Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was, and still is, one of the most famous priest known for bearing the stigmataβthe Holy Wounds of Christβfor 50 long years! He cleansed, healed, prophesied, and guided many believers to follow the will of God. This Quotabulary article pays him a tribute by recalling some of his precious words. We present you 80 famous quotes by Padre Pio that will change the way you look at life.
Did You Know?
Among the many other divinely gifts, Padre Pio also had the gift of mysticism. In 1947, he took the confession of a young Polish priest named Karol JΓ³zef WojtyΕa and told him that one day he would ascend to “the highest post in the Church though further confirmation is needed.” That priest later became known to the world as Pope John Paul II.
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, fondly known by all as ‘Padre Pio’ is perhaps the most famous saint known for bearing the stigmata, the Holy Wounds of Christ, for 50 years of his life! He is remembered by many (mostly Catholic) believers for many reasonsβhis infallible devotion, his constant praying of the rosary, the miracles he performed, and most importantly, the prediction he made in reference to Pope John Paul II (although some sources deny it). Interestingly, it was none other than this very pope who canonized him in 2002, more than 43 years after his death.
Padre Pio always emphasized on leading a holy life. He also said that his real mission will start post his death. And yes, many Catholic believers offer their prayers to him night and day, and seek his healing touch. His precious words are among the many things that Padre Pio has left us, words, that are invaluable to those who seek his blessings and the right way of living a spiritual and religious life. The following section consists of some divinely inspiring and eye-opening quotes, that have the capability of dusting away the layer of sin from our hearts and souls.
80 Amazing Quotes and Sayings By Padre Pio
Remembered by some as harsh, some as kind, some as compassionate, and some as staunch, Padre Pio was a strong-minded priest who didn’t tolerate sin at all, be it even in thoughts, words, or one’s attire. He took confessions day and night, and immediately caught hold of those that didn’t confess all their sins. Even if it was something as small as going to a disco, or gossiping, or wearing short-length clothes!
He had all the right and knowledge to say or do the things that he did. This was because he had the purity and the understanding to see where one was heading. He was divine in every way, and admitted that it was none other than the Blessed Mother, Lord Jesus Christ, and his two guardian angelsβ St. Joseph and St. Francisβwho kept him in all his ways, and helped him guide and heal those who asked for his help. The following words reflect the spirit of selflessness and purity with which Padre Pio helped (and still helps) his children.
β Always humble yourself lovingly before God and man, because God speaks to those who are truly humble of heart, and enriches them with His gifts.
β Whoever does not meditate, is like someone who never looks in the mirror before going out, doesn’t bother to see if he’s tidy, and may go out dirty without knowing it. The person who meditates and turns his mind to God, who is the mirror of his soul, seeks to know his faults, tries to correct them, moderates his impulses, and puts his conscience in order.
β You complain because the same trials are constantly returning. But look here, what have you to fear? Are you afraid of the divine craftsman who wants to perfect His masterpiece in this way? Would you like to come from the hands of such a magnificent Artist as a mere sketch and no more?
β Oh, how precious time is! Blessed are those who know how to make good use of it. Oh, if only all could understand how precious time is, undoubtedly everyone would do his best to spend it in a praiseworthy manner!
β In order to attract us, the Lord grants us many graces that we believe can easily obtain Heaven for us. We do not know, however, that in order to grow, we need hard bread: the cross, humiliation, trials and denials.
β Joy, with peace, is the sister of charity. Serve the Lord with laughter.
β In all the free time you have, once you have finished your duties of state, you should kneel down and pray the Rosary. Pray the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament or before a crucifix.
β Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart.
β 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.
β Have patience and persevere in the holy exercise of meditation; be content to begin with small steps till you have legs to run, better still wings to fly. Be content 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 hive which will soon become a large bee capable of making honey.
β Have courage and do not fear the assaults of the Devil. Remember this forever; it is a healthy sign if the devil shouts and roars around your conscience, since this shows that he is not inside your will.
β Prayer is the oxygen of the soul.
β The longer the trial to which God subjects you, the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of the trial and in the exaltation after the combat.
β 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 do things that please their taste, certain that the parents will not reprove them.
β 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. That which comes from Satan begins with calmness and ends in storm, indifference and apathy.
β God enriches the soul which empties itself of everything.
β 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 a consolation for the good and terror for evil.
β I want to be only a poor friar who prays – if God sees blemishes even in the angels, can you imagine what He sees in me!
β Remember that it is not feeling of guilt that constitutes sin but the consent to sin. 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 presented to it, there is not only no fault but there is virtue.
β When you gossip about a person it means that you have removed the person from your heart. But be aware, when you remove a man from your heart, Jesus also goes away from your heart with that man.
β Where there is no obedience there is no virtue, where there is no virtue there is no good, where there is no good there is no love, where there is no love, there is no God, and where there is no God there is no Paradise.
β The spirit of God is a spirit of peace, and also in the case of grave sin, it makes us feel tranquil sorrow, humble, confident, and this is due precisely to His mercy. The spirit of the demon, on the contrary, excites, exasperates, and makes us in our sorrow feel something like anger against ourselves, whereas our first charity must be to ourselves, and so if certain thoughts agitate you, this agitation never comes from God, who gives tranquility, being the Spirit of Peace. Such agitation comes from the devil.
β Don’t ever be pleased with yourself because of some goodness that you might discover in yourself, because it all comes to you from God, and to Him must you give the honor and glory.
β Invoke your Guardian Angel who will enlighten you. God gave you your Guardian Angel for this reason. So make use of your Angel’s service.
β Walk the way of the Lord in simplicity; do not torment your spirit. Speak the truth, always the truth.
β You should feel at home with sufferings that it pleases Jesus to send you, since you always have to live with them. Acting thus you think less of being freed from 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.
β Don’t allow the sad sight of human injustice to sadden your soul; someday you will see the unfailing justice of God triumph over it!
β When you are exposed to any trial, be it physical or moral, bodily or spiritual, the best remedy is the thought of him who is our life, and not think of the one without joining to it the thought of the other.
β In the spiritual life, the more you run the less you get tired; moreover, peace, the preclude to eternal joy, will come upon us, and we shall be happy and strong according to the extent that we live in this study of making Jesus live in us, and of mortifying ourselves.
β Every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know…It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!
β Those strong and generous in heart do not complain except for a strong reason, and even then it does not affect them intimately.
β If the world could see the beauty of a soul without sin, all sinners, all non-believers would instantly convert (their lives).
β Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.
β Go to the Madonna. Love her! Always say the Rosary. Say it well. Say it as often as you can! Be souls of prayer. Never tire of praying, it is what is essential. Prayer shakes the Heart of God, it obtains necessary graces!
β The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times.
β If you have the courage to imitate Mary Magdalene in her sins, have the courage to imitate her penance!
β Keep close to the Catholic Church at all times, for the Church alone can give you true peace, since she alone possesses Jesus, the true Prince of Peace, in the Blessed Sacrament.
β Do you not see the Madonna always beside the tabernacle?
β Humility and charity are the master chords that all other virtues depend upon. 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.
β 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 more did she not love him when she suffered and could not even weep?
β Even if you were to commit all the sins in the world, Jesus would repeat to you: “Many of your sins are forgiven because you have loved much.”
β The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain.
β My past, O Lord, to Your mercy; my present, to Your love; my future to Your providence.
β Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.
β Who can assure us that we will be alive tomorrow? Let us listen to the voice of our conscience, to the voice of the royal prophet: “Today, if you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.” Let us not put off from one moment to another (what we should do) because the (next moment) is not yet ours.
β By all means seek solitude, but don’t fail to be charitable towards your neighbor.
β Time spent in honor of God and for the salvation of souls is never badly spent.
β The Devil is like a mad dog tied by a chain. Beyond the length of the chain he cannot catch hold of anyone. And you, therefore, keep your distance. If you get too close you will be caught. Remember, the Devil has only one door with which to enter into our soul: our will. There are no secret or hidden doors. No sin is a true sin if we have not willfully consented.
β Do not worry over things that generate preoccupation, derangement and anxiety. One thing only is necessary: to lift up your spirit and love God.
β 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.
β Faith guides even us and we follow its sure light on the way which conducts us to God and His homeland.
β God will not allow you to be lost if you persist in your determination not to lose Him.
β Remember: the sinner who is sorry for his sins is closer to God than the just man who boasts of his good works.
β Without Jesus you can do nothing. In the end, the gamble of our life is all in this Child. I live for Jesus Christ, I live for his glory, I live to serve him, I live to love him.
In Jesus everything has an answer. Without him – only a big void.
β Suffering, no matter how difficult it may be, when compared to the good that is accomplished, makes every pain a joy for the soul.
β I understand that temptations seem to tarnish, rather than to purify the spirit; but let us hear what the saints have to say, and for that purpose it suffices to choose Saint Francis de Sales from among so many: ‘Temptations are like soap, which, when spread over the clothes, seems to stain them, but in reality, purifies them.
β Have great confidence in God’s goodness and mercy, and He will never abandon you; but don’t neglect to embrace His holy cross because of this.
β Doubting is the biggest insult to Divinity.
β Pray that God will console you when you feel the burden of the Cross, for in doing so you are in no way acting against the will of God, but you are placing yourself beside the Son of God who asked His Father during the Agony in the Garden to send Him some relief. But if He is not willing to give it be ready to pronounce the same ‘Fiat,’ ‘So be it,’ that Jesus did.
β 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 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.”
β 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.
β Bear in mind that the more the enemy assaults you, the closer God is to your soul. Think about, and penetrate this great and comforting truth.
β Keep the conviction that there is a lot of malice in you. Humble yourself, but don’t become distressed.
β Don’t be daunted by the cross. The surest test of love consists in suffering for the loved one, and if God suffered so much for love, the pain we suffer for Him becomes as lovable as love itself.
βI wish my voice could reach all sinners: Come to Christ where all is love.
β Continue to be patient; it will all be for your good.
β I suffer so much because I cannot lead all of my brothers to God!
β Through the study of books one seeks God; by meditation one finds him.
β Once I take on a soul, I also take on the entire family as my spiritual children.
β I will ask the Lord to let me remain at the Threshold of Paradise and I will not enter until the last of my spiritual children has entered.
β If I knew that someone were suffering, whether in body or soul, I would ask God to free that person from whatever their problem is. And I would willingly accept that person’s sufferings on myself if that would save the person and allow the person to share in the fruits of that suffering.
β After my death I will do more. My real mission will begin after my death.
Padre Pio was one of the very few people who ‘lived and suffered’ the way our Lord Jesus Christ did in his lifetime. The blessing of stigmata that was bestowed upon him came with a price. He was constantly under the observation of doctors, not only because of bearing the Holy Wounds, but also because of his frail health. His miracles, visions, and other divinely gifts were always looked upon with doubt and skepticism, making him face many harsh consequences. However, irrespective of all the obstacles and temptations that the evil one put his way, he overcame all the trials and became an epitome of sainthood. Our Padre Pio continues to remain with us all the way through, not only through his words, but through his constant love and care that bestows on us from heaven above. Amen.