Favorite Quote of St. Padre Pio

"Trust in Him" - St. Padre Pio Quote

Poor Clares, Monastery of San Damiano

Monastery of Poor Clares, Camerino, Italy

The Way of the Cross in the words of St. Colette of Corbie

 In the words of the Testament of our Mother St. Colette, Poor Clare reformer,

"I beg you to bring about that Jesus is loved."

 

The Way of the Cross

 

Jesus is Condemned to Death

My beloved daughters, the truly obedient person ought to
dread losing out on obedience more than some physical
dying, after the example of our blessed Savior Jesus Christ
of whom St Bernard used to say; "Remember; my
Brothers. that Jesus Christ held it a dearer thing to lose His
life in His bitter Passion than to lose obedience to God His Father."(12)

 

Jesus Carries His Cross

After the renunciation of self in full obedience,
our Savior wills that we carry the Cross every day.
This is our vow of holy poverty,
the demanding cross of desiring nothing under heaven
save Him alone who carried the Cross on His shoulders
and deigned by His love to die on that Cross…  (17)

 

Jesus Fall the First Time

Let happy penance be done before the end of this present life, for this alone,
my dearly loved daughters, can bring about full reconciliation
with the well-beloved Father of those for whom our merciful Redeemer
lived in most high obedience, poverty and virginity,
Himself the only Fountain of all virtues. (35)

 

Jesus Meets His Mother

Praise, praise all the time, praise without end,
and love the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit;
and the most humble Virgin who bore Jesus Christ,
the holy and exalted soul of our Redeemer and
His precious Body which for us was hung upon the Cross!  (52)

 

Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

This most blessed entrance into the fertile field of Gospel perfection
is called complete renouncement of the world, the flesh and of one’s own will.
So the blessed Son of the pure Virgin sets it forth that:
“Whoever wishes to come after Me,
let him completely renounce his very self and carry his  cross.”  (6)

 

Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

Then our Lord said: “And follow Me.”  By this I understand that we ought to follow
Jesus Christ, the Lamb without spot, a Virgin and Son of a virgin. by full purity
of heart and body until death. O worthy and excellent virtue (of chastity)!
It is impossible to understand very well your price and your value and the excellence
of your victory and to write about them.
God alone is your reward in the vision and divine enjoyment of Himself!  (28, 33)

 

Jesus Falls the Second Time

Live and die truly poor, my well-beloved daughters,
as did our sweet Savior upon the Cross for us.
And if, nonetheless, few people esteem poverty,
that is for you the occasion to love it the more.  (26)

Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

    Among all the virtues, I commend holy obedience to you first of all,
for in it is found the fullness of charity when one renders obedience
to a creature in all things for love of the Creator.
Oh, may we be able to die with Jesus on the Cross
in this virtue and to obtain life eternal!  Amen!      (15, 16)

Jesus Falls the Third Time

We ought faithfully to safeguard what we have promised;
and if we commit some fault through human frailty,
let us hasten to get up each time we fall and to cleanse ourselves
and make reparation by holy penance.  And our sweet Father, during this life,
receives us back without delay in His mercy and His sweet reconciliation.     (51)

Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

 O holy poverty!  the clothing of our Redemption!
precious jewel!  sure sign of salvation!
It is to poverty that the King gives full possession of the kingdom of heaven which lasts forever.
O my dearly loved Sisters -- love, love, love very perfectly this noble and precious
and most excellent virtue, loved by God and loathed by the world.  (18, 20)

Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

 Take note, my beloved daughters, that you have been called by grace to perfect obedience,
so as to obey in all things all the time so long as there is no sin….
For it does not suffice to obey sometimes and in certain things only,
but until death and in all things...
and this after the example of our merciful Redeemer who made Himself
obedient for us right up to His death.  (9)

Jesus Dies on the Cross

 With the angels, praise God!
Exalt Him here below in all things for the inestimable alms of the creation of man…
and for the sovereign gift of the sacred Incarnation of our God who is so good that,
after having created all things for us, became Himself true Man and our most loving Brother
so as to repair everything amiss for us by His glorious Passion and death.
O infinite good!  O measureless bounty!  O ingratitude which forgets so great a good!  (46, 47)

Jesus is Taken Down From the Cross

 O most blessed enclosure!  O soul hidden from everything created!
There is her only repose!  O precious and safe cloister! –
To be enclosed in a continual remembrance of the precious wounds of Jesus Christ!  (43, 44)

Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

 Oh! how precious is the sepulcher of Jesus, a sepulcher visited by the devotion of so many!
And, oh!  how precious is your own sepulcher
in which devoted souls enter to attain their salvation.
O most blessed cloister which removed you from vice and occasions of evil,
and which holds you enclosed in security and merit and in noble virtues!
O noble castle, strong and efficacious, of the King of the heavens!  (36, 38)

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O God, Who in this wonderful Sacrament, hast left us a memorial of Thy Passion, grant us, we beseech Thee, so to reverence the sacred Mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, that our souls may be always sensible of the fruit of Thy Redemption. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

      

St. Anthony of Padua Quote

Happy Birthday to St. Padre Pio today, May 25th!

Happy Birthday Saint Padre Pio, we love you. Enjoy your Celebration in  Heaven May 25th!

Padre Pio was born May 25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, Italy, a small country town located in southern Italy. His parents were Grazio Mario Forgione (1860-1946) and Maria Guiseppa de Nunzio Forgione (1859-1929). He was baptized the next day, in the nearby Castle Church, with the name of his brother, Francesco, who died in early infancy. Other children in the family were an older brother, Michele; three younger sisters: Felicita, Pellegrina and Grazia; and two children who died as infants.
Religion was the center of life for both Pietrelcina and the Forgione family. The town had many celebrations throughout the year in honor of different saints and the bell in the Castle Church was used not for ringing the hour, but for daily devotional time. Friends have described the Forgione family as "the God-is-everything-people" because they attended Daily Mass, prayed the Rosary nightly and fasted three days a week from meat in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Although Padre Pio’s grandparents and parents could not read and write, they memorized Sacred Scripture and told the children Bible stories. It was in this lovely family setting that the seeds of Faith were nurtured within Padre Pio.
From his early childhood, it was evident that Padre Pio had a deep piety. When he was five years old, he solemnly consecrated himself to Jesus. He liked to sing hymns, play church and preferred to be by himself where he could read and pray. As an adult, Padre Pio commented that in his younger years he had conversed with Jesus, the Madonna, his guardian angel, and had suffered attacks by the devil.
Padre Pio’s parents first learned of his desire to become a priest in 1897. A young Capuchin friar was canvassing the countryside seeking donations. Padre Pio was drawn to this spiritual man and told his parents, "I want to be a friar… with a beard." His parents traveled to Morcone, a community thirteen miles north of Pietrelcina, to investigate if the friars would be interested in having their son. The Capuchins were interested, but Padre Pio would need more education than his three years of public schooling.

In order to finance the private tutor needed to educate Padre Pio, his father went to America to find work. During this time, he was confirmed (September 27, 1899), studied with tutors and completed the requirements for entrance into the Capuchin order. At age 15, he took the Habit of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin on January 22, 1903. On the day of his investiture, he took the name of Pio in honor of Saint Pius V, the patron saint of Pietrelcina, and was called Fra, for brother, until his priestly ordination.

A year later, on January 22, 1904, Fra Pio knelt before the altar and made his First Profession of the Evangelical Counsels of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Then, he traveled by oxcart to the seventeenth-century friary of St. Francis of Assisi and began six years of study for the priesthood and continued his development in community life toward the profession of his solemn vows. After three years of temporary profession, Padre Pio took his final vows in 1907.
Then on August 10, 1910, the much-anticipated day finally arrived. The twenty-three year old Fra Pio was ordained a priest by Archbishop Paolo Schinosi at the Cathedral of Benevento. Four days later, he celebrated his first Mass at the parish church of Our Lady of the Angels.
Within a month of his ordination, (September 7, 1910), as Padre Pio was praying in the Piana Romana, Jesus and Mary appeared to him and gave him the wounds of Christ, the Stigmata. For Padre Pio’s doctors, the wounds created much confusion. He asked Jesus to take away "the annoyance," adding, " I do want to suffer, even to die of suffering, but all in secret." The wounds went away and the supernatural life of Padre Pio remained a secret...for a while.
On November 28, 1911, Padre Agostino, who was a contemporary, friend, and confidant, was advised that Padre Pio was ill. He rushed into Padre Pio’s room to care for him. Padre Agostino observed what he thought was a dying man and rushed to the chapel to pray. When he finished praying, he returned to Padre Pio’s room and found his friend alert and full of joy.
This was the beginning of Padre Pio’s documented ecstasies – all of which were "edifying, theologically correct and expressed a deep love for God. "
Due to Padre Pio’s on-going ill health, he was sent home to recuperate and was separated from his religious community from the end of 1911 – 1916. During this time, the Capuchin Constitution required a friar who was sent home because of illness had to maintain his friar life as much as possible. Padre Pio did this. He said Mass and taught school.
On September 4, 1916, Padre Pio was ordered to return to his community life and was assigned to San Giovanni Rotondo, an agricultural community, located in the Gargano Mountains. Our Lady Of Grace Capuchin Friary was approximately a mile from town and was not easy to reach. The Capuchins had a reputation for their holiness and simple life. When Padre Pio became a part of the community at Our Lady of Grace, there were seven friars.
With the outbreak of the war, only three friars stayed at Our Lady of Grace; the others were selected for military service. At the beginning, his responsibilities included teaching at the seminary and being the spiritual director of the students. He spent his free time reading the Bible and handling correspondence. When another friar was called into service, Padre Pio became in charge of the college.

Videos by the Franciscan Friars on Our Lady and Her Spouse, the Holy Spirit

Fr. Elias preaches on Our Lady of Consolation and focuses the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio, USA and he miracles that led to this simple parish church to become a national Marian shrine and a basilica.

May is dedicated to Our Lady, and concluding the octave of Pentecost, we ask Mary, the spiritual Mother of all souls, to send Her Spouse, the Holy Spirit, to work for our sanctification.
Ave Maria!