When Jesus Seems Hidden: Prayer, Hope, Temptation, and Trust with Kris McGregor
About This Episode
What happens when we’re trying to remain faithful to God, but instead of peace we encounter darkness, fear, temptation, sadness, or a sense that Jesus has become hidden?
In this episode of The Spiritual Journey for the Discerning Heart, Kris McGregor reflects on a powerful letter from St. Pius of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio. Drawing on the image of a builder preparing stones for an eternal dwelling, Padre Pio describes God as the divine Artificer who uses the hammer and chisel to shape the soul. The trials he names are deeply familiar: darkness, fears, temptations, sadness of spirit, spiritual anxiety, and even bodily suffering.
Padre Pio does not dismiss the pain of these experiences. Instead, he teaches the soul not to immediately interpret suffering, dryness, or hiddenness as evidence that God has withdrawn. God may be doing a deeper work that we cannot yet see, purifying the heart, strengthening fidelity, and teaching us to trust him beyond what we feel.
His counsel also becomes a lesson in discernment. Not every doubt should automatically be trusted. Some questions need prayer and wise counsel, while others simply circle within us, wearing down hope and tempting us to abandon something good. Padre Pio urges the soul: “Do not lose heart!”
That counsel is echoed in another of his best-known sayings: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” Prayer reminds us that we do not carry our lives alone. Hope rests in the faithfulness of God, who keeps his promises even when we cannot see how they will be fulfilled. And refusing to surrender to worry means remembering that God is greater than our understanding and greater than whatever we are facing.
At the heart of Padre Pio’s letter is a beautiful invitation to trust:
“Whenever Jesus shows himself, give him thanks. If he hides, give him thanks: all are touches of his love.”
The spiritual journey eventually asks us to trust God not only when his presence feels near, but also when we must walk by faith. We may not know what God is doing, but we know who he is.
Discerning Hearts Reflection Question
When prayer becomes difficult or God seems hidden, what do you usually assume is happening? How does Padre Pio challenge the tendency to interpret spiritual darkness as abandonment?Padre Pio compares the soul to a stone being shaped by the divine Artificer. Looking back over your own life, can you recognize an experience that was painful at the time but eventually became a place of deeper faith, humility, or dependence upon God?Are there doubts that genuinely need prayer and discernment, and others that simply keep circling and leaving you discouraged? What fruit does each kind of doubt produce in your heart?Padre Pio tells us, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” Where are you being invited right now to pray rather than carry something alone, to hope in God’s promises, and to trust that he is greater than what you can presently understand?From the letters of St Pius of Pietrelcina
With unceasing blows of healing chisel and careful stripping away, the divine Artificer seeks to prepare stones to build an eternal dwelling – as our mother, the holy Catholic Church, full of tenderness, sings in the hymn of the office for the dedication of a church. And that is true.
Every soul destined for eternal glory can be considered most aptly as a stone for building an eternal edifice. The builder who seeks to put up a dwelling in the best way should first polish the stones that will be used in the construction. He does this with blows of hammer and chisel. In the same way, our heavenly Father works on chosen souls who, from all eternity, by his supreme wisdom and providence, have been destined for building up the eternal dwelling.
The soul, if it wants to reign with Christ in eternal glory, must be polished with hammer and chisel strokes, which the divine Artificer uses to prepare the stones, that is, the chosen souls. What are these hammer and chisel strokes? Darkness, my sister, fears, temptations, sadness of spirit and spiritual fears, which reek like a sickness, and bodily discomfort.
Give thanks to the infinite piety of the eternal Father who, in this way, leads your soul to salvation. Why not glory in these benevolent conditions from the best of all fathers? Open your heart to the celestial doctor of souls and, full of confidence, surrender yourselves into his most holy arms: as a chosen one, he leads you to follow Jesus closely on Mount Calvary. With joy and emotion in my soul I ponder how grace is working in you.
Do not forget that the Lord has arranged everything your souls experience. Do not fear causing God harm or injury. It’s enough that you know that in your whole life you have never offended the Lord who, on the contrary, has been honoured more and more.
If this benevolent Spouse of your soul hides from you, he does so not, as you think, because he wants to take revenge on your wickedness, but because it tests your fidelity and constancy even more, and, besides, heals you of some diseases not considered as such by carnal eyes, that is to say, those diseases and faults to which not even the just person is immune. Indeed, Scripture says in the book of Proverbs: “Seven times a righteous man falls”.
Believe me, if I did not see you so afflicted, I would not be as happy, because I would think that the Lord wanted to give you fewer gems. Get rid of, as temptations, the doubts that assail you. Also expel the doubts with regards to the purpose of your life: to do that is not to listen to the divine summons, and to resist the sweet invitations of the Bridegroom. All these things do not come from a good spirit but from a bad one. These are diabolical ploys that try to separate you from perfection or, at least, hinder the journey towards it. Do not lose heart!
Whenever Jesus shows himself, give him thanks. If he hides, give him thanks: all are touches of his love. I wish you to give up your spirit with Jesus on the cross, when he says: “It is accomplished”.
Excerpts from the English translation of The Liturgy of the Hours (Four Volumes) © 1974, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.
Scripture and Quotes for Reflection
“Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house.”
“For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again.”
“With unceasing blows of healing chisel and careful stripping away, the divine Artificer seeks to prepare stones to build an eternal dwelling.”
“Get rid of, as temptations, the doubts that assail you.”
“Whenever Jesus shows himself, give him thanks. If he hides, give him thanks: all are touches of his love.”
“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.”
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➜ St. Padre Pio and the Healing of the Church – with Msgr. John Esseff
➜ Pray, Hope, Don’t Worry – St. Padre Pio
➜ St. Pio of Pietrelcina – Padre Pio Novena
➜ A Prayer for St. Padre Pio’s Intercession
➜ Discernment of Spirits with Fr. Timothy Gallagher
The post The Chisel of Grace – St. Padre Pio on Spiritual Trials and Trust | The Spiritual Journey for the Discerning Heart Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.
