He also emphasized weekly confessions.
He said it was like dusting a room.
And,
You know,
As I read about him,
I could feel how much,
How fully present he was.
So when he took,
You know,
When he took confession,
People were brought into the moment with him.
You see,
He's fully present in the moment.
So they moved into presence alongside him.
We feel this with Alma.
When we get a hug from her,
We're actually moving into presence.
You become present.
You feel her arms on you.
You feel the warmth.
You feel the love.
You become present.
And this,
Most of us spend,
We're living in the past and the future.
This is,
You know,
And you won't realize it till you come out of it.
And you will come out of it through surrender.
Through surrender to the truth of you,
You will move into presence,
Where you're just present in the moment.
Because you guys,
You know,
This future,
Past and future thing.
I'll tell you,
When you think of the past,
A lot of the times you'll feel guilt.
And when you think of the future,
A lot of the times you will feel fear.
So they both keep you in your ego.
Yeah.
Just understanding this can help.
Just,
You know,
Another reason why it's so futile to be focused on the past or the future.
Anyway,
He would,
You know,
When he took the confessions,
He would,
Sometimes he wouldn't absolve people,
Because he didn't feel they were sincere.
Or sometimes they'd,
Or yeah,
That they weren't really doing it with their hearts.
Or sometimes he would point out sort of other things they've done that they didn't mention.
So he would,
You know,
He was operating from universal mind,
I assumed.
So when people confessed,
He would get access to their lives.
And he would see the wrongdoings,
Sometimes major wrongdoings.
And he'd say,
Well,
What about this?
And what about that?
And the person would be so shocked.
But then they would leave so relieved,
Because they'd really got it off their chest.
So,
You know,
My feeling is when people confess to,
With Padre Pio,
That it really helped,
You know,
It wasn't just,
You know,
Confessing to a priest who maybe was thinking about something else.
And maybe you didn't love humanity the same way that Padre Pio did,
Or maybe not so close to God.
You know,
It's really the same thing with therapists.
I mean,
If you go to a therapist who's lodged in their head with exactly the same kind of wounding you've got,
It doesn't do you any good to really,
Or does you very little good to talk to them.
But if you talk to somebody who's lodged in unconditional love,
It can make a tremendous difference to you.
