Posts by Padre Pio Devotions

Precisely because our secular milieu offers us so few spiritual disciplines, we have to develop our own. We have, indeed, to fashion our own desert where we can withdraw every day, shake off our compulsions, and dwell in the gentle healing presence of our Lord. Without such a desert we will lose our own soul…

Trials are not only good for us, but necessary for our spiritual growth, especially if endured with the right disposition. During hard times, God helps us see that control is really an illusion. We’re not in charge. Our lives don’t even belong to us. We would cease to exist if the Holy Spirit stopped actively…

Faith teaches me that I am permanently bound to God, my Father, and that my existence does not depend on me or on my decisions . . . The life projects we establish with human intelligence alone do not satisfy us. If we renounce our status as children of God because we do not want…

Prayer is a gift. It is a gift because Christian prayer is based on our knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and on our having the power of the Holy Spirit that will stir and anoint us, and move through us in prayer. Prayer is based on our being part of the Body of Christ and…

Christianity is more about our undoing than our pulling it together. It’s the unraveling of our grandiose plans. The collapsing of our defenses. The slow release of the reins in our tightly clenched fists. The seed falling to the ground to die. The failure to build a mighty tower reaching to heaven. For every few…

What does poverty of spirit mean? It is my awareness that I cannot save myself, that I am basically defenseless, that neither money nor power will spare me from suffering and death’¦.Poverty of spirit is my awareness that I need God’s help and mercy more than I need anything else. Poverty of spirit is getting…

Thank you Jesus, for bringing me this far. In your light, I see the light of my life. Your teaching is brief and to the point. You persuade us to trust in our Heavenly Father. You command us to love one another. What is easier than to believe in God? What is sweeter than to…

The holy exercise of prayer must be considered one of the chief foundations of Christian life and holiness, since the whole life of Jesus Christ was nothing but a perpetual prayer; which you must continue and express in your life. Neither the earth on which you live, the air you breathe, the bread that sustains…

The first degree of humility tells us that the world is not a mirror in which we see ourselves, nor is it a treasure chest filled with gifts for ourselves. Rather, the world is a temporary home where there unfolds hour by hour the truth that God loves us and that we are to live…

If we knew how to listen to God, we would hear him speaking to us. For God does speak. He speaks in his Gospels. He also speaks through life – that new gospel to which we ourselves add a page each day. But we are rarely open to God’s message, because our faith is too…