Today, we'll be looking at the story of the feast of the guardian angels and how it relates
to Padre Pio.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this channel, Following Padre Pio.
And here, we have a series of short stories that investigate the life of our great Saint
Padre Pio.
He was a Capuchin friar and mystic, a tremendous miracle worker.
Do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio and to see what his intercession could
do for you.
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Quick reminder that on Fridays, every Friday, we have a mass set dedicated to Padre Pio.
In this mass, we bring your intentions to Padre Pio.
All you have to do is enroll your intentions, and you can see the video on the end screen,
how to do that.
And in our story today, we're going to be looking at the feast of the guardian angels.
And fortunately, I've now got a colleague.
He's helping me do some research, so we can focus more on Padre Pio in these talks.
The feast of the guardian angels is the liturgical day dedicated to the guardian angels, and
Padre Pio was very devout, urging everyone to turn to angelic intercession.
So let us learn one of the best prayers that we can say to him, our divine companion.
And both, to pray to the guardian angel, and also, this prayer is for the other angels
in heaven.
The most suitable prayer is the prayer of the holy angel or holy guardian angel of our
Lord.
This prayer summarizes the main characteristics and actions of the angels and can come to
our aid.
However, it is always good to have a dialogue or a discussion with your angel, a conversation
to ask for protection or a special grace, perhaps, or even to mention some agony or
difficulty that you're going through.
So we can now delve a little more deeply, more profoundly, into the significant meaning
of the prayer to the angels.
Let us remember always to pray this several times a day.
It begins "holy angel of the Lord, my zealous keeper, entrusted to me with divine piety,
always guide me.
Guide me, rule me and illuminate me.
Amen."
And if you want to just download that prayer from the internet.
Now, "holy angel of the Lord," the first line, 'my zealous keeper."
Angels, of course, are the saints of God, who sends them to guide and to care for every
man born in the world.
Everyone has a guardian angel.
The angel is a zealous, careful, and loving keeper, who keeps us on the path of good and
delivers us from evils that, alone, we will not be able to avoid, nor to defend ourselves
from.
The next line, "entrusted to me with divine piety."
So God sent an angel to take care of us, of each of us, and God trusts him and his faithfulness
as a servant.
So if God trusts the angel, then shouldn't we also?
People are far removed from their guardian angel and don't think of them.
He is an act of God's infinite goodness and mercy, who, in many times, simply ignored.
And yet, there are still those who say, "Why did God allow this to happen?
Or why did God do this to me?
Or why did God abandon me?"
But they continue to ignore their angel.
The third line of the prayer, "always guide or rule me."
Now, to rule is, obviously, to guide our steps, our very steps.
And we ask in this prayer that our guardian angel orients and directs our lives.
So this means that we trust he will show us the way, and that we should go the way that
we should go, and guide us so that we don't get lost, and that we don't lose our soul
or compromise our salvation.
So in fact, this is an act of liberation to choose freely and ask our guardian angel to
direct us.
And we need, therefore, to remember that he will always do the best for our soul, even
if the choices of actions are not the most pleasant to us in our eyes.
But yes, these words do orient us to the salvation of our souls.
The next line in the prayer, "guide me."
Well, guide me, of course, is really to ask to protect me.
And we recognize, in this part of the prayer, that we cannot defend ourselves alone.
And that there are a series of evil elements, such as demons and their assistants, perhaps
human companions even, who will do anything for the damnation of our souls.
We are not able to fight alone and the angels are our true guardians and bodyguards.
Then we come to "guide me."
This is obviously a petition we make to our guardian angel each time that we pray this
prayer.
And when we ask him to govern, we are asking him to take charge of our lives, to show us
the way forward, to administer and guide our actions.
We are freely asking and authorizing our guardian angel to act right in our midst.
And sometimes we may come across situations that make us reflect, "How do I overcome this
problem?"
Or, "Wow, that was close."
That something serious did not happen on that day or without knowing that many times, these
are clear signs of the intercession of our guardian angels, who, with our free consent,
came to govern us.
And then, we come to "enlighten me."
So in this phrase of the prayer, we ask our angels to illuminate and to enlighten us,
to remove all the darkness that impedes us, seeing what is good and what is right.
So in fact, it is really a restoration of the notion of good and evil.
And then, we always finish a prayer with "Amen."
And by amen, we are affirming all the phrases that have been said in the prayer before.
And we confess also our fragility in face of the goodness and magnitude of God's love,
but also he has mercy and sends his angels to take care of each one of us.
God is love and having a guardian angel by our side is one of the most beautiful signs
of this wonderful admirable reality.
So never fail to invoke the help of your guardian angel.
And then, next time, we'll have another video on Padre Pio.
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