St. (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina

Today is the feast day of St. Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), confessor, priest, and stigmatist.

From his writings:

* Prayer is the best weapon we possess, the key that opens the heart of God.

* Do not worry over things that generate preoccupation and anxiety. One thing only is necessary: to lift up your spirit and love God.

* The most beautiful act of faith is the one made in darkness, in sacrifice, and with extreme effort.

* Often place your confidence in Divine Providence and be assured that sooner Heaven and earth shall pass away than that the Lord neglect to protect you.

* My past, O Lord, to Your mercy; my present, to Your love; my future, to Your Providence!

* The most beautiful Credo is that which come from your lips in darkness, in sacrifice, in pain, in the supreme effort of an unbending will for good. It is this which, like a stroke of lightning, penetrates the darkness of the soul; it is this which in the flash of the tempest lifts you and leads you to God.

* Always be humble in everything you do, guarding fervently the purity of your body and soul, because these are the two wings which carry us to God, and make us almost divine.

* Bear in mind that the more the enemy (devil) assaults you, the closer God is to your soul. Think about, and penetrate, this great and comforting truth.

* Why should you worry whether God wants you to reach the Heavenly home by way of the desert or by the fields, when by the one, as well as by the other, one arrives all the same at a Blessed Eternity?

* Do not fear, Jesus is more powerful than all Hell. At the invocation of His Name every knee in Heaven, on earth, and in hell must bend before Jesus; this is the consolation of the good and terror of the evil ones.

* Continue to pray that God may console you when you feel that the weight of the Cross is becoming too burdensome. Acting thus you are not doing anything against the will of God, but are with the Son of God, Who in the garden, asked His Father for some relief.

* Be comforted with this divine thought that your spiritual and physical pains are the test of the Divine Will. All lovers of Jesus must conform themselves always more to this divine and eternal Model.

* Pray, hope, and don't worry. Anxiety doesn't help at all. Our Merciful Lord will listen to your prayer.

* The proof of love is to suffer for the one you love.

* Do not be so given to the activity of Martha as to forget the silence of Mary. May the Virgin who so well reconciled the one with the other be your sweet model and inspiration.

* The best consolation comes from prayer.

* Let us bind ourselves tightly to the Sorrowful Heart of our heavenly Mother and reflect on its boundless grief and how precious is our soul.

* On this earth everyone has his cross. But we must act in such away that we be not the bad, but the good thief.

* To doubt is the greatest insult to the Divinity.

* Don't spend your energies on things that generate worry, anxiety, and anguish. Only one thing is necessary: Lift up your spirit and love God.

* Ahead! Courage! In the spiritual life, he who does not advance goes backward. It happens as with a boat which always must go ahead. If it stands still, the wind will blow it back.

* When you are exposed to any trial, be it physical or moral, bodily or spiritual, the best remedy is to think of Jesus Who is our life, and not to think of the trial without joining it to the thought of Jesus.

* The gates of Heaven are open for all creatures (who repent). Remember Mary Magdalene.

* Jesus always lends comfort to those who place their trust and hope in Him.

* One thing is necessary: to be near Jesus. You know well that at the birth of our Lord the shepherds heard the angelic and divine chants of the heavenly spirits. The Scriptures say so. But they do not say that His Virgin Mother and St. Joseph, who were nearer to the Child, heard the voices of the angels or saw those miracles of splendor. On the contrary, they heard the Child weeping, and saw by the light of a poor lantern the eyes of the Divine Child all bathed in tears, in sighs and shivering cold. Now I ask you: Would you not have preferred to have been in the dark stable, filled with the cries of the little Child, rather than to have been with the shepherds. beside yourself with joy over those sweet melodies from heaven and the beauties of this wonderful splendor?

* May Jesus be always at the center of your endeavors...May He offer us comfort in our moments of sadness. May He sustain us with His grace, enlighten our minds and inflame our hearts with Divine Love.

* The longer the trial to which God subjects you, the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of the trial and in the exaltation after the combat.

* Keep close to the Catholic Church at all times, for the Church alone can give you true peace, since she alone possesses Jesus, the true Prince of Peace, in the Blessed Sacrament.

* You must speak to Jesus also with the heart, besides with the lips; indeed, in certain cases you must speak to Him only with the heart.

* Fear not because God is with you.

* Prayer is the oxygen of the soul.

* Who can assure us that we will be alive tomorrow? Let us listen to the voice of our conscience, to the voice of the royal prophet: "Today, if you hear God's voice, harden not your heart." Let us not put off from one moment to another (what we should do) because the (next moment) is not yet ours.

* Oh, how precious time is! Blessed are those who know how to make good use of it. Oh, if only all could understand how precious time is, undoubtedly everyone would do his best to spend it in a praiseworthy manner!

* The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain.