JULY MESSAGE 2008 – The Month of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

Our Blessed Mother watched all the Passion of her beloved Son in complete anguish and distress. Jesus handed His Mother over to John and revealed a great, new and demanding mission to her. In the hour of discomfort and tears, He handed over to her the responsibility of all mankind. From that moment onwards, She, the Mother who saw such an important Son torn from Her so cruelly, has to love, as her children, all the men of the world.

After suffering illness, misunderstandings, beatings, terror, tortures of the body and spirit, persecutions, insults, shyness and abandonment, Saint Pio trusted the Divine Guide’s promise, and supported by the exquisite love of the Heavenly Mother, continued to fight and win, up to the last instant. We know that Jesus maintained His promise and placed a splendid crown of glory on his head. We can now think of him in the glory of God, with his radiant, intense and beautiful eyes, fixed by the glance of Our Blessed Mother, in an ecstasy of praise and prayer. He is always ready to draw out from the heart of his ‘good little Mother’, treasures and graces for us who are still pilgrims on this earth. The sweet hope that through his intercession, the greatest of these blessings are granted to us and the grace that one day, we too, might participate in that glory and joy without end that will be a great comfort to us.

Following the example of Jesus, His holy Mother and Saint Pio, let us learn to give ourselves in recognising that the will of God takes place in us; that, through everyday suffering, we become worthy to possess and love Him in Heaven.

The journey for Saint Pio has ended and the land of pilgrimage is complete. The wounds have disappeared and his flesh is reborn, fresh, almost blossoming again for an eternal youth. The crown of thorns has transformed into a luminous halo of glory. It is the reward which the Lord gives to all His “Good and faithful servants,” to those who, through perseverance, know how to fight the holy fight of love and sacrifice. His was a road bathed with blood, a life scattered with thorns. Being linked with all the sufferings of Christ, in order to measure up to Him more closely, he asked for and accepted, all form of suffering and pain. Crucified in the flesh and heart and invisibly crowned with thorns, he compensates and gains merit for the good of his brothers and sisters. A man of many sorrows opened his heart to tenderness and forgiveness and is a light for those who have gone astray in the darkness of sin and evil. The Lord gave him the most terrible and wretched trials of the spirit: darkness; the torment of the dark night, uncertainty, doubt and scruples. How we must thank this willing victim and love him for all he has taught us, for the blood spilt and offered for our salvation too. He experienced the harsh reality of sacrificing himself before the will of the Father. How terrible it became at certain times to say, without reservation, the ‘Fiat’ of Jesus: “….In the middle of this torment I find the strength to utter a painful ‘fiat’. Oh, how sweet and yet how bitter is this ‘May Your will be done!’. It cuts and heals, it wounds and cures, it deals death and, at the same time, gives life!” (Letters 1, p. 1228).

Let us take consolation from the words of our dear Saint Pio: “ Do not lose faith in God’s providence. Put your trust in Him, abandon yourself to Him and let Him take care of you, then rest assured that you will not be confused. I understand and am deeply aware that the trial is hard and the battle fierce. But I also understand that the fruit you will gather in due course is very abundant. The crowns that are being woven for you up above are far greater than can be humanly conceived. What I want from you is that as the trial increases, your abandonment and trust in God will also increase. Immerse yourselves ever more deeply in humility and in blessing the Lord, and be trustful. The souls who trust in their Lord and place all their hope in Him have nothing to fear. The enemy of our salvation is always around us to snatch from our hearts the anchor that is to lead us to salvation, by which I mean trust in God the Father. Let us keep a very firm hold on this anchor and not give it up for a single moment. So great was the agony and the struggle which our Redeemer endured against God’s justice that when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He began to sweat blood from His entire body. The sweat was so heavy that according to the sacred historian, not only was His whole body bathed in it and, as it were, baptized in His own blood, but all around Him the vegetation of that Garden was so fortunate as to be sprinkled with it also. St. Paul has disclosed to us the secret of the strength by which Jesus Christ, Who took on Himself our miserable human flesh, vanquished God in all His glory, by humbling Himself, by prayer, weeping and loud cries. It is true that God’s power triumphs over everything, but humble and suffering prayer prevails over God Himself. It stops His Hand, extinguishes His lightning, disarms Him, overpowers and pacifies Him and makes Him almost a dependant and a friend. Take heart and come to the feet of Jesus Christ who is fighting and enduring agony for us in the Garden. Have no doubt that this merciful and clement God will stretch out a compassionate hand as He has always done, to lift us out of our poverty and spiritual desolation. Let us open our hearts to trust and ask Jesus continually for the peace that only He can give to us. Let us follow Jesus along the path of suffering and keep our gaze always fixed on the heavenly Jerusalem, and all difficulties that crop up on our journey towards the possession of it will be happily overcome. We have to sustain a very hard fight as long as we live. Let the light of good works go before us in this battle, the strength of the knowledge of God, the ardent desire of God’s Word.”

THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH:

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina chose to follow the path of the Cross when he accepted suffering without any hesitation or restriction. He asked Jesus to unite him to His martyrdom, to His mission, as a ‘Rescuer’ of the world; he took the Cross from the shoulders of Christ and gathered it on to his own, so becoming ‘Everyone’s Cyrenean’ in a necessary and challenging task. On the Cross of Christ with the tremendous weight of the sins of men, he carried that weight at all times, every hour, every day for more than 50 years; a living visible crucifix, in order to relieve the pains of Christ for the redemption and salvation of all his brothers and sisters. The enemy against whom Saint Pio fought was the devil and he accepted the difficult struggle without pause or rest. He was a Friar with a beard, dressed in a humble habit; his cord girded with his Rosary and on his bare feet he wore sandals. He was a Capuchin Friar of simplicity, austerity, prayer and poverty in order to teach the world ‘the royal path which leads to God’. The Cross has become a real sign, the living sign and sincere expression of all human suffering which distresses the bodies of men and saddens their spirits. It gives strength and courage and becomes a ‘sweet yoke and a light burden’. It is so difficult to be honest and strong even when we consider that we are good people, we become aware of our weakness and unfaithfulness. We are ready to change our standards, to become careless, give way to self-esteem. Jesus needs our love now just as much as He needed it when He was shedding His blood on the way to Calvary. He needs us to give witness to the good He has done and the gifts we have received from His generosity. Let us show compassion and consideration in His suffering and pain and keep in mind that Jesus continues to live in every man on earth.

We may consider the scene of the Crucifixion as the blood continues to fall from His hands, feet and all the wounds on His Body. His face distraught with the contortions caused by the agonizing pain as He was nailed on the Cross without pity and raised on high so that all could see Him attached to the Cross, dirty with sweat, dust and blood. Jesus wanted to be the ‘meek lamb’ killed for the sins of the world and to reveal His power and divinity in the silence of His martyrdom, in the shame of His humiliation, surrounded by hateful screams and insults. He still managed to pray for us to Our Father: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus was suspended between Heaven and earth, seemingly to be condemned by God and by man. The Father placed His Son on high: the dying, the hopeless and the desperate; those sick in body and spirit, will all have to look on Him with eyes of love and faith: “ So that all who believe in Him may have eternal life.” (John 3:15).

Saint Pio will remain in history, a living crucifix sent by God to bring to the minds of men, love for the Cross and to renew, even symbolically, the sweet figure of the Divine Victim, giving all His blood in order to give witness to His love for all men. Saint Pio loved the Cross and remained on it as if it was the most beautiful pulpit. It was the support he needed to avoid falling and was his pledge of an extraordinary love. On the morning of the 20^th September 1918, Jesus gave him a gift of love: He crucified him! Saint Pio saw that his hands, feet and side were pierced and dripping blood. For fifty years he was a living and bleeding crucifix. Into his wounds were poured sufferings, torments, secrets, terrible and incredible tragedies. Saint Pio will continue to wash with blood from his wounds, the ugliness of the world. In the most troubled hour, in the fury of trials, he will continue to help us with his care and love of God and men.

PRAYER:

If we feel that we are not quite so close to God through prayer and are not even able to choose God’s way, to desire God’s weapon against evil, let us consecrate our Group Prayers to the Cross. We have learned to live, to have our own lives in God, to feel that when we are closer to God, we are really closer to life, we are complete. Through prayer we shall discover within ourselves a greater strength, a brighter light. Every day we shall have more life. Let us pray with Our Blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross for those who are willing to really offer everything to God. Why have so many monasteries and seminaries remained empty? Because spiritual prayer is missing and in turn, the meaning of deep prayer has been lost. Jesus openly told his Apostles, as stated in the Gospel: “He who is prepared to lose his life will gain it.” Let us pray at our Meetings for the return to vocations in the Priesthood and Religious Life. For the families that honour the Precious Blood and spread this devotion by choosing from them a large number of vocations to the Priesthood; Our Lady, watch over the living chalices of the Blood of Jesus.

Let us offer all the Masses that are said each day:

‘My God, I offer this action of mine, and every action of my whole life, in union with the Precious Blood in all the Masses this hour being offered all over the world or that will be offered for all time – to Your own everlasting praise and glory – to Your infinite rejoicing and delight. To the glory of the Sacred Heart and in thanksgiving for all graces bestowed on the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ –