. n. 36).
God alone can eliminate the power of evil. Precisely because Jesus Christ came into the world to reveal to us the divine plan of our salvation, faith helps us to penetrate the meaning of all that is human, hence also of suffering. Thus an intimate relationship exists between the Cross of Jesus the symbol of supreme pain and the price of our true freedom and our pain, which is transformed and sublimated when it is lived in the awareness of God's closeness and solidarity. Padre Pio sensed this profound truth and, on the first anniversary of the inauguration of this Institution [1957], he said … that in the Home for the Relief of Suffering "the patients, doctors and priests shall be reservoirs of love" and that "the more abundant love is in oneself, the better communicated it will be to others".
Reservoirs of Love : Padre Pio
SEPTEMBER 23, ST. PIO (1887-1968)
www.apostleshipofprayer.org
Padre Pio, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, is one of the most popular saints of modern times who spent hours every day in the confessional and is best known for having the gift of the stigmata. Yet he was also inspired to found a hospital in a very poor part of Italy and Pope Benedict visited it when he went to St. Pio’s shrine in 2009. As we reflect on his words at that time, let us renew the offering of our own sufferings so that they may be part of the “reservoirs of love” that alone can bring true social development to our world and an end to war.
Every time one enters a place of healing, one thinks naturally of the mystery of illness and pain, to the hope of healing and the inestimable value of good health, of which one becomes aware only when it has been lost. In hospitals one sees first-hand the preciousness of our existence but also its fragility. … Illness, which is manifested in so many forms and strikes in different ways, gives rise to disturbing questions: why do we suffer? Can the experience of pain be considered positive? Who can free us from suffering and death? These are existential questions that more often than not remain humanly unanswerable, since suffering constitutes an enigma that is inscrutable to human reason. Suffering is part of the very mystery of the human person. … “[C]ertainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering: ... but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power. This is simply because... none of us is capable of eliminating the power of evil,... which,... is a constant source of suffering" (Encyclical Spe Salvi. n. 36).
God alone can eliminate the power of evil. Precisely because Jesus Christ came into the world to reveal to us the divine plan of our salvation, faith helps us to penetrate the meaning of all that is human, hence also of suffering. Thus an intimate relationship exists between the Cross of Jesus the symbol of supreme pain and the price of our true freedom and our pain, which is transformed and sublimated when it is lived in the awareness of God's closeness and solidarity. Padre Pio sensed this profound truth and, on the first anniversary of the inauguration of this Institution [1957], he said … that in the Home for the Relief of Suffering "the patients, doctors and priests shall be reservoirs of love" and that "the more abundant love is in oneself, the better communicated it will be to others".