October 16, 2020

Don’t allow any sadness to dwell in your soul, for sadness prevents the Holy Spirit from acting freely. - St. Pio of Pietrelcina

I am grateful to continue reading these quotes and writing these reflections because today, I am given yet another new incite from St. Pio. I never thought about “sadness preventing the Holy Spirit from acting,” but doesn’t that make sense? 

I don’t think St. Pio means we are not to feel sorrow or to be sad. After all, life is hard; we have illness, death, broken relationships, a pandemic, etc. and these things rightly make us sad and bring us down. But St. Pio uses the word dwell. I looked that up. It means “to live or stay as a permanent resident; to live or continue in a given condition.” So, what I think St. Pio is telling us is not to allow sadness to live permanently in our souls. To that I say AMEN. We can be sad because life is hard and sad, and God gave us all our emotions and feelings including sadness, but we can’t stay there; we can’t let sadness pitch a tent and live in our souls! 

If you are sad because today is a hard day, or if you feel sorrow from long standing hurts, call on the power of the Holy Spirit and ask the Lord to flood your heart and soul with His grace and love, that your sorrow will be replaced with love, hope, healing, and joy. God wants that for us even more than we do!

Jesus, I trust in you! Come, Holy Spirit.


© Mary Pribbenow