No One Can Take Your Joy From You

Hold onto joy, my dear friend whom I love. Hold onto joy, for God is the God of joy. Saint Padre Pio—the famous stigmatist-priest who bore the five bleeding wounds of Christ Crucified in his hands, feet, and side for fifty years—exuded joy to all he met. According to Malachy Gerard Carroll, in his book Padre Pio, written while the Saint was still here on earth, “Christianity means joy, joy even in the midst of pain. It means the gift of eyes that see the rim of eternal hope on the edge of the world, the eternal hills beckoning across the valley of tears. Holiness is a cleansing of spiritual vision, and with that cleansing comes joy. The greatest, the deepest joy of all, therefore, is in the heart of the Saint.”

And Saint Padre Pio knew that joy. He held that joy in his heart and he shared it with all he met. Please allow now his words to place some of that joy in your own heart today: “Joy, then,” says St. Padre Pio, “is an offspring of love, but if this joy is to be true and perfect it must be accompanied inseparably by the peace which pervades us when the good we possess is supreme and certain. Now, is not God the Supreme Good which the soul loves and which it possesses as the result of loving Him? This Good, as well as being supreme, must also be certain. Our divine Master assures us that ‘no one will take your joy from you’ [John 16:22]. What testimony could be more certain than this?” continues St. Padre Pio. “Pondering on all this you cannot fail to experience great gladness. This is what leads us to face the most painful trials with a cheerful heart.” (St. Padre Pio’s Letters, Volume Two)

May the Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus fill you to overflowing with His love, peace, and joy! Amen.