Padre Pio’s Words of Faith
I have often raised my hand in the silence of the night and in my solitary cell, blessing you all and presenting you to Jesus and to our father, St. Francis of Assisi.
Prayer is the best weapon we possess. It is the key that opens the heart of God.
You must always humble yourself lovingly before God and before men, because God speaks only to those who are truly humble and He enriches them with His gifts.
In all the events of life, you must recognize the Divine will. Adore and bless it, especially in the things which are the hardest for you.
In my greatest sufferings, it seems to me that I no longer have a mother on this earth, but a very compassionate one in Heaven.
Remember that God is within us when we are in a state of grace and outside of us when we are in a state of sin; but His angel never abandons us. . . He is our most sincere and faithful friend even when we sadden him with our bad behavior.
Humility and purity are the wings which carry us to God and make us almost divine.
Don't worry about anything.
Let us always keep before our eyes the fact that here on earth we are on a battlefield and that in paradise we shall receive the crown of victory; that this is a testing-ground and the prize will be awarded up above; that we are now in a land of exile while our true homeland is Heaven to which we must continually aspire.
Hold on tightly to the Rosary. Be very grateful to the Madonna because it was she who gave us Jesus.
Love our Lady and make her loved; always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible.
I feel a great desire to abandon myself with greater trust to the Divine Mercy and to place my hope in God alone.
Imagine Jesus crucified in your arms and on your chest, and say a hundred times as you kiss His chest, “This is my hope, the living source of my happiness; this is the heart of my soul; nothing will ever separate me from His love.”
Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is I want it to be a place of consolation for You. . .
Our Lord sends the crosses; we do not have to invent them.
Charity is the measure by which Our Lord judges all things.
Don’t allow any sadness to dwell in your soul, for sadness prevents the Holy Spirit from acting freely.
Let us therefore, love to quench our thirst at this fountain of living water and go forward all the time along the way of divine love. But let us also be convinced that our souls will never be satisfied here below.
It would be well to remember that the graces and consolations of prayer are not waters of this earth but of Heaven. Therefore, all our efforts are not sufficient to make them fall, even though it be necessary to prepare oneself with great diligence.
May the Child Jesus be the star that guides you through the desert of your present life.
I consider what writers say about the kingfishers, the little birds who build their nests on the beach near the sea. They build it in a circular form and so tightly compressed that the sea water cannot penetrate it. . .Here these graceful little birds place their young ones, so that when the sea comes upon them by surprise, they can swim with confidence and float on the waves. . .I want your heart to be like this: well compact and closed on all sides, so that if the worries and storms of the world, the evil spirit, and the flesh come upon it, it will not be penetrated. Leave but one opening to your heart, that is toward heaven. . .How I love and am enraptured by those little birds.
Our present life is given only to gain the eternal one and if we don’t think about it, we build our affections on what belongs to this world, where our life is transitory. When we have to leave it we are afraid and become agitated. Believe me, to live happily in this pilgrimage, we have to aim at the hope of arriving at our Homeland, where we will stay eternally.
Meanwhile we have to believe firmly that God calls us to Himself and follows us along the path towards Him. He will never permit anything to happen to us that is not for our greater good. He knows who we are and He will hold out His paternal hand to us during difficulties, so that nothing prevents us from running to Him swiftly. But to enjoy this grace we must have complete trust in Him.
I have worked and I want to work. I have prayed and I want to pray. I have kept watch and I want to keep watch. I have cried and I want to cry – always for all of my brothers who are in exile. I know and understand that this is very little but this is what I know how to do; this is what I am able to do; and this is all that I can do.
If we only knew how God regards this Sacrifice, we would risk our lives to be present at a single Mass.
Keep your eyes fixed on Him who is your guide to the heavenly country, where He is leading you. What does it matter to you whether Jesus wishes to guide you to Heaven by way of the desert or by the meadow, so long as He is always with you and you arrive at the possession of a blessed eternity?
In the spiritual life, you must take one step forward each day in a vertical line, from the bottom up.
Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother.
When Jesus wants to make me happy, He fills my heart with that spirit which is all fire, and speaks to me about His delights; but when He wants to be consoled, He speaks to me about His pains, and invites me in a manner that is both a request and a command, to offer my body to alleviate His sufferings.
As the days pass, I see ever more clearly the greatness of God, and in this light, which grows brighter and brighter, my soul burns with the desire to be united to Him by indissoluble bonds.
Let us continue to trust, for the God who humiliates us and makes us suffer at present is the God who is still speaking to us, and the God who still speaks to us. . . even if He thunders so unpleasantly and severely, is still the God who loves us.
You ought to ask our Lord for just one thing, to love Him. All the rest should be thanksgiving.
Stay with me Lord, for you are my light and without you I am in darkness.
The earth could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Recommend me to the Lord and to the Virgin Mother because I am in extreme need of their help.
As long as you receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament every morning, you must consider yourself extremely fortunate.
Don’t consider me too demanding if I ask you once again to set great store by holy books and read them as much as you can. This spiritual reading is as necessary to you as the air you breathe.
In order that we may willingly accept the tribulations lavished on us by the Divine mercy, let us keep our gaze fixed on the heavenly home reserved for us. . . Let us withdraw our gaze, moreover, from those good things which are visible to our eyes, by which I mean worldly goods, the sight of which fascinates the heart. Worldly goods prevent us from keeping our eyes fixed on our heavenly home.
Let us keep before our minds that which makes up real holiness. Holiness means getting above ourselves; it means perfect mastery of all our passions. It means having real and continual contempt for ourselves and for the things of the world to the point of preferring poverty rather than wealth, humiliation rather than glory, suffering rather than pleasure.
Holiness means loving our neighbor as ourself for love of God. In this connection holiness means loving those who curse us, who hate and persecute us and even doing good to them. Holiness means living humbly, being disinterested, prudent, just, patient, kind, chaste, meek, diligent, carrying out one’s duties for no other reason than that of pleasing God and receiving from Him alone the reward one deserves.
Take care of your spirit, flee idleness and all immoral conversation. . .always remembering the words of the apostle, that our virtue is preserved in very fragile vessels.
The Mother of Sorrows is my confidante, my teacher, my counselor, and my powerful advocate.
Give yourself up into the arms of your Heavenly Mother. She will take good care of your soul.
God commands us to love Him, not as much as He deserves, because He knows our capabilities and therefore He does not ask us to do what we cannot do. But He asks us to love Him according to our strength, with all our soul, all our mind, and all our heart.
But let us take heart. . .Let us glance at the Divine Master who prayed in the Garden and we will discover the true ladder which unites the earth to Heaven. We will discover that humility, contrition and prayer make the distance between man and God disappear, and act in such a way that God descends to man, and man ascends to God, so that they end up understanding, loving and possessing one another.
It is now God Himself who acts and operates directly in the depths of my soul, without the ministry of the senses, either interior or exterior. . .All I can say of this present state is that my soul has no concern for anything but God.
Jesus, who is infinitely merciful, will not fail to give you now and then a respite from the trial He has sent you. He is so good that He will never allow you to give in. The trial is a very hard one, but the Lord who is so very, very good will not fail to lighten the Cross from time to time.
May the Lord confirm with His blessings, these wishes of mine, for your happiness is very close to my heart and I work and pray continuously for this end.
Pray for the reestablishment of the kingdom of God, for the spread of faith, for the praise and triumph of our holy mother Church. . . Pray for the unfaithful and for heretics and for the conversion of sinners.
As long as there remains a drop of blood in our body, there will be a struggle between right and wrong.
Every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we ourselves, do not know.
God has never refused me anything and indeed I must say He has given me more than I asked.
The thought of God’s mercy is the only thing that sustains me.
Jesus, our dear Mother, my little angel, St. Joseph, and our father, St. Francis, are almost always with me.
Live in such a way that your Heavenly Father may be proud of you, as he is proud of so many other chosen souls.
Never let us put aside the thought of our ultimate aim. And what is this ultimate aim? To know God, principally, is why he conceived our days, our years. Therefore, let us try never to forget this ultimate aim, for everything depends on it. And for what reason? To serve him with faith, with love, and with constancy. Let us try to excel in all of this, then. Since God created us for love, he takes care of us for love, and for love he has promised us the prize.
In Heaven, everything will be spring as far as beauty is concerned, autumn as far as enjoyment is concerned, summer as far as love is concerned. There will be no winter; but here winter is necessary to exercise self-denial and a thousand other little but beautiful virtues which are exercised at times of sterility.
Why did Jesus Christ sacrifice himself to the point of death? Faith answers – to expiate for our sins. Why did he rise in such splendor? To show us the meaning of our redemption. In his death, we recall that we were dead because of sin. In his resurrection instead we have a perfect example of our resurrection in grace. Since Jesus Christ rose immortal to a life of glory, we must say with St. Paul that we too must rise immortal in the life of grace, firmly resolved to never again subject our souls to spiritual death
When disturbed by passions and misfortunes, may the sweet hope of His inexhaustible mercy sustain us. Let us hasten confidently to the tribunal of penance where He awaits us at every instant with the anxiety of a father; and even though we are aware of our inability to repay Him, let us have no doubts about the solemn pardon pronounced over our errors. Let us place a tombstone over them, just as the Lord has done.
Don’t worry about tomorrow because the very same Heavenly Father who takes care of you today will have the same thought tomorrow and always. . . What does a child in the arms of such a Father have to fear? Be as children, who hardly ever think about their future as they have someone to think for them. They are sufficiently strong just by being with their father.
My only regret is that I have no adequate means with which to thank the Blessed Virgin Mary, through whose intercession I have undoubtedly received so much strength from the Lord, to bear with sincere resignation the many humiliations to which I am subjected day after day. . . And I do not believe this strength comes to me from the world.
I am ready for anything as long as Jesus is happy and will save the souls of my brethren, especially those He has entrusted to my care.
Contrary to our every merit, we are on the steps of Tabor, by having a firm determination to love and serve His divine goodness well. Therefore we must have great hope. . .Let us, step by step, draw away from earthly affections; let us strip ourselves of the old man and put on the new man, aspiring to the happiness that awaits us.
We must never separate the cross from Jesus; otherwise, it would become a weight which in our weakness, we could not carry.
Let us always strive more and more to love the Lord. This great truth of loving God must not seem hard to us; on the contrary, we must consider ourselves honored, because the Lord God didn’t limit himself to creating us and telling us to love him, but he made a commandment of it . . . He commands us to do so, and the commandment is full of love. It is he who instills it into our hearts. It is he who gives us the means to be able to love him. But that which is more surprising, he has also promised us the prize. It isn’t something that is temporary, passing, or limited. It is as eternal as he is eternal; it is as immense as he is immense; it is as lasting as he is lasting. And God lasts forever, for all eternity.
Let the Holy Spirit act within you. Give yourself up to all His transports and have no fear. He is so wise and gentle and discreet that He never brings about anything but good. How good this Holy Spirit, this Comforter, is to all, but how supremely good He is to those who seek Him.
I confess in the first place that for me it is a great misfortune to be unable to express and pour out this ever-active volcano which burns me up and which Jesus has placed in this very small heart of mine. It can all be summed up as follows – I am consumed by love for God and love for my neighbor.
Do you know what religion is? It is a school in which every soul must be trained, smoothed and polished by the Holy Spirit, who acts as a physician to our souls until, well smoothed and polished, they can be united and joined to the will of God. . .Religion is an infirmary for the spiritually sick, who wish to be cured and must therefore undergo the pains of surgery.
Let us be especially grateful to God for the gift of faith, a gift which is mainly instilled in us with Baptism. . .We must remember that faith is the greatest gift that God has made to man on this earth, because from earthly man he becomes a citizen of Heaven. But let us guard this great gift jealously. Woe to he who forgets himself, who forgets Heaven, whose faith grows weak, and worse still, may God preserve us all, who denies his faith. This is the greatest affront that man can make to God. Attention, then. Let us pray to God to preserve in us this gift as the most precious thing he has granted us.
I have never trusted in myself; I can state before my conscience that I never took a step without the advice of another, and as for the steps already taken I always reconsidered, always asked for new insight from as many people as I happened upon.
My usual manner of praying is this: I no sooner begin to pray than my soul becomes enveloped in a peace and tranquility that words cannot describe. . .All I can say about this prayer is that my soul seems to be completely lost in God and that in those moments it gains more than it could in many years of intensive spiritual exercises.
In order to attract us the Lord gives us many graces and we imagine we are almost in Heaven. We do not know, however, that to grow we need hard bread – crosses, humiliations, trials and contradictions.
Place your heart gently in Our Lord’s wounds. Have great confidence in His mercy for He will never abandon you.
The Lord only allows me to recall those persons and things He wants me to remember. On several occasions, our merciful Lord has suggested to me people whom I have never known or even heard of, for the sole purpose of having me present them to Him and intercede for them, whereupon He never fails to answer my poor, feeble prayers. On the other hand, when Jesus doesn’t want to answer me, he makes me actually forget to pray for those persons for whom I had firmly decided and intended to pray.
You must remember that you have in Heaven, not only a Father but also a Mother…If our wretchedness saddens us, if our ingratitude for God terrorizes us, if the memory of our faults hinders us from presenting ourselves to God, our Father, let us then have recourse to Mary, our Mother. She is all sweetness, mercy, goodness and love for us because she is our Mother.
In this life Jesus does not ask you to carry the heavy cross with Him, but a small piece of His cross, a piece that consists of human suffering.
If there wasn’t anything else in a soul but the desire to love God, this would be sufficient because God Himself is there. He is not present where there is no desire to love Him.
Pray, pray to the Lord with me, because the whole world needs prayer. And every day, when your heart especially feels the loneliness of life, pray. Pray to the Lord because even God needs our prayers.
The Mass is infinite like Jesus. . .Ask an angel what the Mass is, and he will reply to you in truth,”I understand what it is and why it is offered, but I do not, however, understand how much value it has.” One angel, a thousand angels, all of Heaven know this and think like this.
Unfortunately, I am in need of courage, but Jesus will not refuse anything. I can testify to this from long experience, so we should not stop asking Him for what we need.
The Heavenly Child suffers and cries in the crib so as to make His suffering for us loveable, meritorious and sought after. He lacked everything so that we might learn from Him to renounce earthly goods. He was pleased with humble and poor adorers so that we might love poverty and prefer the company of the little and simple ones to those of the great of the world. . .With His birth, He indicated our mission, namely to despise what the world loves and seeks.
Where there is no obedience, there is no virtue; there is neither goodness nor love. And where there is no love, there is no God. Without God, we cannot reach Heaven. These virtues form a ladder; if a step is missing, we fall down.
Jesus, who is infinitely merciful, will not fail to give you now and then a respite from the trial He has sent you. He is so good that He will never allow you to give in. The trial is a very hard one, but the Lord who is so very, very good will not fail to lighten the Cross from time to time.
Remember that our soul is the temple of God, and as such, we must keep it pure and spotless before God and His angels
Raise your heart always to those heavenly heights, and do all you can to attain that eternal beatitude which awaits us. The children of the world usually only confess their sins on their deathbeds, even though this present life should be lived in the light of eternal life. The children of God, however, touch this truth with their very hands their whole lives.
The little vessel which is your soul always possesses the strong anchor of trust in the Divine Goodness. This mystical vessel will always have Jesus as helmsman and Mary as its beacon. Hence there is no room for fear.
The heavenly beings continue to visit me and to give me a foretaste of the rapture of the blessed. And while the mission of the guardian angels is a great one, my own angel’s mission is certainly greater, since he has the additional task of teaching me other languages.
There is one thing I desire from you above everything else: that your normal meditation be, if possible, around the Life, Passion and Death, and also the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can then meditate on His birth, His flight into Egypt and His life there, His return and His hidden life in the workshop of Nazareth up to the age of thirty, His humility in His desire to be baptized by His precursor St. John.
You can meditate on His public life, His most painful Passion and Death, the institution of the most Holy Sacrament, the very evening men were preparing the most atrocious sufferings.
You can meditate again on Jesus praying in the Garden of Olives, sweating blood knowing what sufferings men were preparing for Him and the ingratitude of men who would not make use of His merits.
Anxiety is one of the greatest traitors that real virtue and solid devotion can ever have. . .One must be careful of this on all occasions, particularly at prayer. And to better succeed it would be well to remember that the graces and consolations of prayer are not waters of this earth, but of Heaven. Therefore all our efforts are not sufficient to make them fall, even though it is necessary to prepare oneself with great diligence but always humbly and tranquilly.
Those souls who throw themselves into the whirlpool of worldly preoccupations are poor as well as unfortunate. . .they are affected by the shock that breaks their heart.
I no sooner began to pray than my heart is filled with a fire of love. This fire does not resemble any fire of this lowly earth. It is a delicate and very gentle flame which consumes without causing any pain. . .This is a wonderful thing for me, something I will perhaps never understand until I get to Heaven.
Science, my son, for all its greatness is nevertheless a small thing and less than nothing compared to the formidable mystery of the Divinity. You must take another road. Cleanse your heart of every earthly passion, humble yourself in the dust and pray. Like this you will certainly find God, who will give you peace and serenity in this life and eternal beatitude in the next.
The Lord is willing to do great things, but on condition that we are truly humble.
Holy Father, give us today our daily bread. Give us Jesus always during our brief stay in this land of exile. Give Him to us and grant that we may be increasingly worthy to welcome Him into our hearts.
I feel all your troubles as if they were my own.
Let us now consider what the soul must do to be certain of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is all a question of mortification of the flesh with its vices and concupiscence. . . . .On this subject the Apostle warns, “If we live for the Spirit we will walk in the Spirit,” as if he wanted to tell us for our edification: Do we want to live spiritually, that is to say, to be moved and guided by the Holy Spirit? Then let us take care to mortify our spirit, which, when it is satisfied, makes us impetuous and weary. Let us take care to repress vainglory, wrath and envy. These are three evil spirits that enslave the majority of mankind. These three evil spirits are extremely opposed to the Spirit of the Lord.
Do not let the persecution of worldlings and of all those who live without the Spirit of Jesus Christ deter you from following the road trodden by the saints.
Let us look at ourselves in Jesus, my dear, as our mirror, in Jesus who led a hidden life. All His infinite majesty was hidden in the shadows and silence of that modest little workshop in Nazareth. So let us, too, make every effort to lead a completely interior life, hidden in God.
We have a double life; one is natural, that which we have from Adam through human generation and therefore an earthly life – corruptible, self-centered and full of passions. The other which we have from Jesus in baptism is supernatural and therefore a spiritual life – heavenly and with a capacity for virtue. Through baptism, a real transformation is made in us. We are brought to die to sin; we are grafted onto Jesus Christ in such a manner that we live His very same life.
Always keep close to God. In him I am with you, more than you can know.
The Lord only allows me to recall those persons and things He wants me to remember. On several occasions, our merciful Lord has suggested to me people whom I have never known or even heard of, for the sole purpose of having me present them to Him and intercede for them, whereupon He never fails to answer my poor, feeble prayers. On the other hand, when Jesus doesn’t want to answer me, he makes me actually forget to pray for those persons for whom I had firmly decided and intended to pray.
Jesus continues to love me and to draw me closer to Himself. He has forgotten my sins, and I would say that He remembers only His own mercy…Each morning He comes into my heart and pours out all the effusions of His goodness.
Jesus is always with you, even when you don’t feel his presence. He is never so close to you as he is during your spiritual battles. He is always there, close to you, encouraging you to fight the good fight; he is there to ward off the enemy’s blows so you won’t be hurt.
In Heaven, everything will be spring as far as beauty is concerned, autumn as far as enjoyment is concerned, summer as far as love is concerned. There will be no winter; but here winter is necessary to exercise self-denial and a thousand other little but beautiful virtues which are exercised at times of sterility.
May the Mother of Jesus, and our Mother, obtain for us from her Son the grace to live a life according to the heart of God, a life that is entirely interior and hidden in Him.
Humility and charity are the main supports of the whole vast building and all the other virtues depend on them. One makes up the foundation; the other, the roof of the building, the sturdiness of which depends on both. If the heart constantly dedicates itself to the practice of these two virtues, it will have no difficulty with all the others.
Endeavor to walk in the presence of God, in the ways I taught you and which you know. Guard yourselves against anxiety and worries, because there is nothing worse in the way of perfection than agitations, worries and anxieties of soul.
Our body is like a donkey that we must take a stick to, so as to subdue it, but not so much that it throws us to the ground and refuses to carry us.
I am alone in bearing the weight of everyone. And the thought of not being able to give some spiritual relief to those that Jesus sends to me, the thought of seeing so many souls who want to justify their sins and thus spite their highest good – afflicts me, tortures me, makes me a martyr. It wears me out, wracks my brain, and breaks my heart.
We must rise up and value every instant of time that passes and is in our power. We must not waste a single moment. By divine grace we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year. This year, which only God knows if we shall see its end, must be used in reparation for the past and in preparation for the future.
Jesus says to us in the Gospel that the promised reward will not be for he that shall begin well, nor for he that shall continue for a certain time, but for he that shall persevere unto the end; therefore those who have begun must try to persevere. Those who have continued must try to reach the end, and those who have unfortunately not begun, must set themselves on the right road.
We shall invariably advance cautiously, but with holy freedom. We shall feel that the Lord who has chained us to Him by love, is leading us to beware of sin as of a poisonous viper. And while we take the greatest care never to commit a deliberate sin, we have a greater fear of mortal sin than of fire.
’Be of good cheer; abandon yourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and let Him take care of everything.
You think you know my love for you but you don’t know that it is much greater than you can imagine. I follow you with my prayers, with my suffering and with my tears.
Living these brief passing moments should matter little to the children of God, so long as they will live eternally with God in glory. My daughter, consider that you are already on the way to eternity. You have already placed one foot there. Provided that it is a happy one for you, what does it matter if these passing moments are unhappy?
What God wants from you is always right and good. May He be blessed forever. Let us get to work; in Heaven we’ll have no other duty than the fulfillment of God’s will. Let us strive to bless the Lord when we are the object of humiliations and contempt. Let us bless Him in our spiritual trials and our heartbreaks, for all is ordained by God with great wisdom.
He who attaches himself to the earth remains attached to it. It is by violence that we must leave it. It is better to detach oneself a little at a time, rather than all at once. Let us always think of Heaven.
As the years go by and eternity draws near, we must be twice as courageous and lift our spirit to God, serving Him with even greater diligence in everything that our Christian vocation and profession requires from us. Only this can make us agreeable to God, make us free to leave this great world that is not of God, free from all other enemies; only this can make us reach the port of eternal salvation.
Every Christian soul ought to be familiar with this saying of the holy apostle [St. Paul], “To me to live is Christ” – Philippians 1:2. I live for Jesus Christ, I live for His glory, I live to serve Him, I live to love Him. And when God wants to take our life from us, our sentiment and our feeling should be those of a person who at the end of his toil goes to collect his wages, who, at the end of the fight, goes to receive the prize.
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 40 days He wanted to be seen as risen. And why? To affirm, as St. Leo says, by such an excellent mystery, the good news of our faith. . .These 40 days before our ascent to Heaven will pass for us too. Perhaps they will not be days, but months and years. I wish you, my brothers and sisters, a long and prosperous life full of heavenly and material blessings. But finally this life will come to an end. And then we will be happy, if we have assured for ourselves the joy of a happy transit to eternity. Then our resurrection will be complete. There will be no more danger of losing the grace of God. There will no longer be any suffering, no more death, but instead everlasting life with our Savior Jesus Christ in Heaven. May the Lord confirm with His blessings, these wishes of mine, for your happiness is very close to my heart and I work and pray continuously for this end.
The souls that suffer the most are favorites of the Sacred Heart; and you may rest assured that Jesus has chosen your soul to be the favorite of His adorable heart. You must hide yourself in this Heart; in this Heart you must give vent to your ardent desires, in this Heart you must live out the days that Providence will grant you; in this Heart you must die when the Lord so wishes.
We shall not see each other again in this world; but when I am no longer here, do not forget me in your prayers before the Almighty and I shall continue as your guide from Heaven.
I will stand at the gates of Heaven and I will not enter until all of my spiritual children are with me.