Padre Pio and You, the highly anticipated book by Mary O'Regan, is now available for pre-order from the publisher, Sophia Press, at this link:
Here is my review of her book:
Mary
O’Regan’s new book is quite aptly titled Padre
Pio and You,
because she takes the reader on a personal journey that relives both
the external events and the inner life of this great saint. True, it
is a complete biography of St. Pio, but it is much more than that.
Chapter after chapter, the author underscores the relationship
between Padre Pio’s life experiences and their practical
application to the spiritual journey of the reader.
In the theater,
an imaginary “fourth wall” is spoken of, that separates the
actors on the stage from the people in the audience – there is no
interaction between the two groups. But in O’Regan’s book Padre
Pio reaches out to the reader, crossing that invisible line. For
example after relating a typical incident from the Saint’s life,
she writes: “There is a beautiful instruction here for you and me.”
And she will indicate just what that instruction might be. Another
example: “His prayers for Amalia [who was childless] meant she
bore a son. There may be an Amalia in our lives who longs for a
little one. If so, ask Pio’s intercession.”
I
was particularly impressed by her chapter on Padre Pio’s deep
devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It
begins with the 1959 visit of the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of
Fatima to Italy, which culminated in the miraculous cure of a
seriously ill Padre Pio, as the statue circled his friary in a
helicopter over San Giovanni Rotondo. She illustrates St. Pio’s
famous attachment to praying the Rosary with such pithy anecdotes as:
“A friar who lived with Pio recounted how he had to help Padre Pio
wash his hands one at a time – not both hands at once – because
he would pray on his left hand while the right was being washed!” As for the author’s personal advice to the reader on praying the
Rosary: “We may find it very enlightening that Padre Pio said,
“Mary is present in every mystery of the Rosary”. We, too, may
invite Our Lady’s presence into our lives when we offer a decade of
the Rosary.”
For
a thorough look at Padre Pio’s entire lifetime, from his parents
and childhood to his passing in 1968, this book is invaluable. St.
Pio’s relationship with the reigning Popes, those that opposed him
and those that favored him….his miracles, the stigmata, charismatic
gifts such as reading of souls, his amazing Holy Mass, relations with
angels and souls in purgatory, his confessional, his conversions and
his persecutors, his letters, hospital and prayer groups….it is all
presented in this wonderful book. But possibly even more significant
is the practical spiritual direction that the author imparts, which
can be life-changing for the reader. As the author of several Padre
Pio books myself, I can highly recommend Mary O’Regan’s opus.
The
Lord is speaking to His Apostles after His Resurrection.
“Bless
those who humiliate you.”
Jesus
stretches out His arms in His usual attitude of prayer and intones: «
Our Father Who art in Heaven. » He stops and comments: « That He is
a Father is proved to you by the fact that He has forgiven you. [The
Apostles had fled after He was arrested]. You, obliged to be perfect
more than anybody else, you, who have received so many favors, and
so, as you say, unsuited for the mission, which Lord, who were not
your Father, would not have punished you? I have not punished you.
The Father has not punished you. Because the Son does what the Father
does, because the Father does what the Son does, as we are one only
Divinity united in Love [...]. So, when I shall have gone, and in
this manner you will pray: our, My, your Father, whereby we are
brothers, I the first-born, you, the younger brothers, be always
willing to see also Me in My Father and yours.
Be
willing to see the Word, Who was "the Master" for you, and
loved you even to accepting death and beyond death, leaving Himself
to you in food and drink, so that you may be in Me and I in you as
long as the exile lasts, and then you and I in the Kingdom, for which
I taught you to pray, saying: "Thy Kingdom come", after you
have implored that your work may sanctify the Name of the Lord,
giving Him glory on Earth and in Heaven. Yes. There would be no
Kingdom for you in Heaven, the Kingdom for those who will believe
like you, if first you did not want the Kingdom of God in yourselves
through the real practice of the Law of God and of My word, which is
the perfecting of the Law, having given, in the time of Grace, the
Law of the chosen ones, that is, of those who are, beyond the civil,
moral, religious constitutions of the Mosaic time, already in the
spiritual Law of the time of Christ.
You
see what it is to have the closeness of God, but not God in you; what
it is to have the word of God, but not the real practice of that
word. Man has committed every crime by having God close to him, but
not in his heart; by having the knowledge of the word, but not the
obedience to it. Everything! Everything because of that. Dullness and
delinquency, deicide, betrayal, tortures, the death of the Innocent
and of His Cain, everything has come through that. And yet, who was
loved by Me like Judas? But he did not have Me-God in his heart. And
he is the damned deicide, infinitely guilty as an Israelite and as a
disciple, as a suicide and a deicide, in addition to his seven deadly
sins and every other sin of his.
You
can now have the Kingdom of God in yourselves more easily, because I
have obtained it for you with My death. I have redeemed you with My
sorrow. Bear that in your minds. So let no one trample on Grace,
because it cost the life and the Blood of a God. So let the Kingdom
of God be in you, men, through Grace; let it be on the Earth, through
the Church, let it be in Heaven, for the blessed souls who, having
lived with God in their hearts, united to the Body of which Christ is
the Head, united to the Vine of which every Christian is a branch,
deserve to rest in the Kingdom of Him for Whom all things have been
made: Me, Who am speaking to you and Who have given Myself to the
Will of the Father, so that everything might be accomplished.
I
can therefore teach you, without hypocrisy, that you must say: "Thy
Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven". How I have done the
will of My Father can be told even by the clods of earth, by plants,
by flowers, by the stones in Palestine, by My wounded Body and by a
whole population. Do as I did. To the very end. Even unto death on a
cross, if God so wishes. Because, remember, I have done it, and there
is no disciple who deserves mercy more than I do. And yet I have
consumed the greatest sorrow. And yet I have obeyed with perpetual
renunciations. You know. You will understand even more in future when
you resemble Me drinking a draft at My chalice… Let this thought be
constantly present to you: "Through His obedience to the Father,
He saved us".
And
if you want to be saviors, do what I have done. There will be some
who will be acquainted with the cross, some with the tortures of
tyrants, some with the torture of love, some with the exile from
Heaven, to which they will tend until a very late age before
ascending there. Well, in everything let the will of God be done.
Consider that the torment of death or the torment of life, while you
would like to die to come where I am, are the same in the eyes of
God, if they are suffered with cheerful obedience. They are His Will.
So they are holy.
Give
us this day our daily bread". Day by day, hour by hour. It is
faith. It is love. It is obedience. It is humility. It is hope, this
asking for the bread for one day, and accepting it as it is. Sweet
today, bitter tomorrow, much, little, with spices or with ashes.
Always as it is just. God, Who is a Father, gives it. So it is good.
Another
time I will speak to you of the other Bread, which it would be
healthy to eat every day, and to pray the Father to keep it […].
Pray the Father that He may defend His Bread and give you it.
"Forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us".
Since you are all sinners, be meek with sinners. Remember My words:
"Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye, if first
you do not take the plank out of your own eye?" That Spirit that
I infused into you, that order that I gave you, grant you the
authority to remit the sins of your neighbor, in the name of God […].
Forgive those who offend you, in order to be forgiven and to be
entitled to absolve or to condemn. He who is without sin can do so
with full justice. He who does not forgive, while he is in sin and
feigns to be scandalized, is a hypocrite and Hell awaits him.
Because, if there is still mercy for wards, severe will be the
verdict against the guardians of wards, guilty of the same or greater
sins, although they had the fullness of the Spirit to assist them.
"Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil". That is
humility, the fundamental stone of perfection. I solemnly tell you to
bless those who humiliate you, because they give you what is
necessary for your celestial thrones. No. Temptation is not a ruin,
if man remains humbly near the Father and asks Him not to allow
Satan, the world and the flesh to triumph over him. The crowns of the
blessed souls are adorned with the gems of the temptations they
overcame. Do
not look for them. But do not be cowards when they come. Humble, and
thus strong, shout to My Father and yours: "Deliver us from
evil", and you will defeat evil. And you will really sanctify
the Name of God with your deeds, as I said at the beginning, because
every man, when seeing you, will say: "God exists, because they
live as gods, so perfect is their behavior", and they will come
to God, multiplying the citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Kneel
down, that I may bless you and My blessing may open your minds to
meditate. » They prostrate themselves on the ground and He blesses
them, then He disappears, as if He were absorbed by a moonbeam.
Shortly afterwards the apostles raise their heads, surprised at not
hearing any more words, and they realize that Jesus has disappeared…
They prostrate themselves again with their faces on the ground, in
the age-old fear of every Israelite who experiences the sensation of
having been in touch with God, as He is in Heaven.
Based
on Chapter 626, Volume 5 of The
Gospel as Revealed to Me,
by Maria Valtorta.
Maria
Valtorta was an Italian Catholic writer and mystic. Bedridden for a
large part of her life, she was a Franciscan Third Order member and a
lay member of the Servants of Mary. Maria was born on March 14, 1897
in Caserta, a city near Naples, where her father Giuseppe’s cavalry
regiment was stationed. Giuseppe Valtorta was a warrant officer in
the regiment. He was a devoted father to Maria, who was an only
child. In contrast, her mother, Iside Fioravanzi, who was a French
teacher, was often severe and even cruel to both her husband and her
daughter.
In
her youth, Valtorta traveled around Italy due to her father's
military career and the family eventually settled in Viareggio. In
1920, aged 23, while she was walking on a street with her mother, a
delinquent youth struck her in the back with an iron bar for no
apparent reason. In 1934, the injury confined her to bed for the
remaining 28 years of her life. Her spiritual life was influenced by
reading the autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and, in 1925,
at the age of 28, before becoming bedridden, she offered herself to
God as a victim soul. From 23 April 1943, until 1951 she produced
13,193
handwritten
pages in 122 notebooks, mostly detailing the life of Jesus in his
hidden life, public life, and his Passion.
Her
handwritten notebooks containing close to 700 supernaturally
experienced episodes in the life of Jesus were typed on separate
pages by her priest and reassembled, becoming the basis of her
10-volume book The
Gospel as Revealed to Me.
The remaining pages were published in three volumes as The
Notebooks.
She also wrote an autobiography. Valtorta lived most of her life in
Viareggio, where she died on October 12, 1961.
She
is buried at the grand cloister of the Basilica of Santissima
Annunziata in Florence. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith gave permission to Emilio Pisani at the Centro Editoriale
Valtortiano (the publishing house of Maria Valtorta’s works) to
continue publishing her work as it is without modifications. In a
letter dated May 6, 1992 addressed to Pisani, Bishop Dionigi
Tettamanzi, secretary to the Italian Episcopal Conference, gave
permission for the work to continue to be published for the “true
good of readers and in the spirit of the genuine service to the faith
of the Church.”
Impatience is never a factor contributing to success. [...] Fears about the future display imperfection in the three theological virtues. God can raise up anywhere - and especially in the most unexpected places and beings - what is necessary for a child of His who entrusts himself or herself to Him. [...] It is not enough to say "His Will," but one must do it after it has been expressed.
Jesus to Maria Valtorta, Nov. 15, 1945.
From The Notebooks 1945-1950, page 117.
A
prayer dictated by Jesus for the octave of His Kingship.
Jesus,
King of Love, have mercy on us.
Since
we want to love You, help us to love You.
Since
we recognize that You are the true King, help us to know You more and
more.
Since
we believe that You can do all, confirm our faith with your mercy.
You,
King of the world – have mercy on the poor world and on us who are
in it.
You,
King of peace – grant peace to the world and to us.
You,
King of heaven – grant that we may become its subjects.
You
know that we are weeping – console us.
You
know that we are suffering – relieve us.
You
know that we need everything – help us.
We
know we are suffering because of our sin, but we hope in You.
We
know that what we are suffering is still very little in comparison to
what we would deserve to suffer, but we trust in You.
We
know what we have done to You, but we also know what You have done
for us.
We
know that You are the Savior – save us Jesus!
King,
with the crown of thorns, for the sake of this loving martyrdom of
yours, be Love coming to our aid.
With
your pierced hands, open for us the treasures of Grace and graces.
Come
to us with your wounded feet. Sanctify the earth and us with the
blood dripping from your wounds: gems of your Kingship as Redeemer.
Open
our hearts to love with the flames of your heart, opened for us.
If
we love You we shall be saved here in the hour of death, and at the
Last Judgment.
May
your Kingdom come, Lord, on earth, in heaven, and in our hearts.
October
22, 1944. The Notebooks 1944, Maria Valtorta, pp. 602-603.
On
October 24, 1944, Our Lord said the following to Maria Valtorta -
“The
month devoted to the deceased is coming. Pray for them in the
following way:
“O
Jesus, who with your glorious Resurrection have shown us what the
“children of God” will be like eternally, grant a holy
resurrection to our loved ones who have died in your Grace and to us,
when our hour comes.
“For
the sake of the Sacrifice of your Blood, the tears of Mary, and the
merits of all the saints, open your Kingdom to their spirits.
“O
Mother, whose agony ended at dawn on Easter, before the Risen One,
and whose waiting to rejoin your Son ceased in the joy of your
glorious Assumption, console our sorrow by freeing from affliction
those whom we love even beyond death, and pray for us, who await the
time when we shall recover the embrace of those we lost.
“Martyrs
and Saints who rejoice in heaven, turn a gaze of entreaty towards God
and a fraternal gaze towards the deceased who are expiating, to pray
to the Eternal for them and say to them, “See: peace is opening out
for you.”
“Beloved
ones, who are dear to us, not lost, but separated, may your prayers
be for us the kiss we miss, and when, through our suffrages, you are
free in blessed Paradise with the saints, protect us by loving us in
Perfection, united to us through the invisible, active, loving
Communion of the Saints, a foretaste of that reunion of the “blessed”
which will be granted to us, in addition to the bliss of the vision
of God, on regaining you just as we had you, but rendered sublime by
the glory of Heaven.”
October
24, 1944, The
Notebooks 1944,
page 604, by Maria Valtorta.
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my books Here.
Give
us this day our daily bread means to take
no thought for tomorrow.
Perfection
of conduct,
says He, I
require as great, not however freedom from passions; no, for the tyranny of nature permits it not: for it requires necessary food. But mark, I pray you, how even in things that are bodily, that which
is spiritual abounds. For it is neither for riches, nor for delicate
living, nor for costly raiment, nor for any other such thing, but for
bread only, that He has commanded us to make our prayer.
And for daily
bread,
so as not to take
thought for the morrow (Matthew 6:34).
Because of this
He added, daily
bread,
that is, bread for one day (Matthew 6:11).
And
not even with this expression is He satisfied, but adds another too,
saying, give
us this
day;
so that we may not, beyond this, wear ourselves out with the care of
the following day. For that day, the interval before which you know
not whether you shall see, wherefore do you submit to its cares? Take
no thought for the morrow.
He would have us be on every hand unencumbered and winged for flight,
yielding just so much to nature as the compulsion of necessity
requires of us.
Then
inasmuch as it comes to pass that we sin even after the washing of
regeneration, He, showing His love to man to be great even in this
case, commands us for the remission of our sins to come unto God who
loves man, and thus to say:
Forgive
us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
Do
you see surpassing mercy? After taking away so great evils, and after
the unspeakable greatness of His gift [of Baptism], if men sin again,
He counts them such as may be forgiven. For that this prayer belongs
to believers, is taught us both by the laws of the church, and by the
beginning of the prayer. For the uninitiated could not call God
Father. If then the prayer belongs to believers and they pray,
entreating that sins may be forgiven them, it is clear that not even
after the laver is the profit of repentance taken away. Since, had He
not meant to signify this, He would not have made a law that we
should so pray.
Now
He who both brings sins to remembrance, and bids us ask forgiveness,
and teaches how we may obtain remission and so makes the way easy; it
is perfectly clear that He introduced this rule of supplication, as
knowing, and signifying, that it is possible even after the font to
wash ourselves from our offenses; by reminding us of our sins,
persuading us to be modest; by the command to forgive others, setting
us free from all revengeful passion; while by promising in return for
this to pardon us also, He holds out good hopes, and instructs us to
have high views concerning the unspeakable mercy of God toward man.
For
if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will
forgive you (Matthew 6:14). So
that the beginning is of us, and we ourselves have control over the
judgment that is to be passed upon us. For in order that no one, even
of the senseless, might have any complaint to make, either great or
small, when brought to judgment; on you, who art to give account, He
causes the sentence to depend; and in
whatever way you have judged for yourself, in the same,
says He, do
I also judge you.
And if you forgive your fellow servant, you shall obtain the same
favor from me; though indeed the one be not equal to the other. For
you forgive in your need, but God, having need of none: thou, your
fellow slave; God, His slave: thou liable to unnumbered charges; God,
being without sin. But yet even thus does He show forth His loving
kindness towards man.
Since
He might indeed, even without this, forgive you all your offenses;
but He wills you hereby also to receive a benefit; affording you on
all sides innumerable occasions of gentleness and love to man,
casting out what is brutish in you, and quenching wrath, and in all
ways cementing you to him who is your own member.
For
what can you have to say? That you have wrongfully endured some ill
of your neighbor? But you too are drawing near to receive
forgiveness for such things, and for much greater. And even before
the forgiveness, you have received no small gift, in being taught to
have a human soul, and in being trained to all gentleness. And
herewith a great reward shall also be laid up for you elsewhere, even
to be called to account for none of your offenses.
What
sort of punishment then do we not deserve, when after having received
the privilege, we betray our salvation? And how shall we claim to be
heard in the rest of our matters, if we will not, in those which
depend on us, spare our own selves?
For
if you forgive men,
says He, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not,
neither will He forgive you.
And nothing makes us so like God, as being ready to forgive the
wicked and wrong-doers; even as indeed He had taught before, when He
spoke of His making
the sun to shine on the evil and on the good (Matthew 5:45). How
great punishment then must they deserve, who after all this, so far
from themselves forgiving, do even entreat God for vengeance on their
enemies, and diametrically as it were transgress this law; and this
while He is doing and contriving all, to hinder our being at variance
one with another?
For
since love is the root of all that is good, He removing from all
sides whatever mars it, brings us together, and cements us to each
other. For there is not, there is not one, be he father, or mother,
or friend, or what you will, who so loved us as the God who created
us. And this, above all things, both His daily benefits and His
precepts make manifest. But if you tell me of the pains, and of the
sorrows, and of the evils of life; consider in how many things you
offend Him every
day. Which
one has not been insolent, or vainglorious? Who has not spoken evil
of his brother, has not admitted a wicked desire, has not looked with
unchaste eyes, has not remembered things with hostile feeling, even
till he made his heart swell?
But
yet from our so great and so many sins, God has given us a short and
easy way of deliverance, and one that is free from all toil. For what
sort of toil is it to forgive him that has grieved us? Nay, it is a
toil not to forgive, but to keep up our enmity: even as to be
delivered from the anger, both works in us a great refreshment, and
is very easy to him that is willing. For there is no sea to be
crossed, nor long journey to be traveled, nor summits of mountains to
be passed over, nor money to be spent, no need to torment your body;
but it suffices to be willing only, and all our sins are done away.
But
if so far from forgiving him yourself, you make intercession to God
against him, what hope of salvation will you then have, if at the
very time when you ought rather to appease God, even then you provoke
Him; putting on the garb of a suppliant, but uttering the cries of a
wild beast, and darting out against yourself those shafts of the
wicked one? Wherefore Paul also, making mention of prayer, required
nothing so much as the observance of this commandment. And if when
you have need of mercy, not even then will you let go your anger, but
art rather exceedingly mindful of it, and that, although you know you
are thrusting the sword into yourself; when will it be possible for
you to become merciful, and to spew out the evil venom of this
wickedness?
Let
us cease then from this disease and madness, and that kindliness
which He commanded let us show forth towards them that have vexed us:
that we may become like our
Father which is in heaven.
And we shall cease therefrom, if we call to mind our own sins; if we
strictly search out all our misdeeds at home, abroad, and in the
market, and in church.
View
my Catholic books Here.
St. Padre Pio:
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.
From "Padre Pio Councils," p. 25, published by his Friary at San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.
