Inner life following the example of Padre Pio

Even before making conversions through preaching, Jesus began to carry out the divine plan to bring all souls back to Heavenly Father, in the years of hidden life during which he was considered only as "the carpenter's son".

In this time of interior life, the conversation with the Father was uninterrupted, just as the intimate union with him continued.

The subject of the talks was the human creature.

Jesus, constantly united to the Father, at the cost of shedding all his Blood, wanted to unite creatures to the Creator, detached from the Love that is God.

He excused them all, one by one, because ... "they did not know what they were doing", as he later repeated from the top of the Cross.

In fact, if they had known, they would certainly not have attempted to give death to the Author of Life.

But if the creatures did not recognize, as many still do not recognize, their Creator, God "recognized" His creatures, whom he loved with an inimitable, unrepeatable love. And, for this love, he sacrificed His Son on the cross giving fulfillment to the Redemption; and for this love, after about two millennia, he accepted the offer of "victim" of another of His creatures who, in a very particular way, knew how to imitate, even within the limits of his humanity, his Only Begotten Son: Father Pio of Pietrelcina!

The latter, imitating Jesus and collaborating in his mission for the salvation of souls, did not face the preaching to convert, did not use the charm of words.

In silence, in hiding, like Christ, he intertwined an intimate and uninterrupted conversation with Heavenly Father, talking to him about his creatures, defending them, interpreting their weaknesses, their needs, offering them his life, sufferings, every particle of the body.

With his spirit he has reached all parts of the world, making the echo of his voice heard. For him there were no distances, no differences in religion, no differences in races.

During the holy sacrifice, Padre Pio raised his priestly prayer:

«Good father, I present to you your creatures, full of whims and miseries. I know they deserve punishment and do not forgive, but how can you resist not forgiving them if they are "Your" creatures, created by the breath of "Your" Love?

I present them to you by the hands of Your Only Begotten Son, sacrificed for them on the Cross. I still present them to you with the merits of Heavenly Mommy, Your Bride, Your Mother and our Mother. Therefore you cannot say no! ».

And the grace of conversion descended from Heaven and reached the creatures, in every corner of the earth.

Padre Pio, without ever leaving the convent that hosted him, worked, with prayer, with the confidential and filial conversation with God, with his inner life, thus becoming, for the copious fruits of his apostolate, the greatest missionary of Christ.

He did not leave for distant lands, like the others; he did not leave his homeland to search for souls, to announce the Gospel and the Kingdom of God, to catechize; did not face death.

Instead, he gave the Lord the greatest testimony: the testimony of the blood. Crucified in body and spirit, for fifty years, in a painful martyrdom.

He didn't look for crowds. The crowds, thirsty for Christ, have sought him!

Nailed by the will of God, nailed by His Love, which has become a holocaust, he has made his life an oblation, a continuous immolation, in order to make the creature happy again to the Creator.

This creature has looked for it everywhere, drawing it to itself to attract it to God, to whom it has repeated: «Throw on me, Father, your anger and to satisfy Your justice, punish me, saving others and pouring out Your forgiveness ».

God accepted the offer of Padre Pio, just as he accepted the offer of Christ.

And God continues and will continue to forgive. But how much souls have cost Christ! How much they cost to Padre Pio!

Oh, if we also loved, not only the brothers who are close to us, but also those far away, whom we do not know!

Like Padre Pio, in silence, in hiding, in interior conversation with God, we too could be in the place where Providence has put us, missionaries of Christ in the world.