Roving Reporter #89 – Story-time with Friar Anthony in the kitchen ( 08min) >>> Play

Ave Maria!

Recently the ‘Italian’ Roving Reporter had a chance to catch up with Friar Anthony M. Servium at Villa Santa Lucia in Italy.  Friar Anthony recounted a fascinating story regarding Padre Pio and his prophecy that a new shrine would be built between the town of Pietrelcina and the cave where the Archangel St. Michael appeared many centuries ago.  Guess which religious order (apparently) has the privilege of fulfilling this prophecy?  We also hope you enjoy some of the beautiful scenes of the friars’ hike to the town of Monte Sant’Angelo.

[Note: Thanks for the encouraging comments from my last report at Villa Santa Lucia with Friar Anthony & Friar Josemaria.  It's great to hear from everyone, and be assured of my prayers and sacrifices.  (Note to Mr. Dietz: please don't Fed-Ex any burgers...there's already too much food over here!) In the next video, I hope to take you on a brief tour of Bosco ai Frati, a famous Franciscan convent which is now our postulant house in Italy.]

Ave Maria!

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Homily #090923 ( 06min) Play – Saint Pio, still affectionately called Padre Pio, is one of our Patron Saints at the Franciscans of the Immaculate. Fr. Ignatius outlines the life of this great saint, miracle worker and mystic who died in 1968.
Ave Maria! Readings EF – 1st: 1co 4:9-14 – Gsp: luk 12:32-34

Audio (MP3)

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St. Padre Pio: PRAY, HOPE, AND DON’T WORRY!

Padre Pio’s Prayer After Holy Communion

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,

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 alway be in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, as poor as my soul is I want it to be a place of consolation for You,

a nest of Love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close and life passes,

death, judgment and eternity approaches.

It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that,

I need You.

It is getting late and death approaches,

I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows.

O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers, I need You.

Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread,

so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness,

the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death,

I want to remain united to You, if not by Communion, at least by grace and love.

Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for,

Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit,

because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth

and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity.

Amen.

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I have often raised my hand in the silence of the night and in my solitary cell, blessing you all and presenting you to Jesus and to our father, St. Francis of Assisi.

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O Jesus, impart to me also that same strength, when my weak nature foreseeing future evils rebels, so that like Thou, I may accept with serene peace and tranquility all the pains and distress which I may meet on this earth of exile. I unite all to Thy merits, to Thy pains, Thy ex­piations, Thy tears, that I may cooperate with Thee for my salvation and flee from sin, which was the sole cause of making Thee sweat blood and which led Thee to death. Destroy in me everything that does not please Thee, and with the sacred fire of Thy love write Thy sufferings into my heart. Hold me so closely to Thee, with a bond so tight and so sweet, that I shall never again abandon Thee in Thy Sufferings. May I be able to rest on Thy Heart to obtain comfort in the sufferings of life. May my spirit have no other desire but to live at Thy side in the Garden and unite itself to the pains of Thy Heart. May my soul be inebriated with Thy Blood and feed itself with the bread of Thy suffer­ings. Amen.

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The prayer that Padre Pio preferred was the Holy Rosary. He loved it and recited it so that he could be called a “saint of the Rosary.”   If one did not see Padre Pio at the altar or in the confessional, it was likely one would see him holding and praying his Rosary. From the time he was a boy he loved the Rosary. His first visit to a Marian shrine was the visit he paid to the shrine of the Madonna of the Rosary of Pompei.

From the time the Madonna appeared at Fatima as the Madonna of the Rosary and urged the Rosary as a powerful prayer for winning every blessing and banishing every evil, Padre Pio adopted the Rosary as the prayer he said ceaselessly and tirelessly day after day. He said, “If the Holy Virgin has urged the Rosary wherever she has appeared in her (recent) visions, doesn’t it seem that we have a special motive for praying it?”

The more the number of his spiritual children grew and spread out, the more he increased the Rosaries he would recite. It was with the Rosary that he banished sickness and obtained graces. He reached the point of reciting, in the course of a day, an inconceivable number of Rosaries. He spoke of the fact a number of times different people.

These facts bear out principally two things: first, that Padre Pio prayed uninterruptedly, having that mystical gift that some great Saints have had of prayer ­even while asleep or doing other things; second, it s evident that this uninterrupted prayer was something all Marian, as it all consisted of Rosaries. Here is something he said that eloquently preaches excellency of the Rosary: “I wish days had forty-eight hours so that we could double our Rosaries!”

Needless to say that the whole array of gifts and miracles that Padre Pio used for souls came about through the Rosary.  His power to draw sinners and stray souls who came from everywhere was the fruit of his Rosaries. All his projects and enlightened counsels and his victories over sin were linked with the power of the Rosary.   Ceaselessly praying the Rosary, he also upheld the truth that Mary is Mediatrix of all graces of which St. Bernard said, “The Lord gives nothing but what passes through the hands of the Queen of Heaven.”

Needless to say Padre Pio used to urge people with all his zeal to pray the Rosary. He gave away countless Rosaries. Someone asked him one day what the inheritance would be that he would leave his spiritual children. He answered at once, “The Rosary”.  Someone else asked him what prayer to choose for use throughout one’s life. He promptly replied, “ The Rosary.”

Shortly before his death, some of his spiritual children asked him for some words of wisdom. He answered, “Love the Madonna and make her loved by others. Always pray the Rosary”. Day and night Padre Pio used to entrust to the Madonna his spiritual children and his Home for the Relief of Suffering.

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He counted frequent confession important for him­self and for others. He made his own confession at least every week, and often several times a week, without counting those periods when he went to confession every day to whatever priest was at hand. As for others, he wanted weekly confession to serve as a golden rule of the Christian life. Even during the years when great throngs were coming to him, he never wanted his spiritual children to stay away from confes­sion more than ten days.

Once a spiritual daughter carelessly let a month pass without coming to confession. When she came to Padre Pio and told him that she had not gone to con­fession for a month, she received a severe rebuke from him, “Oh, how neglectful! That you would not yet under­stand the value of confession and what you lost by ne­glecting this sacrament!”

For Padre Pio was convinced that confession is a powerful means not only for removing sins, but also for increasing divine grace. He taught that an atom of grace is worth more than the whole created universe.

(excerpts from Padre Pio of Pietrelcina by Fr. Stefano Manelli,  F.I. )

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“A thousand years of glory in palaces of men cannot be worth the sweetness of one  hour spent before the tabernacle.”

–Padre Pio would describe himself as just a ‘friar who prays’.

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St. Pio of Pietrelcina was born Francesco Forgione in 1887. He entered the Franciscan Capuchin Order at age 15 as Brother Pio. He was ordained on August 10, 1910. While praying before a cross, he received the stigmata on September 20, 1918, the first priest ever to be so blessed.  His obedience to superiors was heroic.  He would hear confessions by the hour, reportedly able to read the consciences of those who held back. He became very well known during his lifetime and people would wait for days to have the opportunity to confess to him.  Many miracles were associated with his intercession during his lifetime and among the supernatural gifts he had was the gift of bilocation.  He had a great love for the Mother of God and prayed the rosary continually. He founded the House for the Relief of Suffering in 1956, a hospital that serves 60,000 a year.  He died in 1968 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

“To arrive at our last end we need to follow the Divine Head, Who does not lead the elect souls by any other path than the one He trod; that is to say, [by way] of abnegations and of the cross: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me’. And should you not consider yourself fortunate to see yourself treated thus by Jesus? He is stupid who knows not how to penetrate the secret of the cross.”

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

“Beware of entering into the banquet of the cross, which is a thousand times more delicious than the worldly weddings, without the white, candid and clean garment, which is of a completely different intention than that of giving pleasure to the Divine Lamb.”

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

“Oh! You must consider yourself happy if you always try to dwell on Calvary, to dwell there faithfully and lovingly so as to adore on this mountain, Jesus Crucified, in this life. In such a way you will be sure of adoring with all certainty the glorified Jesus in the next life!”

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

“You ought to habituate yourself to the sufferings that it pleases Jesus to send you, as if you always had to live together with them. By doing thus, when you least think to be freed from them, Jesus, Who cannot suffer for long to keep you in [your] affliction, will take care [of you]; He will come to relieve you and to console you by instilling new courage into your spirit.”

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

“Love for the cross was always a distinctive sign of the elect souls; to be overburdened by the cross was always a special predilection of the heavenly Father for the aforesaid souls. And our Seraphic Father Saint Francis knew very well that without love for the cross, one cannot profit much in the ways of Christian perfection. Therefore, he continually carried engraved in his soul the Passion and Death, let alone the whole mortal life of the Son of God made man.”

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

15- “Let us not lose sight of the blessed group of the elect souls. Let us always hold onto them tightly, and let not the weight of the cross that you must carry, nor the long journey you must travel nor the rugged mountain you must climb, frighten you.”

16- “Let the consoling thought always cheer us that after the ascent to Calvary, you will rise still higher; you will ascend to the holy mountain of God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. By Divine Goodness, we are already halfway up the ascent of the mountain of suffering because we find ourselves with the firm resolution to serve and love well this Divine Goodness.”

Ave Maria!– September’s Theme: The Cross

“Happy are we who, against our every merit, are already (thanks to the Divine Mercy) on the steps to Calvary; we are already made worthy to follow the heavenly Master; we have already been numbered among the blessed group of the elect souls. And it is all because of a very special way the Divine piety of the heavenly Father deals with us.”