And today, as our world faces such uncertainties, who knows what lies over the horizon?
Possible conflagrations, we don't know, but let us, in all of this, consider prayer, and
Padre Pio's words of wisdom on meditation, which will stand us in good stead, no matter
what comes.
Hello, friends of Following Padre Pio.
On this channel, we bring to you a series of short stories on the incredible life of
our great Saint Padre Pio.
He was a Capuchin friar, and he was a mystic, and he was a tremendous miracle worker.
Do stay tuned to find out more about Padre Pio, and also to see what his intercession
can do for you.
A quick reminder, that we do have a Lenten selection of videos right now at the moment.
To see this week's selection, you can go to the video's description below and click on
the link there.
It will take you through to our Lenten series of videos.
Today, as it seems that people are gathering everywhere, contemplating the news, what's
going on, the possible conflicts, potential to escalate, we all wonder, "Where is God's
intervention in this?"
Of course, it's also a good time to remember Our Lady of Fatima's message, because we know
she talked of chastisements, even a third chastisement.
So, especially at this time, our Lady called for the consecration of Russia.
So, we ask everyone to support this with your prayers.
Critically urgent.
Now is a very good time to focus in on prayer, so that we can learn to pray better.
As we know, there's several different sorts of prayers.
There's vocal prayer, the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Veni Creator Spiritus, all sorts
of prayers like this.
Then there's a different sort of prayer, which is more reflective and meditative, and the
rosary of course, the combination of these two.
So we are going to be considering today the meditative, reflective type of prayer.
It's usually a silent or required prayer involving thoughts and reflections in the heart as well.
Padre Pio is advising here today on this meditative type of prayer.
This comes from a letter which he wrote to Maria Gargani.
Before we really go into what Padre Pio said, let's have a brief glance at what another
great Saint, his words on prayer.
That is Saint Alphonsus Liguori, who was one of the doctors of the church, quite an elect
group, I believe there's 33 doctors, and Alphonsus of Liguori was one of this group.
I'm going to be taking this from the booklet, How To Converse Continually And Familiarly
With God.
In chapter four, Saint Alphonsus of Liguori tells us this.
"My delights were to be with the children of men," and that is from scripture.
Then he adds, Alphonsus of Liguori adds, "The heart of man is so to speak that paradise
of God.
Oh, love the God who loves you, since His delights are to be with you, let yours be
found in Him, spend all the days of your life with Him in whose company you hope to pass
eternity."
Then he tells us, "Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with him, familiarly
and with the confidence and love as to the dearest and most loving of friends."
Saint Alphonso also tells us, "It is a great mistake to act in His presence, in God's presence,
like a timid and craven slave trembling with fright."
But, he says, "It is a far greater mistake to think that to converse with Him is wearisome
or bitter."
So it's incredible to think that the heart of man is the paradise of God, where God wishes
to dwell.
Remember that we must speak familiarly with confidence and with love to God as if to the
dearest and the most loving of friends.
He's a doctor of the church giving us that advice.
Now back on meditation.
This is taken from a letter of Padre Pio's to Maria Gargani.
So Padre Pio gives us here a number of steps that we should include in our meditation.
The first step is prepare the theme of your meditation.
Padre Pio says you don't need a book in order to prepare the theme, but any truth of our
religion can be a theme.
Though, in general, he recommends we focus on the life of our Lord Jesus or the passion
and death of our Lord Jesus.
These form the basis of the meditation.
He was basically saying stick to the Gospels as much as possible, but any other truth you
could also include.
So if you wanted to meditate on abortion and the horrors of abortion, how it offends God,
the ugliness of sin, we could also include that in our meditative type of prayers.
But the first thing we do is select a theme, preferably from the Gospels.
After this, we ask God now for the grace to be able to make a good meditation, that this
meditation will be fruitful.
We recommend to the blessed Virgin Mary and to everyone in the heavenly court, asking
them for their help to keep away distractions and temptations during this time of meditation.
So, we invoke all of their help and assistance.
Then he says, "Once this is done, then we start with the meditation."
He doesn't give a lot of detail on this.
He says, "We go over each detail of the theme."
So we're going to try at the end of this talk to give a little bit more detail on this.
Thereafter, Padre Pio said, "Make your resolution."
So once you've done your meditation, it should result in something.
It must give fruit, resolutions.
He says for this, for the resolutions, "Consider your own defects, imperfections and your sins."
That's a whole idea to overcome these things.
He says, "Resolve to work on a virtue, being determined to stop only once we have conquered
that virtue."
So of course the resolutions are in order to overcome and to improve.
Then in step number five, he says, "Finally ask God for the graces and for all of the
help that you need in sticking to these resolutions.
We can't do all of these things by our ourselves.
We do need God's help.
So we plead with God that he will help us.
In the sixth step, recommend to God all the people that we know, both the general people
and particular people, and pray for the restoration of the kingdom of God and for also the spreading,
the propagation of the faith of His Gospel and for the triumph of our mother church.
There of course we want true doctrines to be upheld.
He says, "Pray also for the living and for the dead and those who are without faith and
even the heretics we pray for as well, and the conversion of sinners."
So those who are within the fold, that's probably all of us, who are sinners, pray for everyone.
Above all, offer the meditation and prayers with the offering of your whole being.
So is that Padre Pio's secret, that we offer these prayers with the offering as well of
our whole being?
And all of us through the hands of the blessed Virgin Mary, your guardian angels, St. Joseph,
et cetera.
so we offer all of this to God, through these people.
And finally, quickly examine your meditation.
So was it a good meditation?
Were there little faults?
Can we improve it somehow for next time?
Then we ask forgiveness for where we slipped up in our meditation.
Then Padre Pio tells us that we should make at least two meditations per day.
If we combine them, it should not be less than half an hour.
So there should be a meditation in the morning, he says.
In the morning, we are preparing for the day, for the battle of the day.
In this evening meditation, we try to recognize any attachments or sins that we may have made
during the day, and we repent of those.
So now Padre Pio really hasn't said that much about the meditative part of the meditation.
He just said that we should go over each detail of the theme.
So he advised we choose a theme, we go over each detail of the theme, but how do we actually
do that?
I'm going to try and answer that a little bit by looking at this book here.
It was written by Padre Pio, The Agony of Jesus.
That's obviously in the Garden.
In the forward of the book, the translator, he's put a little preface that can assist
us with this type of prayer.
He says, "First, there's the preparatory prayer as Padre Pio mentioned.
After that, there's a vivid representation of a Gospel scene.
Vivid representation, which should be contemplated considering person's actions, words, possible
emotions in that scene."
So we try to get into the scene as much as possible, almost to live in that scene.
Imagine it as best as possible involving as many senses as you can.
"From this consideration, the soul then proceeds to acts of love and contrition, humility,
petition, resignation to God's will."
So this leads out of the contemplation of the scene.
At the end, we have the application, which we mentioned earlier.
And he tells us as well, "Some people make the big mistake of thinking that these parts
are just separate parts, but in fact they just integrate.
They can go back into each other."
He tells us that, "Contemplating the scene or thinking of a truth is not yet prayer.
In most cases, it is a necessary preparation.
It is the fuel, but it is not yet the fire.
When affections arise, the intellectual work should stop," he tells us.
When the affections seem to die down, then we go back.
The mind turns again to the scene of truth, and more fuel is added for the fire of love.
The consideration has its proper virtue.
There are many little booklets on how to pray and about meditation, but of course we should
include these steps of Padre Pio's.
So in conclusion, who knows what the future may hold?
But perhaps in the future, in the scenario, prayer warriors are going to be as important
or even more important than those who physically defend us.
So whatever happens, ultimately everything is in God's hands and he will sustain us.
He has the ability to sustain us.
Of course in all of this, our meditative prayers are going to be a great asset.
Next time on this channel, we are going to be having a look at how Padre Pio gives 10
days for healing, and no more.
That's the title of next time's talk.
Please do join us for that.
Just a reminder as well that we have this Lenten selection of videos.
Every week, we have a different selection of videos, so do join us and you can go to
the video selection below.
You'll find a link to this week's Lenten selection of videos.
So just click on the link, it will take you through to all of those videos.