Today we are looking at Padre Pio's guidelines for a Christian life.
So these are 10 spiritual tips that he gave us, important milestones or perhaps barriers
that we need to avoid.
And in this talk, we're going to see how Padre Pio considered the Virgin Mary is the shortcut,
the shortest way to reach God.
Hello, friends, and welcome to this channel where we have a look at the incredible life
of our great Saint Padre Pio.
He was a Capuchin friar.
He was a mystic.
He was a tremendous miracle worker.
Do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and about what his intercession could
do for you.
We encourage everyone to be part of this apostolate, and you'll help us tremendously by liking
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Now, if we look at Padre Pio's advice for daily life, can be summarized, as we said,
into 10 points, but that is a lot to cover, more than most people can absorb.
And so we're going to split it into smaller sections, more manageable sections, and perhaps
we can come back to these from time to time as a reflection in our spiritual life.
And these points are taken from the memoirs and the letters that Padre Pio wrote to various
of his spiritual children.
In the first point, this is love of the Virgin Mary.
What role did this play in Padre Pio's life?
A lady asked Padre Pio, "Teach me a shortcut in order to reach God quickly."
Padre Pio responded, "The shortcut is the Virgin."
The blessed Virgin Mary, he insisted, is the perfect example of divine mercy here on earth.
And Padre Pio said to another priest, "It is she, our lady, who brings us a glimpse
of God's immense power."
He also added, "I feel like a sailboat on the high seas pushed by the breath of the
heavenly mother.
So even if I'm lost in this ocean, I do not worry," Padre Pio said.
"I may not know where to start even or where my different works may end up, but I never
feel uncertain because I'm spiritually guided by the Virgin, and she accompanies me," he
said, "in the confessional, allowing me there to help my brothers and sisters.
And she already is covered with a veil of mercy and shows me the countless souls that
await absolution, and this absolution will eliminate evil in their lives and create good."
So we can see our lady really helped Padre Pio in the confessional.
Now, when someone suggested to Padre Pio that his devotion was exaggerated, Padre Pio responded
the following, "For you, heaven is like a graveyard," he said, "full of dead and finished
things.
But for me," Padre Pio said, "it is the contrary.
It is a place of rest in which at a single sign from our lady it awakens and begins to
stir for the conversion and salvation of souls."
And so we can see that our lady, he obviously had a tremendous respect for and devotion
to and trusted that she would lead us safely and quickly to our Lord.
And now we go on to the second point, which is understanding that we are nothing and we
don't even have any goodness of ourselves.
So everything comes from God.
Our goodness comes from God.
Padre Pio said, "no one can love God worthily."
And he wrote this to Raffaelina Cerase.
So she's a spiritual child of Padre Pio.
And here we have to understand that God, in fact, is the essence of goodness.
We are fallen humankind, and for all of us, sin is not very far away.
He also told her, how consoling it is to know that we, without any merit of our own, our
most tender father in heaven has raised us to such dignity of being his children."
And to another spiritual daughter Padre Pio wrote this.
This is how Padre Pio described us.
He says, "Consider what we really are, what we are like."
He said, "We are practically nothing."
In summary, we are weakness.
He said, "We are a source of perversity that does not stop or know any limits or borders,
capable of transforming even good into evil or abandoning good for evil or attributing
goodness to evil, just to find ourselves in evil, all of these crazy things.
For the sake of that same evil, we even despise the supreme good, who is God."
So that's a summary of our human state, our fallen state.
But Padre Pio's advice in lieu of this is gave us the following guidelines.
He said, "Never be satisfied with yourself.
Do not complain of offenses against you.
Forgive everyone with Christian charity and always sigh like a poor rich before God, asking
God to really assist us."
We need his help.
We have to sigh before him.
"Never be surprised by your weakness," he says, "but recognize yourself for what you
are."
"Be ashamed of yourselves," he says, "of your fickleness and unfaithfulness to God.
Put your trust in him, abandoning yourselves in the arms of our heavenly father, as a babe
in its mother's arms.
Do not in any way exalt over any virtues that we may have, but ascribe everything we have
to God and give him all the honor and glory."
According to Padre Pio, all goodness is in God and comes from God.
But there is hope.
Padre Pio says, "No pilgrim soul can worthily love God.
But when the soul does all it can on its part and trusts in divine mercy, why would Jesus
reject it?
Didn't Jesus instruct us to love God according to our strength?
If you have offered and consecrated everything to God, then why fear? he says.
"All our actions," Padre Pio wrote, "are mixed with inclinations to pride and to vanity and
to self-love and similar sins."
But if our motives are God centered and our actions are consecrated to God, then they
are acceptable.
If what we do is done with a desire to please God, then we should not worry.
Padre Pio even went a bit further.
He explained that the scriptures tell us that we cannot even say the name of Jesus by ourselves,
but only with the action of the Holy Spirit.
"God is the one who gives us this ability to please him.
We cannot do this of our own," he says.
"Do everything," he says, "for the love of God, for his glory," and that is how we should
consider the results of our enterprise.
So according to Padre Pio, work is judged not by its outcome, but by the intention,
by the intent behind it.
Then on the third point today, we are looking at this is on the devil.
Padre Pio says, "Beware of the devil and resist him."
Padre Pio told one of his spiritual daughters, "There are, in fact," he said, "so many demons
that if each one were just the size of a grain of sand, they would block out the sun entirely."
And despite this, he insisted that the Christian should not fear.
He said, "Do not be alarmed if our common enemy has mastered all of his strength to
prevent you hearing what I'm writing to you."
This is what you must strive against.
And because of this, because it's difficult, it is for your gain.
Now, what is the correct attitude of a Christian towards the devil?
"Therefore," he said, "despise him and arm yourselves against him with even more perseverance
of faith."
So those two things: despising the devil and having perseverance in our faith.
For it is written, "Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking
for someone to devour."
Resist him, standing firm in the faith, and do not let the hellish beast's many snares
terrify you, because Jesus is with you and fights with you and for you.
He will never let you be deceived or defeated.
Padre Pio also quotes the great Saint Augustine when he described the devil is a formidable
giant to those who fear him, who are scared of him, but he is a cowardly child to those
who despise him.
So that is the right attitude, to resist and to despise the devil, in faith, of course.
So those are three points Padre Pio advises us on the spiritual life.
And do join us next time, where we'll continue looking at the further, there's 10 points
in all, tips that Padre Pio had for our spiritual life.
So do join us next time for that talk.