Posts by Padre Pio Devotions

I don’t believe that my life is a long row of randomly chained incidents and accidents of which I am not much more than a passive victim. No, I think that nothing is accidental but that God molded me through the events of my life and that I am called to recognize his molding hand…

By justice, Jesus Christ once risen should have ascended at once to the glory of the right hand of the Father . . . And yet we know very well that for forty days he wanted to be seen as risen. And why? To affirm, as St. Leo says, by such an excellent mystery, the…

For me, there is no greater image than the Holy Face of Jesus because it embodies the physical and spiritual suffering of Christ, the Redeemer. In the Holy Face, the sick person sees how suffering can and should be accepted. By imploring the Lord to sanctify his suffering and make it similar to Jesus’, it…

If Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain. (I Corinthians 15:14) But he is risen. The tomb is empty. . .It is the emptiness that matters. He is not here. He has risen. All the chambers of my heart, of my being, need to be emptied, even of beautiful images, of holy images,…

We make a quiet act of faith; we believe in God, we believe in God’s interest in us, and we believe that he sees and hears us. We accept his will in all its details, especially in the dereliction which we experience. We put our whole reliance on the prayer of Christ of whom we…

There is no holiness, Lord, if you withdraw you hand. No wisdom is of any use if you no longer guide it. No strength can avail if you do not preserve it. No purity is safe if you do not protect it. No watchfulness on our part can affect anything unless your holy vigilance is…

To be enlightened is to know that heaven is not ‘coming to me.’ Heaven is here. We have simply not been able to realize that yet because, like King Arthur and his search for the Holy Grail, we look in all the wrong places, worship all the wrong idols, get fixated on all the wrong…

The best preparation I can make for death is to live the reality of the Paschal mystery as fully and as deeply as possible in union with Christ, because Christ will re-live that mystery in me at the hour of my death. If I am following the spirituality of the Paschal mystery, I expect to…

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…

I am the vine and you are the branches . . . and everyone that beareth fruit, he will purge it that it may bring forth much fruit (John 15:1-2). This purging or pruning action of the Father is what disconcerts us. We see an orchard in full bloom, and what has a more delicate…