In Your Darkest Hours

In your darkest moments, take encouragement from Saint Padre Pio, the great stigmatist and healer. He, too, suffered dark moments, dark days, dark years. Always he turned to Jesus, and even when Jesus seemed to be "hiding," St. Pio knew He was there and he received the healing balm that only Christ can give. Here are St. Pio's words to his "superior" at the monastery in San Giovanni, Italy, during some dark times. Hopefully St. Padre Pio's words will comfort you and let you know you are not--you are never--alone:

"Ah, my dear Father, for the love of Heaven don't leave at its own mercy a life that is petering out in the thickest darkness of night, deprived of every least glimmer of light! I feel I am about to die of the torment I experience in the deepest recesses of my soul.

"Alas, what a sharp thorn there is in the depths of my soul, which makes me suffer agonies of love day and night! What acute pain I suffer in hands and feet and heart! [In addition to spiritual sufferings, Padre Pio also bore in his body the bleeding wounds of Christ Crucified for fifty years in his hands, feet, side, and heart.] . . .
"In the midst of this torment I find the strength to utter a painful 'Fiat.' ['So be it, Lord.'] Oh, how sweet and yet how bitter is this, 'May Thy will be done.' It cuts and heals, it wounds and cures, it deals death and at the same time gives life. O sweet torments, why are you so unbearable and so lovable simultaneously?"

St. Padre Pio found his physical and spiritual sufferings to be sweet and bitter at the same time because he knew that in his suffering he felt at one with the Crucified Christ whom he followed. St. Pio asked Jesus to let him join Him spiritually on the Cross. St. Pio offer himself, united with Jesus on the Cross, as a victim for the salvation of souls. You, my dear friend, can take your own sufferings, no matter what form they take, and offer them to Jesus. Unite yourself with Him on the Cross and He will use you to help Him save souls. You are beautiful, my dear friend; you are loved; you are never alone, even in your darkest, most painful moments.

"Possessing Him within me," said St. Padre Pio, "I am impelled to say with the spouse of the Sacred Song [Song of Solomon in the Old Testament], 'I found Him whom my soul loves; I held Him and would not let Him go.'" Not only can you, too, my friend, find Jesus within your soul; you can find Him constantly surrounding you with His unfathomable love.

(I've taken St. Padre Pio's words today from Letters, Volume 1, pages 1227, 1228, 1239)