Have you ever heard of St. Padre Pio? I did not know of him until a kind friend, Shiela, introduced me to the magazine that tells of his many miracles.
Padre Pio was a Capuchin monk born Francesco Forgione in Pietrelcina, located in southern Italy on May 25, 1887. His notoriety for sanctity and love for the people around him grew like wildfire.
Padre Pio bore the wounds of Christ for decades, but more than the stigmata, he was known as a gifted, but demanding confessor. Penitents from all over the world stood in long lines extending well outside the church doors for an opportunity to go to Confession to Padre Pio. Stories of his knowledge of sins unconfessed cause most people to shake their heads in wonder. Hundreds were often turned away after he’d spent fifteen to nineteen hours in the confessional.
Here’s just one story of his spiritual gift as a confessor. When her turn to confess came, a woman kneeled in the confessional but felt terrorized and couldn’t utter a single word. “Do you want me to talk for you?” She murmured her consent.
“He said word by word all the things I had prepared to say, and then added: ‘I will be your spiritual father.'” Read more stories like this here. He is one saint – if you ask the communion of saints to help you here on earth – whom you may want to consider asking for help.
When you feel depressed or blue
In moments when we feel down or depressed, our mind usually does not seem to be able to access inner resources or remember how to lift ourselves out of the mire. After hearing confessions for so long each day, Padre Pio himself needed reassurance and encouragement from God. Pray his prayer below. It is a way to reach out. And sometimes, that’s all that necessary for the God who loves us gratuitously and forever, can’t help but respond when we do so.
Padre Pio’s Prayer
Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have you present so that I do not forget you. You know how easily I abandon you.
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak, and I need your strength, so that I may not fall so often.
Stay with me, Lord, for you are my life, and without you, I am without fervor.
Stay with me, Lord, for you are my light, and without you, I am in darkness.
Stay with me, Lord, to show me your will.
Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear your voice and follow you.
Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love you very much, and always be in your company.
Stay with me, Lord, if you wish me to be faithful to you.
Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for you, a nest of love. Amen.
~St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Prayer After Communion
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