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PRICELESS GEMS OF WISDOM FROM PADRE
PIO
Taken from his Writings and
Lectures
(produced by Vincent Falco)
 The Capuchin Friars of San Giovanni Rotondo have compiled these
priceless gems of wisdom, gathered from Padre Pio’s writings and lectures. They can be read carefully, meditated on and
applied to daily living. Undoubtedly they
can do but one thing - purify one’s soul - in preparation for the Heavenly reward.
LOVE OF GOD
You must speak to Jesus also with the heart,
besides with the lips; indeed, in certain cases you must speak to Him only with the heart.
My daughter, may Jesus be always be The only
center of our aspirations, sustain us with His grace, enlighten our mind and warm our
Hearts always with new love for Him. Behold,
this is the synthesis of all my desire which I place assiduously before Jesus for you and
for me. May Jesus in His infinite goodness
listen to them and grant them.
Do not worry over things that generate
preoccupation, and anxiety. One thing only is
necessary: to lift up your spirit and love God.
A pure soul is synonymous with a heart full of
love of God.
The heart of our Divine Master has no more
amiable law than that of sweetness, humility, charity.
Often place your confidence in Divine Providence and be assured that sooner heaven
and earth shall pass away than that the Lord neglect to protect you.
Thank and sweetly
kiss the hand of God that strikes you, because it is always the hand of a Father
who strikes you because He loves you.
My past, O Lord, to your mercy; my present, to
your love; my future, to your providence!
You must always have prudence and love. Prudence has the eyes; love has the legs. Love which has the legs would like to run to God,
but its impulse to rush towards Him is blind and at times might stumble, if it were not
guided by prudence which has the eyes. When
prudence sees that love could become unbridled it loans its eyes to love. In this way love restrains itself and, guided by
prudence, acts as it should and not as it would like.
God loves man with an infinite love and when He
punishes He does so with reverence, almost fearing to hurt.
Always live under the eyes of the good Shepherd
and you will walk unharmed through evil pastures.
God can reject everything in a creature
conceived in sin and which bears the indelible impression inherited from Adam. But He absolutely cannot reject the sincere desire
to love Him.
Are we sufficient of ourselves to form one holy
desire without grace? Certainly not! Faith teaches us this. If in a soul there is nothing else but the longing
to love its God, everything else is there already, because God is not present where there
is no desire of His love. Say to God: do you want greater love from me? I have no more.
Give me more, therefore, and I will offer it to you. Don’t doubt: God will accept this offer.
Have you not for some time loved the Lord? Do you not love Him now? Do you not long to love Him forever? Therefore: Do
not fear! Even conceded that you had
committed all the sins of this world, Jesus repeats to you:
many sins are forgiven you because you have loved much!
You are trying to find The highest good: but, in
all truth, it is within you and holds you stretched out on the naked cross, instilling
strength to sustain the insupportable martyrdom, and also to love bitterly. Say to Our Sweetest Lord, and say it always:
“I want to live by dying, because from death comes life which does not die and
assists life to raise the dead.”
Let us follow the advice of David: “Raise
your hands in the holy places during the night and bless the Lord.” Yes, children, let us bless Him always and let
us pray that He will always be our guide, ship, and our port.
If Jesus reveals Himself, thank Him; if He hides
Himself thank Him also. All is a pleasantry
of His love. May the merciful and
compassionate Virgin continue to obtain for you from the ineffable goodness of the Lord
the strength to endure to the end so many proofs of charity which He bestows on you. My wish for you is that you will come to expire
on the Cross with Jesus and be able sweetly to exclaim in Him: “Consummatum
est!”
Often kiss Jesus with affection and you will
recompense Him for the sacrilegious kiss of the unfaithful Apostle, Judas.
CHARITY
The pivot of perfection is charity; He who lives
in charity lives in God, because God is charity, as the Apostle says.
Charity which has not truth and justice for its
foundation is faulty. He who offends against
charity, offends the pupil of the eye of God.
To fail in charity is like wounding God in the
pupil of His eye. What is more delicate than
the pupil of the eye? To fail in charity is
like failing against nature.
Try always to advance more in charity: enlarge
your Heart with confidence for the divine gifts which the Holy Spirit is anxious to pour
into it.
Always do a little work. The wise man praises the valiant woman. Her fingers, he says, worked the spindle. Your distaff is the sum of your desires. Spin a little therefore every day; make your
design thread by thread till they are all used up and you shall infallibly see their
completion. But see that you do not hurry,
because you might twist the thread with knots and you would entangle your spindle. Work, therefore, and though you keep on advancing
slowly, you will nevertheless go a long way.
Charity is the queen of virtues. As the pearls are held together by the thread,
thus the virtues by
charity; and as the pearls fall when the thread
breaks, thus the virtues are lost if charity diminishes.
Humility and charity are the master chords, all
others depend on them. The one is the lowest,
the other the highest. The preservation of
the entire edifice depends on the foundation and the roof.
If the Heart keeps itself directed in the exercise of these, no difficulty will be
encountered in the others. These are the
mothers of virtue, the others follow them as the chicks do their mother.
RESIGNATION TO GOD’S WILL
Walk in the way of the L ord with simplicity and do not torment
your spirit. You must hate your defects, but
with a quiet hate, not troublesome and restless.
Lean on the Cross of Jesus as the Virgin did and
you will not be deprived of comfort. Mary was
as if paralyzed before her crucified Son, but one cannot say that she was abandoned by
Him. Rather how much or did she love Him when
she suffered and could not even weep? Be
comforted with this divine thought that your spiritual and physical pains are the test of
the Divine Will. All lovers of Jesus must
conform, themselves always more to this divine and eternal Model. Jesus went to the limits of abandonment of the
spirit. Jesus wanted to experience in His
humanity this incomprehensible pain of seeing Himself abandoned by His Heavenly Father.
You should rather humble yourself before God
than be distressed if He reserves for you the sufferings of His Son, and makes you
experience your weakness. You should offer up
to Him the prayer of resignation and hope, even when you fail through frailty, and thank
Him for all the benefits with which He continually enriches you.
You are suffering, it is true, but with
resignation. Fear not because God is with
you. You do not offend Him but love Him. You
suffer, but believe also that Jesus Himself suffers in you and for you. Crosses are the necklaces of the Spouse and I am
jealous of them. My sufferings are pleasant. I only suffer when I don’t suffer.
The ardent desire to be in eternal peace is good
and holy. But it is necessary to moderate it
by a complete resignation to the Divine Will. It
is better to do the Divine Will one earth than to enjoy Heaven. To suffer and not to die was the motto of St.
Therese. Purgatory is sweet when one suffers
for the love of God.
Why should you worry whether God wants you to
reach the heavenly home by way of the desert or by the fields, when by the one as well as
by the other one arrives all the same at a Blessed Eternity? Keep far from you all excessive preoccupation
which arises from the trials which the good God wishes to visit upon you. And if this is not possible put away the thoughts,
and in all live resigned to the Divine Will.
You should feel at home with the sufferings
which it pleases Jesus to send you, since you always have to live with them. Acting thus you think less of being freed form
them. Jesus who cannot suffer long to keep
you in affliction will come to relieve and comfort you by infusing fresh courage into your
soul.
Strong and generous Hearts are not grieved
except for serious reasons; and then do not allow such motives to penetrate into their
inmost heart. Let us ascend Calvary, burdened
with the Cross but without tiring. And let us
be convinced that our ascent will lead us to the Heavenly vision of our sweetest Saviour.
The longer the trial to which God subjects you,
the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of trial and in the exaltation
after the combat.
When you are exposed to any trial, be it
physical or moral, bodily or spiritual, the best remedy is to think of Jesus who is our
life and not to think of the trial without joining it to the thought of Jesus.
Don’t draw back, and worse still,
don’t stop going up the Calvary of life. Jesus
will extend His hand to steady you. The
thought of the sustaining grace of God and the prize that Jesus has reserved for you will
be a sweet comfort.
PRAYER AND MEDITATION
Why do you distress yourself because you cannot
meditate, as you suppose? Meditation is a
means to rise to God, but not an end. The
final purpose of meditation is the love of God and one’s neighbour. Love the first with all your soul and without
reservation; love the second as another self, and you will have arrived at the final
purpose of meditation. I beg of you
therefore, not to spoil the work of God in yourself when the soul feels itself called to
contemplate God. Be it in Himself or in his
attributes, let yourself be conquered and don’t desire to have the presumption to
rise up to Him by the discursive way, which would be the first part of meditation. Apply yourself to move towards God, which would be
the second part of meditation and, I would almost say, the all. Use the first part of the meditation when you must
come to the second part. But when the good
God already places you in the second part, don’t wish to turn back, which would be
the same as spoiling everything.
One thing is necessary: to be near Jesus. You know well that at the birth of our Lord the
shepherds heard the angelic and divine chants of the heavenly spirits. The Scriptures say so. But they do not say that his Virgin Mother and St
Joseph, who were nearer to the Child, heard the voices of the angels or saw those miracles
of splendour. On the contrary, they heard the
Child weeping and saw by the light of a poor lantern the eyes of the Divine Child all
bathed in tears, in sighs and shivering with cold. Now
I ask you: Would you not have preferred to have been in the dark stable, filled with the
cries of the little Child, rather than to have been with the shepherds, beside yourself
with joy over those sweet melodies from heaven and the beauties of this wonderful
splendour?
Ahead! Courage! In the spiritual life he who does not advance goes
backward. It happens as with a boat which
always must go ahead. If it stands still the
wind will blow it back.
When you do not succeed in meditating well do
not for this reason cease to do your duty.
If there are many distractions do not lose heart.
Make a mediation of patience; you will profit all the same.
Fix the time, the length of your meditation, and
do not rise from your place until you have finished it even at the cost of being
crucified.
While assisting at Holy Mass renew your faith. Have your mind elevated to the mystery that is
happening before your eyes.
Go with your mind to Calvary and think and
meditate on the victim who offers Himself to divine justice, absorbing the price of your
redemption.
If you want to assist at Mass with devotion and
with fruit, think of the sorrowful Mother at the feet of Calvary.
Prayer is the best weapon we possess, the key
that opens the heart of God.
He who does not meditate acts as one who never
looks into a mirror and so does not bother to put himself in order, since he can be dirty
without knowing it. The person who meditates
and turns his thoughts to God who is the mirror of his soul, seeks to know his defects and
tries to correct them, moderates himself in his impulses and puts his conscience in order.
The holy gift of prayer is placed in the right
hand of the Saviour. And in the measure in
which you will be empty of yourself – that is the love of the body and your self-will
– and will keep on rooting yourself in holy humility, the Lord will keep on
communicating himself to your heart.
Have patience in persevering in the holy
exercise of meditation and be contented to begin with small steps till you have legs to
run, and better, wings to fly. Be contented
to be obedient, which is never a small thing for a soul which has chosen God for its
portion, and be resigned to be, for the present, a little bee in the nest which will soon
become a large bee capable of making honey.
When you have distractions don’t distract
yourself still more by stopping to consider the why and the wherefore. Just as a traveler who misses his way, returns to
the right road as soon as he is aware of it, you should continue to meditate without
stopping in the distractions which you had.
The most beautiful credo is that which comes
from your lips in darkness, in sacrifice, in pain, in the supreme effort of an unbending
will for good. It is this which, like a
stroke of lightning, penetrates the darkness of the soul; it is this which in the flash of
the tempest lifts you and leads you to God.
The prayers of the Saints in heaven and of the
just on earth are a perfume which never will be lost.
Pray, hope and don’t worry. Anxiety doesn’t help at all. Our Merciful Lord will listen to your prayer.
I always pray for the sick. The best consolation comes from prayer. Every day I say a holy Rosary for them.
Let us bind ourselves tightly to the Sorrowful
Heart of our heavenly Mother and reflect on its boundless grief and how precious is our
soul. When there is no time for both,
meditation is to be preferred to vocal prayer, because it is more fruitful.
In the spiritual way the more one runs the less
one feels fatigue; rather peace, prelude of eternal joy will take possession of us. We will be happy and strong in the measure in
which, living in this endeavour, we will make Jesus live in us, mortifying ourselves.
Let others follow the way traced out for them by
Divine Providence. You look to yourself and
follow me (Padre Pio) by the more beautiful way.
AGAINST TEMPTATION
 Do not fear. Jesus is more powerful than all Hell. At the invocation of his Name every knee in
Heaven, on earth and in hell must bend before Jesus; this is the consolation of the good
and terror of the evil ones.
Stop entertaining those vain fears. Remember it is not feeling which constitutes
guilt but the consent to such feelings. Only
the free will is capable of good or evil. But
when the will sighs under the trial of the tempter and does not will what is present to
it, there is not only no fault but there is virtue.
Despise your temptations and do not dwell on
them. Imagine you have Jesus Christ crucified
in your arms and on your breast and, kissing his side, say: “Behold my hope, behold
the living source of my happiness. I will
hold You close, O my Jesus, and I will not leave You until You have put me in a place of
safety.”
Walk amid wind and waves, but with Jesus. If fear strongly grips you, exclaim with St Peter:
”O Lord, save me!” He will extend
his hand to you. Seize it firmly and walk
cheerfully. Let the world turn topsy turvy,
everything be in darkness and Mount Sinai all aflame, covered with lightning, thunder: God
is with you. But if God lives in the darkness
and Mount Sinai all aflame, covered with lightning, thunder, and noise, will we not be
safe near Him? The best means of guarding
yourself against temptation are the following: watch your senses to save them from
dangerous temptation, avoid vanity, do not let your heart become exalted, convince
yourself of the evil of complacency, flee away from hate, pray whenever possible.
At a certain stage or whenever reflection takes
precedence over imagination, it is better to reject the persuasion of your foolishness and
baseness.
There can be no guilt except in that which the
soul wills, or, not having willed it, approves it and does not make an effort to remove
it.
If the soul would know the merit which one
acquires in temptations suffered in patience and conquered, it would be tempted to say:
”Lord, send me temptations.”
It is not a sin merely to have impure thoughts. Dispelling them is an exercise of virtue.
The devil is like a rabid dog tied to a chain;
beyond the length of the chain he cannot seize anyone.
And you: keep at a distance. If you
approach too near, you let yourself be caught. Remember
that the devil has only one door by which to enter the soul: the will. There are no secret or hidden doors.
Temptations, discouragement and unrest are the
wares offered by the enemy. Remember this: if
the devil makes noise it is a sign that he is still outside and not yet within. That which must terrify us is his peace and
concord with the human soul.
Your temptations are from the devil and from
hell; but your sufferings and afflictions are from God and Heaven. The mothers are from Babylon but the daughters are
from Jerusalem. Despise temptations and
embrace tribulations. No, my child, let the wind blow and do not think that the noise of
the leaves is the clash of arms.
The field of battle between God and Satan is the
human soul. It is in the soul that the battle
rages every moment of life. The soul must
give free access to the Lord so that it be fortified by Him in every respect and with all
kinds of weapons; that his light may enlighten it to combat the darkness of error; that it
be clothed with Jesus Christ, with his justice, truth, the shield of faith, the word of
God, in order to conquer such powerful enemies. To
be clothed with Jesus Christ it is necessary to die to oneself.
Blasphemy calls down malediction on your home;
and, as the proverb says, it destroys even the ashes in the fireplace.
It is necessary to be strong, in order to become
great: that is our duty. Life is a struggle, which we cannot avoid. We must triumph!
That which comes from Satan begins with calmness
and ends in storm, indifference and apathy.
VARIOUS THOUGHTS
Always be faithful to God in keeping the
promises made to Him and do not bother about the ridicule of the foolish. Know that the saints were always sneered at by the
world and worldlings; and they have trampled them under foot and triumphed over the world
and its maxims.
Continue to pray that God may console you when
you feel that the weight of the Cross is becoming too burdensome. Acting thus you are not doing anything against the
will of God, but are with the Son of God who, in the garden, asked his Father for some
relief. But, if it does not please Him to do
this, be ready to say with Jesus, ”Fiat!”
Be firm in your resolutions; stay in the ship in
which I placed you and let the storm come. Long
live Jesus! You will not perish.
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.
Walk the way of the Lord in simplicity; do not
torment your spirit. Say the truth, always
the truth.
Do not be so given to the activity of Martha as
to forget the silence of Mary. May the Virgin
who so well reconciled the one with the other be your sweet model and inspiration.
That which proceeds from God begins with a
salutary fear and finishes with peace of mind.
Jesus and your soul must cultivate the vineyard
together. It is for you to pick up and carry
away the stone, to pull out the thorn bushes. It
is the task of Jesus to sow, plant, cultivate, to water.
The Lord, in His living kindness, adds to trials
a trembling of the spirit and fear, with some taste of desolation and spiritual darkness. But the darkness which surrounds the soul is
light. You say well that you see nothing and
find yourself in a burning thorn bush.
The thorn bush burns, the entire air is filled
with smoke and the spirit sees nothing. But
God nevertheless speaks and is present to the soul that listens, understand, loves,
trembles.
Do not cease in seeking the truth or in
acquiring the greatest good. Be docile to the
impulse of grace, following its inspirations. Do
not be ashamed of Christ or His doctrine.
The mercy of God, my son, is infinitely greater
than your malice.
On this earth everyone has his cross. But we must act in such a way that we be not the
bad, but the good thief.
Some persons when they are with the good, are
good; when they are with the bad they follow evil. This
is to have half a conscience; it is to act like children who, in the presence of
strangers, abuse the occasion to eat things that please their taste, certain the parents
will not reprove them.
The time best spent is that which is spent for
the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Have courage!
Do not wait for Tabor to see the Lord; you see Him already on Sinai.
If we wish to reap it is necessary not so much
to sow abundantly as to spread the seed in fertile soil, and when this seed becomes a
plant, our chief anxiety should be to watch that the weeds do not suffocate the tender
plants.
At times our Lord makes you feel the burden of
the Cross. This burden seems intolerable to
you. But as for you, carry it because the
Lord extends His hand and gives you strength.
Aridity is the fruit of our defects.
Do not let your heart become troubled by the sad
spectacle of human injustice, even this has its value in the face of all else. And it is from this that one day you will see the
justice of God rising with unfailing triumph.
It is necessary to guard all your senses,
particularly your eyes: they are the means by which all the fascination and charm of
beauty and voluptuousness enter the heart. When fashion, as in our time, is towards
provocation and exposes what formerly was even wrong to think about, caution and self
restraint must be exercised. Whenever
necessary you must look without seeing and see without thinking about it.
Vanity makes the heart lighter and thus more
easily led into temptation.
Glorification of the heart is in contact with
that of the senses and one regulates the other.
In reading the present booklet (a missal) have
your mind’s eye on He who immolates Himself and gives His life for the Redemption of
humanity.
Divine goodness not only does not reject the
repentant soul, but always seeks to find even the obstinate.
Endeavour to unite to the simplicity of children
the prudence of adults.
But also in your work there is the operation of
Jesus. Without Him you can do nothing.
A lie is a sin.
But everything that corresponds to the truth is not sin. Let us keep well engraved in our mind what the
Divine Master tell us: “In our patience
we shall possess our souls.”
The Cross is the standard of the elect. Let us always keep close to it and we will succeed
in conquering in everything and over everyone.
Never let our Seraphic Father St Francis depart
from your mind, who so beautifully knew how to reproduce in himself the God-man.
To doubt is the greatest insult to the Divinity.
We must know how to confide. There is the fear of God and the fear of a
Judas. Too much fear makes one labour without
love, and to much confidence prevents from considering the danger which we must overcome. The one must go hand in hand with the other and
proceed as sisters.
In order to console a soul in its sufferings
point out to it all the good it can still do.
The gates of heaven are open for all creatures. Remember Mary Magdalene.
An unclean soul is synonymous with a heart full
of frivolity.
Humility and purity of conduct are the wings
which raise us up to God and in a manner defy us. Remember
this: the sinner who is ashamed to do evil is closer to God than the upright man who is
ashamed to do good.
Humility and charity go hand in hand. The one glorifies, the other sanctifies.
The sublime degree of humility is not only to
recognize one’s own abjection but to love it. “I
have chosen” says the prophet “to be abject in the house of God rather than to
dwell in houses of sinners”.
Obedience is mission: “I have come into
this world to do the will of my Father, who has sent me”.
Obey promptly!
Do not consider the age or merit of the person.
And in order to succeed imagine you are obeying the Lord.
Duty before everything else, even something
holy.
Where there is no obedience, there is no virtue;
where there is no virtue there is no good; where good is wanting, there is no love; where
there is no love, there is no God; where God is not, there is no Heaven.
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