The struggle of Padre Pio against the devil ... shock testimony !!!

The existence of spiritual, in-corporeal beings, which Sacred Scripture habitually calls Angels, is a truth of faith.

The word angel, says St. Augustine, designates the office, not nature. If one asks for the name of this nature one replies that it is spirit, if one asks for the office, one replies that it is an angel: it is spirit for what it is, while for what it does it is an angel.

In their whole being, angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they "always see the face of the Father ... who is in heaven" (Mt 18,10) they are "powerful executors of his commands, ready to the voice of his word "(Psalm 103,20).

But there are also bad angels, rebel angels: they too are at the service of the creatures of the earth, but not to help them, but to attract them to the place of perdition, that is, to hell.

Padre Pio has been the object of great attention both from the angels (good) and from the infernal spirits.

Let's start with the latter, believing not to exaggerate, stating that no man of God has been as tormented by the devil as Padre Pio.

The intervention of the devil, in the spiritual itinerary of Padre Pio is a phenomenon, at first sight, disconcerting. It is a duel to death, without respite and without saving of blows, between the soul and its avid enemy.

There are countless pitfalls, assiduous attacks, atrocious temptations. Let's listen to it in some of his letters from 1912-1913:

«I spent the other night very badly; that little thing from around ten o'clock, which I went to bed, until five in the morning did nothing but beat me constantly. Many were the diabolical suggestions that placed me before my mind, thoughts of despair, of mistrust towards God; but live Jesus, because I mocked by repeating to Jesus: vulnera tua, merita mea. I really thought it was the last night of my existence; or, even if not dying, lose your reason. But blessed be Jesus that none of this will come true. At five in the morning, when that leg went away, a cold took possession of my whole person to make me tremble from head to foot, like a cane exposed to an immeasurable wind. It lasted a couple of hours. I went blood for the mouth "(28-6-1912; cf. also 18-1-1912; 5-11-1912; 18-11-1912).

"And anything but scaring me, I prepared myself for the fight with a mocking smile on my face

To spite Padre Pio, the devil often stained the letters of his spiritual directors, so as to make them illegible. The letters became legible only after being touched by the Crucifix and scattered with blessed water. The letter reproduced here is dated 6 November 1912, written in French by the father Agostino da San Marco in Lamis.

lips towards them. Then yes, they presented themselves to me in the most abominable forms and to make me prevaricate they began to treat me with yellow gloves; but thank goodness, I unraveled them well, treating them for what they are worth. And when they saw their efforts go up in smoke, they pounced on me, threw me on the ground and knocked me hard, throwing pillows, books, chairs in the air, emitting desperate screams at the same time and uttering extremely dirty words » (1/18/1).

«Those little guys lately, in receiving your letter, before opening it they told me to tear it up or I had thrown it in the fire [...]. I replied that nothing would be worth moving from my purpose. They hurled themselves at me like so many hungry tigers, cursing and threatening me that they would make me pay. My father, they kept 1st word! Since that day they have beaten me daily. But I don't stick to it "(1-2-1913; cf. also 13-2-1913; 18-3-1913; 1-4-1913; 8-4-1913.

«By now twenty-two continuous days have sounded that Jesus allows these [ugly slaps] to vent their anger you know about me. My body, my father, is all dented by the many beatings that counted up to the present at the hands of our enemies "(1-13-3).

«And now, my father, who could tell you all that I had to endure! I was alone at night, only during the day. A bitter war waged from that day on with those ugly co-sacs. They wanted to give me to understand that they were finally rejected by God "(18-5-1913).

The most atrocious suffering is caused by the uncertainty of correspondence to the demands of love and the fear of displeasing Jesus. This is an idea that often returns in letters.

«Of all this [the impure temptations] I laugh at it as things not to be cared for, following his advice. Only, however, it pains me, at certain moments, that I am not sure if at the first assault of the enemy I was ready to resist "(17-8-1910).

"These temptations make me tremble from head to toe to offend God" (1-10-1910; cf. also 22-10-1910; 29-11-1910).

«But I am afraid of nothing, if not the offense of God» (29-3-1911).

Padre Pio feels more crushed by the strength of Satan who leads him to the edge of the precipice and pushes him on the path of despair and asks, with a soul full of anguish, help to his spiritual directors:

«The struggle with hell has reached the point where we can no longer go further [...]. The battle is superlatively and extremely bitter, it seems to me to be soc-combing from one moment to the next "(1-4-1915).

«Actually there are moments, and these are not rare, when I feel crushed under the powerful force of this sad leg. I really don't know which way to go; I pray, and many times the light comes late. What should I do? Help me, for heaven's sake, don't abandon me "(1-15-4).

«The enemies rise up, O father, continually against the spacecraft of my spirit and everyone agrees shouting at me: let him down, crush him, because he is weak and will not be able to resist for long. Alas, my father, who will free me from these roaring lions, all ready to devour me? " (9/5/1915).

The soul goes through moments of extreme violence; he feels the crushing strength of the enemy and his congenital weakness.

Let's see with what vivacity and realism Padre Pio expresses these moods:

"Ah! for heaven's sake do not deny me your help, never deny your teachings, knowing that the demon is raging more than ever against the ship of my poor spirit. My father, I just can't take it anymore, I feel all my strength is failing; the battle is at its last stage, at any moment it seems to me to be suffocated by the waters of tribulation. Alas! who will save me? I am alone in fighting, day and night, against an enemy so strong and so powerful. Who will win? To whom will victory smile? Fight is waged on both sides, my father; to measure the forces on both sides, I see myself weak, I see myself weak in front of the enemy hosts, I am about to be crushed, to be reduced to nothing. Short, all calculated, it seems to me that the loser must be me. What am I saying ?! Is it possible that the Lord will allow it ?! Never! As a giant, I still feel the strength to cry out loudly to the Lord-king in the most intimate part of my spirit: "Save me, I am about to perish" "(1-4-1915).

«The weakness of my being makes me tremble and makes me sweat cold; Satan with his malignant arts never tires of waging war and conquering the small fortress, by besieging it everywhere. In short, Satan is for me like a powerful enemy, who resolved to conquer a square, is not content with assaulting it in a curtain or a bastion, but all over it surrounds it, in every part it assaults it, in every part it torments her. My father, the evil arts of Satan frighten me; but from God alone, for Jesus Christ, I hope the grace of always obtaining victory and never defeat "(1-4-8).

The cause of the greatest bitterness for the soul is the temptation against faith. The soul is afraid of stumbling at every push. The light that comes from men is not worth risking intelligence. it is the painful experience of every day and every moment.

The night of the spirit becomes increasingly dark and impenetrable. On October 30, 1914, he wrote to the spiritual director:

"My God, those evil spirits, my father, are making every effort to lose me; they want to win me by force; it seems that they take advantage of my physical weakness to better vent their liveliness against me and in such a state see if it is possible for them to tear from my breast that faith and that fortress that comes to me from the Father of enlightenment. In certain moments I see myself right on the edge of the pre-summit, it seems to me then that the fist is to laugh at those rascals; I feel really everything, everything shaking me;

Sunday 5 July 1964, 22 pm «Brothers, help me! brothers, help me! ». This was the cry that followed a heavy thud that made the floor wobble. The Father was found by the confreres face down on the ground, bleeding from the forehead and nose with a serious wound to the right eyebrow arch, so it took two points to live flesh. Unexplained fall! That day the Father had passed in front of an obsess from a town in the Bergamo area. The following day the demon, through the mouth of the obsessed woman, admitted that at 22 pm the previous day "he had been to find someone ... he had avenged himself ... so he will learn for another time ...". The face of the Father, swollen, shows the signs of the violent struggle with the devil, who, moreover, was almost uninterrupted throughout the span of his earthly existence.

a mortal agony crosses my poor true spirit, pouring itself also on the poor body and all the limbs I feel them shrink. Then I see life before me as if it stopped me: she is suspended. The show is very sad and mournful: only those who have been put to the test can imagine it. How hard it is, my father, the ordeal that puts us at the greatest risk of offending our Savior and Redeemer! Yes, everything is played here for everything "(see also 11-11-1914 and 8-12-1914).

We could continue for a long time on the bitter struggle between Padre Pio and Satan, which lasted a lifetime and we close this topic with a last passage from a letter that Padre Pio wrote to Father Agostino on January 18, 1912: "Bluebeard is not wants to give up. It has taken almost all forms. For several days he has come to visit me together with his other satellites armed with sticks and iron devices and what is worse in its own form.

Who knows how many times he threw me out of bed and dragged me around the room. But patience! Jesus, the Mammina, the Angio-bed, Saint Joseph and the Father Saint Francis are almost always with me ».

By way of curiosity, we list the epithets addressed by Padre Pio to his rival, found in the correspondence between January 1911 and September 1915: mustache, mustache, bluebeard, birbaccio-ne, unhappy, evil spirit, leg, bad leg, bad animal , tri-ste cosaccio, ugly slaps, impure spirits, those wretched, evil spirit, beast, cursed beast, infamous apostate, impure apostates, gibberish faces, fairs that roar, insidious master, prince of darkness.