We have not deserved to pray; but God, in his goodness, has permitted us to speak to him. Our prayer is an incense which He receives with extreme pleasure. My children, your heart is poor and narrow; but prayer enlarges it, and renders it capable of loving God. Prayer is a foretaste of heaven, an overflow of paradise. It never leaves us without sweetness . . . Troubles melt away before a fervent prayer like snow before the sun.

– St. John Vianney

It will be of great importance if you can leave aside your cares and spend the remainder of your life only in worshiping God. He requires no great matters of us; a little remembrance of him from time to time; a little adoration; sometimes to pray for his grace, sometimes to offer him your sufferings, and sometimes to return him thanks for the favors he has given you, and still gives you, in the midst of your troubles . . . Lift up your heart to him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to him. You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we are aware of.

– Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

So long as we live in this world we cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: The life of man upon earth is a warfare (Job 7:1). . .Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away. There is no state so holy, no place so secret, that temptations and trials will not come. Man is never safe from them as long as he lives, for they come from within us. . .Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are. Let us humble our souls under the hand of God in every trial and temptation for he will save and exalt the humble in spirit.

– Thomas à Kempis

The study of inspired Scripture is the primary way to learn what our duty is in life. In it, we find not only instruction about conduct, but also accounts of the lives of blessed men and women. . .If we devote ourselves to imitating these saints, then no matter which virtue we may feel ourselves lacking, we can find in Scripture, as if in a medical clinic, the proper medicine for our particular ailment. . .We’re taught endurance by Job. He remained the same when the circumstances of life began to turn against him. In one moment, he was plunged from wealth into poverty, and from being the father of beautiful children into a childless man. He kept the right attitude in his soul all through these changes without being crushed. He wasn’t even stirred to anger against the friends who came to comfort him, but ended up trampling on him and making his troubles worse. When artists paint by imitating another artist’s work, they must constantly look at the model, doing their best to transfer its features to their own work. in the same way, those who seek to perfect themselves in every form of moral excellence must keep their eyes focused on the lives of the saints. . .In this way, they can make the saints’ virtue their own by imitation.

– St. Basil the Great

To keep ourselves spiritually alive we must constantly renew our faith. We are like pilots of fog bound steamers, peering into the gloom in front of us, listening for the sounds of other ships, and we can only reach our harbor if we keep alert. The spiritual life is, then, first of all a matter of keeping awake. We must not lose our sensitivity to spiritual inspirations. We must always be able to respond to the slightest warnings that speak, as though by a hidden instinct, in the depth of the soul that is spiritually alive.

Thomas Merton

Blessed are those who do one thing at a time, but do it well; blessed are those who do well that which they do, be it something of great importance or not; blessed are those who do little things with diligence, because they will do even great things well. What are we looking for when we try to do great things? This is the greatest thing that we can do: to do little things well, and with the greatest diligence. What else, if not this does perfection consist?

– Father James Alberione

Our Padre Pio Book I is now available as an Audible audiobook. Click on the link for more information: Pray, Hope, and Don;t Worry: True Stories of Padre Pio Book 1

To those who are just and upright, trials become helps. Job, a man of discernment, was victorious in trials. Sickness came upon him, but he didn’t complain. Disease afflicted him, but he didn’t murmur. His body failed and his strength left him, but his will wasn’t weakened. By his sufferings he proved himself perfect in every way, because the trials didn’t crush him. . . See then, you who are wise, the power that lies in being free to choose how we’ll respond to our circumstances. . . Don’t seek a place of repose in this life, for this is a world of toil. And if you can discern wisely, don’t give up the next life for this one. Don’t trade what lasts forever for what doesn’t last, what comes to an end for what never ends. Don’t exchange the truth for a lie, the body for a mere shadow, alertness for sleep. Don’t trade what’s in season for what’s out of season, nor eternity for times that are passing away. Focus your mind so that it won’t wander along various paths that ultimately are of no profit to you.

St. Ephrem

We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, byourselves, cannot attain . . . God is the foundation of hope. Not any god, but the God who has a human face and whohas loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee ofthe existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly life.”

– Pope Benedict XVI

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and that there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

– St. Teresa of Avila

Padre Pio Devotions is happy to announce that the following book on Padre Pio is now available as an audiobook on Audible. Click on the link for more information: “Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry: True Stories of Padre Pio Book I”

Though Christ called himself ‘the way,’ in another sense he’s our end, our destination. Don’t settle down somewhere on the way so that you never come to the end. Whatever else you come to on life’s journey, pass on by it, until you come to the end, Christ himself. Some seek money. Don’t let it be your end. Pass on by, like a traveler in a foreign land. For if you love money, you’ll be entangled by greed. And greed will be like chains on your feet. You won’t be able to make any more progress along the way. . .You seek honors. Perhaps you seek them in order to accomplish something that pleases God. If so, don’t love the honor itself. Otherwise, you might stop there. Do you seek praise? If you seek God’s praise, then you do well – but not if you seek your own praise. You’re stopping short along the way. See, brothers and sisters, how many things we pass on life’s journey that aren’t the end. These we may make use of along the road, taking a break – but then we must travel on.

St. Augustine