Padre Pio called his suffering his, 'Jewels'. One time one of his disciples told him he was going to ask the Lord to let him him bear some of Padre Pio's sufferings for him and he became angry and said, 'Do not try to steal my jewels!' Such Faith. I was just reading about him last night and apparently on at least a couple of occasions he was bent over with his head in his hands saying, 'I cannot bear anymore' . This is sad but it encourages me greatly in my devotion to him it makes him so human, like the rest of us. At some times in our lives the chalice of suffering has to fill up so much that it overflows so much that it pours out over the brim, so much so that it overflows. One thing I notice in the lives of the saints is that very often in their lives Satan is given great power over them so he can fool them. So in the case of the Cure of Ars the fiend fooled him that he was a very bad useless priest and should go into a monastery to pray for his soul. So the Cure of Ars ran away from Ars for a short while. It was the same with St Therese of Liseaux when she was dying, she was tempted to believe that there was no God, that she had lost her Faith. But actually her Faith was stronger than ever. So God can at times permit periods of a kind of great dark within a dark in our lives. But terrible as these are these are the times of greatest spiritual growth. I don't think in this Satan is actually tempting us to do something evil. He is actually not tempting us to sin as such. He is tempting us to believe we are no good and do no good. This is the road that leads to despair. I think the Temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane was a lot like this. Not that He tempted Christ to despair over His own sins, for there were none. But to despair over ours.
At a certain point in the Spiritual Life the Devil does a changeover he does not so much tempt us directly to sin (though he still does that) but he focuses more to deceive us with thoughts of discouragement. For instance last week he was tempting me to feel that my coming to Spain was a huge mistake that it had nothing at all to do with God, that here I am in a Foreign country, hardly able to speak the language, alone in a remote farmhouse on a whim and that I would be stuck here for the rest of my life with no escape, lonely isolated. Well it almost worked. But Our Lady stepped in to assure me that none of this is an accident that it does have purpose and meaning in accordance with a higher plan. But the thing is he nearly fooled me with this horrible nonsense. When my mother was dying of cancer one of my sisters told me about an interesting conversation he had with her. She had been happily married for 52 years. Had ten children and led a really great Catholic life as a mother and wife . But she told my sister if she wondered if she had made a mistake. If it would have been better if she had never got married and just kept on a great job she had. I saw at once that this was Satan making a last play at her with deception. It is good to remember this , that the Devil can be a real spider, weaving webs of deceit. Even with the saints. Especially with the saints.
I know this. I've been through it once or twice. I love that old spiritual "Balm in Gilead"....." sometimes I get discouraged and think my work's in vain and then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again..."
I'm terrified I'm going to die because of health issues but trying to trust in God. Its not nice but trying to hand it over to Jesus
