From Ignatius Press. An excellent film (dramatisation) about one of our Franciscan Saints.
This movie captures the Capuchin friar's intense faith and devotion, and deep spiritual concern for others, as well as his great compassion for the sick and suffering. It reveals the amazing details and events in Padre Pio's life as a boy and throughout his 50 years as a friar, dramatizing the frequent attacks of the Devil on him, as well as the persecution he suffered at the hands of people, including those in the church. Starring Italian actor Sergio Castellitto, and directed by Carlo Carlei, this is an outstanding feature film on the amazing life of this great saint.
Also, some of St. Pio's exhortations from Padre Pio Devotions:
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.
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.
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.
Humility and purity are the wings which carry us to God and make us almost divine.
Do we wish to love the Lord? I do not think there is anyone who would say no; but let us remember that the word love (amare) in exile sounds very much the same as the word bitter (amaro). Therefore let us try to love even though in suffering, because suffering is the very thing that causes us to expiate our sins and is intended for us by the Lord. Only in Paradise does one love without suffering. And so let us garb ourselves in patience, constancy and perseverance. It is the Lord who thus commanded us. Nay, he himself came to wed love to suffering. He will not deny you the aide necessary to assume the burden of this present life and to be able one day to receive the reward of love without suffering.
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.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. . .
Love Jesus, love Him very much, but to do this, be ready to love sacrifice more.
Our Lord sends the crosses; we do not have to invent them.
Charity is the measure by which Our Lord judges all things.
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.
Don't allow any sadness to dwell in your soul, for sadness prevents the Holy Spirit from acting freely.
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.The more you are afflicted, the more you ought to rejoice, because in the fire of tribulation the soul will become pure gold, worthy to be placed and to shine in the heavenly palace.
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.
Our Lord sometimes makes you feel the weight of the cross. This weight seems unbearable but you carry it because in His love and mercy, the Lord helps you and gives you strength.
You must not be discouraged or let yourself become dejected if your actions have not succeeded as perfectly as you intended. What do you expect? We are made of clay and not every soil yields the fruits expected by the one who tills it. But let us always humble ourselves and acknowledge that we are nothing if we lack the Divine assistance.
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.
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.
As gifts increase in you, let your humility grow, for you must consider that everything is given to you on loan.
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?
You must concentrate on pleasing God alone, and if He is pleased, you must be pleased.
In
the first place, I want you to know that Jesus needs someone to mourn
with Him for human wickedness. This is why he leads me along the
sorrowful paths. But blessed be His charity forever. He knows how to
combine the bitter with the sweet and convert the fleeting pains of
this life into eternal happiness.If God wills to prolong our trials, do not let us lament or try to find out the reason. . .We have to see God through the fire of thorns, and to do this we must go barefoot and renounce our own will and affection and accept the will of God wholeheartedly.
The earth could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Whenever you are seized by melancholy, let your thoughts dwell on that fateful night on which the Son of God began the work of redemption in the solitude of Gethsemane and offer your own sufferings to the Divine Father, along with the sufferings of Jesus.
If we only knew how God regards this Sacrifice, we would risk our lives to be present at a single Mass.
I beg You, O my God, to be my life, my ship, my haven. You have made me ascend the cross of Your Son and I struggle to accept it as best I can. I am sure that I shall never come down from it.
Recommend me to the Lord and to the Virgin Mother because I am in extreme need of their help.
As regards mortification of the flesh, St. Paul warns us that those who belong to "Christ Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" - Galatians 5:24. From this holy apostle's teaching it is apparent that anyone who wants to be a true Christian, that is to say, who lives according to the true spirit of Jesus Christ, must mortify his flesh for no other reason than devotion to Jesus, who for love of us, mortified His entire body on the cross. The mortification must be constant and steady, not intermittent, and it must last for one's whole life.
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.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.
Lord God of my heart, You alone know and see all my troubles. You alone are aware that all my distress springs from my fear of losing You, of offending You, from my fear of not loving You as much as I should love and desire to love You. If You, to whom everything is present and who alone can see the future, know that it is for Your greater glory and for my salvation that I should remain in this state, then let it be so. I don't want to escape from it. Give me the strength to fight and to obtain the prize given to strong souls.
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.
Jesus will assist you and give you the grace to live a heavenly life and nothing whatever will be able to separate you from His love.
I remind you that I belong with great ardor to everyone and for this reason I am suffering immensely for all.
Bless Him in all that He makes you suffer on this earth and rejoice in it, for each victory gained has a corresponding crown in paradise.
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.
Continue to love Jesus and make an effort to love Him more and more, without desiring to know anything else.
Jesus permits the spiritual combat as a purification, not as a punishment. The trial is not unto death but unto salvation.
How
many time I have entrusted to this Mother (the Virgin Mary) the painful
anxieties of my heart. And how many times she has consoled me.....With
what great attention she accompanied me to the altar this morning. It
seemed to me that she had nothing else to think about but me, filling
my heart with holy sentiments. I felt a mysterious fire in my heart,
which I could not understand. I felt the need to put ice on in in order
to extinguish the fire that was consuming me.Renew your faith by attending Holy Mass. Keep your mind focused on the mystery that is unfolding before your eyes. In your mind's eye transport yourself to Calvary and meditate on the Victim who offers Himself to Divine Justice, paying the price of your redemption.
There are moments when I think of the severity of Jesus and I start to worry; then I begin to think of His tenderness and I am consoled. It would be impossible for me not to abandon myself to this sweetness, this happiness.
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.
One day when we are able to see the full midday light, we will know what value and what treasures our earthly sufferings have been that have made us gain our everlasting Homeland.
I feel a great desire to abandon myself with greater trust to the Divine Mercy and to place my hope in God alone.
Let us always bear in mind that if the Lord were to judge us according to strict justice, none of us, perhaps, would be saved. So let us make righteousness and peace exchange a kiss, which we shall obtain if we always tend towards mercy rather than justice, in imitation of our Heavenly Father.
Give yourself up into the arms of your Heavenly Mother. She will take good care of your soul.
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.
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.
In darkness, at times of tribulation and distress of the spirit, Jesus is with you. In such a state you see nothing but darkness, but I can assure you on God's behalf that the light of the Lord is all around you and pervades your spirit. . .You see yourself forsaken and I assure you that Jesus is holding you tighter than ever to His divine Heart.
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.
Every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we ourselves, do not know.
If we are imitators of Jesus Christ and face up to all life's battles, we too will share in His victories.
Jesus himself wants my sufferings; He needs them for souls.
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.
O Jesus, how many generous souls. . .have kept Thee company in the Garden, sharing Thy bitterness and Thy mortal anguish. . .How many hearts in the course of the centuries have responded generously to Thy invitation. . .May this multitude of souls, then, in this supreme hour, be a comfort to Thee, who, better than the disciples, share with Thee the distress of Thy heart, and cooperate with Thee for their own salvation and that of others. And grant that I also may be of their number, that I also may offer Thee some relief.
This is my only comfort, that of being associated with Jesus in the Divine Sacrifice and in the redemption of souls.
Don't lose heart if it is your lot to work alot and gather little. If you considered what one soul alone costs Jesus, you would never complain.
Let us remember that the Heart of Jesus has called us not only for our own sanctification, but also for that of other souls. He wants to be helped in the salvation of souls.
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.
We are the administrators of our money. We will have to give God an account of the use we make of it up to the last cent.
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.
Jesus wants to make us holy at all costs. . .He offers you continual proof of this.
We must hide our tears from the One who sends them, from the One who has shed tears Himself and continues to shed them every day because of mans' ingratitude.
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.
I know that your spirit is always wrapped in the darkness of trials, but it is enough for you to know that Jesus is with you and in you.
Never fall back on yourself alone, but place all your trust in God and don't be too eager to be set free from your present state. 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.
Isn't our good God far above anything we can conceive? Isn't He more
interested than we are in our salvation? How many times has He not
given us proof of this? How many victories have you not gained over
your very powerful enemies and over yourself, through the Divine
assistance without which you would inevitably have been crushed?. . .If
it was left to ourselves, my dear, to remain on our feet, we should
never be able to do it.The Lord is a Father, the most tender and best of fathers. He cannot fail to be moved when His children appeal to Him.
At Jesus' school I have learned that silence and hope are the fortress of the soul.
You ought to ask our Lord for just one thing, to love Him. All the rest should be thanksgiving.
Jesus is well aware that my entire life, my whole heart is consecrated to Him and to His sufferings.
Don't worry about anything.
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.
We must humble ourselves on seeing how little self-control we have
and how much we love comfort and rest. Always keep Jesus before your
gaze; He did not come to rest nor to be comfortable either in spiritual
or temporal matters, but to fight, to mortify Himself and to die.My daughters, in Latin, abjection is called humility, and humility - abjection. . .Nevertheless there is some difference between the virtue of humility and that of abjection, because humility is the recognition of one's abjection. Now the highest degree of humility is not only to recognize one's abjection, but to love it. This is what I have urged you to do.
Remain calm, because your illness was a little present given to you by Jesus.
The pain caused by this wound which He inflicts on me and the sweetness which accompanies it are so intense that I cannot even begin to describe it. However. . . this pain and this sweetness are completely spiritual, although it is also true that they are shared by the body to a high degree.
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.
We must keep the eye of faith fixed on Jesus Christ who climbs the hill of Calvary loaded with his Cross, and as he toils painfully up the steep slope of Golgotha we should see him followed by an immense throng of souls carrying their own crosses and treading the same path. Oh, what a beautiful sight this is. Let us fix our mental gaze firmly on it. We see close behind Jesus our most holy Mother, who follows him perfectly, loaded with her own cross. Then comes the Apostles, Martyrs, Doctors, Virgins and Confessors. . .Jesus himself, despite all our unworthiness, has associated us with this beautiful company. We must make every effort to merge ourselves increasingly in these ranks and hasten with them along the road to Calvary. We should look to the end of the journey and not separate ourselves from this fine company; we must refuse to follow any other way than the one they tread.
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.Serene in our faith and tranquil in our soul, let us pray and continue to pray, because intense and fervent prayer pierces the heavens and is backed up by a Divine guarantee.
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.
My daughter, we should never forget that our self love is the last to die. While we remain in this base world we will always be affected by its sensitive assaults and hidden operations; but God's grace is sufficient for us not to willingly succumb. This virtue of detachment is so excellent that the old man in us, the man of sin, nor the senses, nor human nature with its natural faculties were ever capable of possessing it. Not even the Son of God, who as a Son of Adam, although without any stain of sin, was completely free. He too confessed to His apostles that His soul was full of sadness; He too sought consolation; He too did not wish to die. However, He preserved His detachment, and we too must try to preserve it in imitation of Him, in times of trial and suffering, in the faculties possessed by grace.
We must never separate the cross from Jesus; otherwise, it would become a weight which in our weakness, we could not carry.
I do not know what will happen to me; I only know one thing for certain, that the Lord will never fall short of His promises. "Do not fear, I will make you suffer, but I will also give you the strength to suffer," Jesus tells me continually. "I want your soul to be purified and tried by a daily hidden martyrdom". . ."How many times," Jesus said to me a little while ago, "would you have abandoned me, my son, if I had not crucified you."
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.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.
You are mistaken, greatly mistaken, when you want to measure the soul's love for its Creator by the delightful feelings it experiences in loving God. This kind of love belongs to those who are still spiritually immature. . .On the other hand, the love of those who have left this spiritual infancy behind them is a love which experiences neither taste nor delight in what is called the sensitive part of the soul. We have a sure sign that these people really love God when we observe their readiness to keep God's holy law; their constant watchfulness so that they may not fall into sin; their habitual desire to see the heavenly Father glorified, while losing no chance to spread the kingdom of God as far as lies in their power; when we see them praying continually to God the Father in the same words of our divine Master, Our Father. . .Thy kingdom come.
In the first place, let our prayers be directed towards disarming Divine wrath with regard to our own country. This land also has many accounts to settle with God. May she learn at least from the misfortunes of others, especially from those of her sister country, France, how harmful it is for the nation to draw away from God, and let her intone in due course the Miserere.
Protected, or rather covered and defended by the uniform of this most dear Lord, let us come into His presence and pray to Him with the humility of creatures and the freedom of sons. And because He finds His delight with the children of men, let nothing in the world prevent us from delighting in Him, contemplating His greatness and His infinite titles, for which He has the right to our praise and love.
Place your heart gently in Our Lord's wounds. Have great confidence in His mercy for He will never abandon you.
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.Reflect upon and keep before your mental gaze the great humility of the Mother of God, 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.
You are never without my prayers which you ask for, because you have cost me such sacrifices that I can never forget you. I gave birth to you in the extreme pain of my heart.
Jesus did not measure his blood for the salvation of men, and is He likely to measure my sins to allow me to be lost? I do not think so. . . Tell Jesus too that I will keep my promise not to offend Him anymore and that I will in fact make every effort to love Him always.
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.
If nature suffers and demands its rights, this is a condition of mans' life as a wayfarer. . .As long as we remain in this world we shall always feel a natural aversion for suffering. This is a chain that will accompany us everywhere.
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.
All our life, all our actions and all our aspirations must be directed in reparation for the offences that our ungrateful brothers continually commit.
I feel crushed beneath the weight of the long exile which still remains before me. It is true that just one more step. . .and the cross will be set up on Golgotha, but you must agree that the step to be taken to set up the cross will require further time and then, to agonize there with Jesus will take time.
We must believe that Jesus will invariably sustain us by His grace. We must fight like strong men, with strength of soul, and the prize will not be far off.
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.
Believe that Jesus, Sun of justice, is with you, loves you and always will, although He would like your consent to operate freely in you.
Our imperfections will accompany us to the grave; we cannot walk without touching the ground. It is true that we must not lie on the ground nor turn our face to it, but neither should we attempt to fly, for in the ways of the spirit, we are like young birds that have not yet grown wings.
My heart is filled with a fire of love....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.In our thoughts and in confession, we must not dwell on sins that were previously confessed. Because of our contrition, Jesus forgave them at the tribunal of penitence. It was there that He faced us and our destitution, like a creditor standing before an insolvent debtor. With a gesture of infinite generosity, He tore up and destroyed the promissory notes which we signed with our sins, and which we would certainly not have been able to pay without the help of His Divine clemency.
Remember, our suffering is brief but our reward is eternal. You must remain calm, or at least resigned, but always convinced in the voice of authority. You must confide in it, without fearing the rages of the storm, because the vessel of your soul will never be submerged. Heaven and earth may pass away, but the Word of God, that assures the one who obeys it will find victory, will never pass away and will always remain fixed in indelible script in the Book of Life: I will exist forever.
The thought of God's mercy is the only thing that sustains me.
Souls are not given as a gift; they are bought. Don't you know what they cost Jesus? They must be paid for with the same coin.
Jesus will never abandon you. I ask you to pray hard for the efficacy of my ministry. I am afraid of displeasing the Lord in the exercise of my priestly activity. May Jesus arrange all things for His glory and our salvation.
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.
I
can only say one thing, that the one who stands at my right side is Our
Lord and no one else; and even before He told me so I was firmly
convinced that it was He.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.
Divine help will not be lacking. Don't desire this state to be removed but say to Jesus, "Lord, act in the way and to the extent You wish. If You are happy, I am happy.
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.
Let us always bear in mind that at our baptism we became temples of the living God and that every time we turn our minds to worldly things, to the devil and the flesh which we renounced at baptism, we are profaning this sacred temple of God.
Keep in good spirits, abandon yourself to the Divine Heart of Jesus, leaving all your anxieties to Him. Consider yourself always last among our Lord's lovers. . .clothe yourself with humility toward others, because He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The more the graces and favors of Jesus increase in your soul the more you must humble yourself, always keeping in mind the humility of our celestial Mother, who the instant she became the Mother of God, declared herself servant and handmaid of God.
The grain of wheat does not yield anything unless it suffers and decomposes; it is the same for the soul and for nations who need trials and sufferings so as to rise up purified and renewed.
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. You can
meditate also on Jesus being dragged and led to the tribunal,
flagellated and crowned with thorns, the course He climbed to Calvary
laden with the cross, His crucifixion and finally His death on the
cross with all the suffering of seeing His most sorrowful mother.Listen carefully. There is a mother who is embroidering. Her son sitting on a low stool sees her work, but upside down. He sees the knots of the embroidery, the tangled threads and says, "Mother, what are you doing? Your work is not at all clear." Then the mother lowers the embroidery frame and shows the good part of her work. Each color is in its place and the variety of threads form a harmonious design. We are seeing the reverse side of the embroidery; we are sitting on the low stool.
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.
Always keep close to God. In Him I am with you more than you can know.
Consider Jesus' act of acceptance in the Garden and how much it cost Him, making Him sweat blood. Make this act yourself when things are going well and also when they go against you. . .We know that nature shrinks from the cross when things are hard, but we cannot say the soul is not submissive to God's will when we see it carrying out that will, in spite of the strong pull it feels in the opposite direction.
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.
The Christian's motto is the cross. You will recognize God's love by this sign, by the sufferings He sends you.
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.I will always seek the company of all those who are lovers of Jesus, particularly those who are united to us in one and the same spirit.
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 field of battle between God and Satan is the human soul. This is where it takes place every moment of our lives. The soul must give free access to our Lord and be completely fortified by Him with every kind of weapon. His light must illuminate it to fight the darkness of error. He must put on Jesus Christ, His truth and justice, the shield of faith, the word of God to overcome such powerful enemies. To put on Jesus Christ we must die to ourselves.
Do not wish greatly to be freed from tests; a soldier needs to have achieved a great deal in war before he desires its end. We shall never gain perfect sweetness or charity unless we exercise it amidst repugnance, aversion and disgust.
The Lord is willing to do great things, but on condition that we are truly humble.
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.
The good we endeavor to do to others will always result in the sanctification of our own souls.
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.
When you are exposed to any trial, be it physical or moral, bodily or spiritual, the best remedy is the thought of Him who is our life, and not to think of the one without joining to it the thought of the other.
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.
The Spirit of God is a spirit of peace. Even in the most serious faults He makes us feel a sorrow that is tranquil, humble, and confident. This is precisely because of His mercy. The spirit of the devil, instead, excites, exasperates, and makes us feel, in that very sorrow, anger against ourselves. We should, on the contrary, be charitable with ourselves first and foremost. Therefore if any thought agitates you, this agitation never comes from God, who gives you peace, being the Spirit of Peace, but from the devil.
Endure tribulations, illness, and pain, for the love of God and for the conversion of poor sinners.
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.
I feel all your troubles as if they were my own.
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.
I send you this fervent aspiration from my heart. . .'O Lord, for the incomparable sadness and great desolation Your heart felt on the Mount of Olives and on the cross; and for the great affliction Your dear Mother felt when deprived of Your presence, may You be the joy or at least the strength of this daughter, when the passion and cross are perfectly joined to your soul.'
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.
Keep always before your eyes as archetype and example, the modesty of our Divine Master, who according to the expression of the apostle to the Corinthians, considers the modesty of Jesus Christ equal to His meekness, which was His proper and almost characteristic virtue.
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.
Many times a day I present your heart to the Eternal Father. ..and I present it to Him without fail at Holy Mass.
I feel powerfully the need for a true, sincere and intimate conversion to God, and I do not know where and how to start. This is what I assiduously ask of Jesus: my conversion.
When it pleases Him to place us on the Cross by confining us to a bed of sickness, let us thank Him and consider ourselves lucky to be honored in this way.
Our Lord loves you and loves you tenderly; and if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love, it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes.
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.
Let us humble ourselves and confess that if God were not our armor and shield, we would be pierced by all kinds of sins. That is why we must live in God by persevering in our practices, and learn to serve Him at our own expense.
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.God has never refused me anything and indeed I must say He has given me more than I asked.
I suffer greatly, Father, when I see how people ignore Jesus, and what is worse, how they insult Him, especially by those dreadful blasphemies.
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.
Oh my daughter, how beautiful is His face, how sweet His eyes and what a good thing it is to stay close to Him on the mount of His glory. We must place all our desires and affections there.
Place all your trust in the heart of sweet Jesus......Never abandon your faith and renew it always. Faith has never abandoned any man, and far less so will it forsake a soul that yearns to love God.
Consider that we are always in the presence of God to whom we have to give account for our every action, both good and bad.
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.
Let us try to serve the Lord with all our heart and will. He will always give us more than we deserve.
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.
Let us pray to our most merciful Jesus to come to the aid of His Church, for her needs have become extreme.
May
the Most Holy Virgin, who was the first to practice the gospel
perfectly and in all its severity, even before it was proclaimed, spur
us on to follow closely in her footsteps.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.
The years have gone by, one after the other, without our reflecting on how we have spent them, and whether there was anything in our conduct to improve, add or remove. We have lived thoughtlessly and unmindful that one day the eternal Judge shall call each of us and ask us to give an account of our deeds and how we made use of our time. And yet we shall have to give a most strict account of every minute, every grace, every holy inspiration and every occasion offered to us to do good.
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?
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.
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 our Lord bless these wishes of mine
which I am happy to have demonstrated to show how much I have your
happiness at heart, how much I worry and unceasingly pray for it.May Jesus be always with you and may He be pleased to make all redeemed souls worthy to be received one day into the kingdom of glory. May He include us in the great number of those who have known how to make continual progress at the school of His love.
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. In fact it would be disastrous for us if, at a certain stage of our journey, we were to feel satisfied, for it would be a sign that we thought we had reached our goal, and in this we would be deceived.
May
your whole life be spent in giving thanks to the Divine Spouse....Live
for Him and let your entire life be spent for Him. Hand over to Him
your departure and the departure of others from this earth - when,
where, and as He wills.He wants you entirely for Himself. He wants you to place all your trust and all your affection in Him alone.
And 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.
Let us ask the Lord to send us death when His grace is with us, when we are surrounded by Him, His Mother and Saint Joseph, after having completed our purgatory here on earth.
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.
