One Complete Embrace

Taken from the book "Padre Pio Teaches Us"

A compilation of answers given by Padre Pio to questions from his spiritual children

 From the chapter "Padre Pio's Mass"

 Padre what is your Mass?

 A sacred merging with Christ's passion. 

My responsibility is unique in the world - (he said, crying).

 What must I see in your Holy Mass?

 The whole of Calvary.

 Tell me everything you suffer in Holy Mass.

 Everything Jesus suffered in his Passion, I suffer too, but inadequately,

 as much as a human being can.

And all this not because I deserve it, but because God in His goodness wills it.

 Father, do you take our sins upon yourself in the Divine Sacrifice?

 I can't do anything else since it is part of the Divine Sacrifice.

 Then the Lord considers you a sinner?

 I don't know, but I fear he does.

I've seen you trembling while going up the steps to the altar.

 Why? For what you were about to suffer?

 Not for what I was about to suffer, but for what I was about to offer.

What moment of the Divine Sacrifice to you suffer most?

From Consecration to Communion.

 Father, this morning at Mass, while reading the story of Esau,

 who sold his right of being the first-born,

your eyes filled with tears.

And does it seem nothing to you to throw away God's gifts?

Why did you cry on reading the Gospel when you got to the words: 

"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood..."?

Cry tenderly with me.

 Why do you almost always cry when you read the Gospel in Holy Mass?

And does it seem of little importance to you that God should talk to His creatures, 

and be continually contradicted and wounded by their ingratitude and unbelief?

Is your Mass, Father, a bloody sacrifice?

Heretic!

 No, I mean that Jesus' sacrifice is bloodless, but your participation 

throughout the Passion is bloody. Am I mistaken?

 Well this time you're not wrong. I personally think you're right.

Who wipes away your blood at Mass?

 No one.

 Why do you cry at the Offertory?

 Do you want to force the secret out of me? Let it be then. 

That's the moment when the soul is separated from the profane.

[the moment that Padre Pio goes into an type of ecstasy at Mass]

The crowds make a bit of noise at your Mass, Father.

If you'd been at Calvary you'd have heard screaming, swearing, 

crying and threatening! There was a terrible row there.

Does the noise in church distract you?

Not at all.

 Father, why do you suffer so much during the Consecration?

 You are too cruel......

Tell me Father, why you suffer so much in the Consecration?

Because that's the moment when a wonderful new destruction and creation takes place.

My father, tell me why you cry at the altar and what those words you say 

during the Elevation mean? I'm not asking you out of curiosity, 

but because I desire to repeat them after you.

The secrets of the King of Kings can't be repeated without profaning them. 

You ask me why I cry, I should prefer not to shed a few tears, but floods of them.

 Don't you ever reflect on this tremendous mystery?

 Do you taste the bitterness of gall during Mass?

Yes, very often.

How do you manage to keep upright on the altar?

Like Jesus did on the Cross.

Are you nailed to the Cross at the altar, like Jesus was at Calvary?

 Need you ask me?

 How do you manage to stay there?

 Just like Jesus did on the Cross.

Did the executioners turn the cross of Jesus upside-down to knock the nails in?

 Of course they did.

Do they knock the nails into you, too?

 They do!

Do they turn you upside-down on the Cross as well?

 Yes, but don't be afraid.

Father, do you too recite the Seven Words Jesus uttered on the Cross

 during the Holy Mass?

Yes, unworthy though I be, I recite them too.

And to whom do you say: "Woman, behold thy son"?

I say to her: "Here are your Son's children".

 Do you suffer from the same thirst and feeling of being forsaken as Jesus did?

 Yes.

At what moment do you suffer from thirst and loneliness?

 After Consecration.

 Up to what moment do you suffer from thirst and being forsaken?

 Normally up to the moment of Communion.

You told me you were ashamed of saying: 

"I sought in vain for someone to console me". Why?

 Because in comparison with what Jesus suffered, our suffering is nothing

 since we really are guilty.

Who makes you feel ashamed?

 God and my conscience.

 Don't the angels of the Lord comfort you at the altar where you sacrifice yourself?

 Maybe...but I don't feel them.

Our presence is useless if consolation doesn't pervade your spirit 

during the Divine Sacrifice and like Jesus you feel totally abandoned.

Your presence is useful, otherwise we'd have to say that the presence of 

Our Lady of Sorrows, John and the Holy Women at the feet of Jesus

 dying was useless.

What is Holy Communion?

The whole of it is the revelation of internal and external mercy.

 One complete embrace. 

Pray as well to Jesus that He make Himself felt.

 Does Jesus only visit the soul when He comes?

 He enters the whole being.

 What does Jesus do in Communion?

 He delights in his creature.

 When you join Jesus in Holy Communion, what should we ask the Lord for you?

 That I may be another Jesus, all Jesus, always Jesus.

 Do you suffer at Communion as well?

 It's the climax.

 Does your suffering continue after Communion?

Yes, but lovingly.

 Does Jesus console you in this union?

Yes, but I don't cease to be on the Cross!

Where did Jesus look as He breathed His last?

At His mother.

And where do you look?

 At my brothers in exile.

Do you die too during Holy Mass?

Mystically, in Holy Communion.

Do you undergo death because of the intensity of love or pain?

Both, but more out of love.

Do you undergo death in Communion: then you're no longer at the altar, are you?

Why not? Jesus, when dead, was on Calvary, too.

You said, Father, that the victim dies in Communion.

 Do they lay you in the arms of Our Lady?

 Of St. Francis.

Does Jesus take his arms off the Cross to rest in you?

 It's me that rests in Him.

How much do you love Jesus?

My desire is infinite, but in effect, alas, it's nothing and I am ashamed of this.

 Father, why do you cry when you read the last verse of St. John's Gospel:

 "And we saw His glory, the glory of the only Son of God, full of grace and truth"?

And this doesn't mean much to you? If the Apostles who had human eyes

 saw so much glory, what glory shall we see in the Son of God, in Jesus, 

when He shows Himself to us in Heaven?

 What will our union with Jesus be like in Heaven?

Well!... You can get an idea of what it'll be like from the Eucharist.

Is the Most Holy Virgin present at your Mass?

 Why? Do you think a mother isn't interested in her son?

And the angels, too?

 Hosts of them.

What do they do?

Adore and love.

Father, who is nearest you at your altar?

The whole of Paradise.

Would you like to celebrate more than one Mass a day?

 If it were up to me, I would never leave the altar.

 You told me you bore the altar within you.

Yes, in the sense of that saying of the Apostle: 

"carrying within me Christ's mortification"; 

"I am nailed to the Cross"; 

"I chastise my body and make it servile".

Then I am right in saying Jesus Crucified is walking amongst us!

 no answer

 Do you remember me, Father, during Holy Mass?

Holy Mass is one long remembrance of you from beginning to end.

**********

My thanks to Frank Rega for Padre Pio's  Mass