**This week quotes from Catholic St Padre Pio

Sunday
I strongly recommend that you focus on making your poor hearts every day more pleasing to our divine Teacher and to act in a way that this current year will be more productive than last year in terms of good deeds. The reason being is that as time passes and the end approaches, it is necessary to double our enthusiasm and to raise our spirit in God, serving him with greatest diligence in everything that both our vocation and Christian devotion demand of us. Only this can be pleasing to God. Only this can liberate us from the enormous world that is not of God and can free us from our enemies. Only this, therefore, can lead us to the threshold of eternal salvation.
We should also face the tests of our current life to which the divine providence will be delivering, but we should not discourage or anguish. We must bravely fight, and we will receive the reward that God has kept for strong souls.

Prayer: We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.
*Sub Tuum Praesidium

Monday
To be able to continuously live a life of devotion, you only need to accept in your heart some great and generous precepts:
The first one that I would like you to consider is the one of Saint Paul: “Everything reverts in goodness to those who love God”. And, let me mention, since God can and knows how to bring goodness even from evil: with whom would he do such but with those who, without hesitation whatsoever, give themselves to Him? Even sins, from which God with his infinite goodness keep us far from, are commanded by his divine providence for the sake of those who believe and serve him. Had the saint King David not sinned, he would have never gained such profound humility. Magdalene would have not loved Jesus so devotedly had he not forgave her many sins. And Jesus would have not been able to forgive those sins had Magdalene not committed them…this great work of divine mercy: He transforms our miseries in favors and, with the venom of our actions, he performs healthy changes in our souls.
Prayer: Holy Angel of God, my guardian, to whom His love entrusts me here, ever this day be by my side, to enlighten, guard, rule and guide [me].
(Eastern Prayer)

Tuesday
Tell me then, what would he not do with his grace to our afflictions, our suffering and the troubles that anguish us? And, therefore, even if you do not experience any affliction of any type, believe that, if you believe in God with all your heart, everything will be transformed into good; and even if you do not understand what this goodness will come from, be certain that it will arrive. If God puts in front of your eyes the mud of a disgrace, it’s only to provide you with a clearer view and to make you more admirable to the eyes of his angels, like a magnificent and generous spectacle. And, if God makes you fall, it is to achieve in you what he achieved in Saint Paul when he fell from his horse.
Therefore, may falls not make you lose courage, raise to a renewed confidence and to a more profound humility. To lose heart and to become impatient after making a mistake is the plan of the enemy, is to grant him the weapons, is to surrender. Therefore, you should not do that because the grace of God is always ready to rescue you.

Prayer: Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Wednesday
The third precept that I would like that you to engrave forever in your spirit is that God is our father: and what could you fear if you are the daughter of the father, without whose providence even a hair from your hair would not fall off? Isn’t it actually very odd that, being us the children of the father, we would have other thoughts rather than to love him and serve him? Take care and be in control of your soul and of your family the way he wants and do not be concerned. If you do so, you will see how Jesus takes care of you. Jesus once said to Saint Catherine of Sienna ‘Think of me and I will think of you’. A wise person would say ‘Eternal father, your providence rules over everything’.
Prayer: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning it is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.

Thursday
Another precept is that you should observe what the divine Teacher taught his disciples: “What have you lacked?”.
Carefully consider, my good little daughter, this passage. Jesus sent the disciples throughout the world, without money, without a cane, without sandals, without saddles, clothes, just with a tunic. And he later told them: “When I sent you on that journey, were you in lack of anything?”. And they replied that they had lacked nothing.
Today, I tell you, little daughter: when you were tormented, even in times when, unfortunately, you didn’t trust much in God, tell me “Did you ever find yourself oppressed by suffering?” You will tell me in the negative. And why -and I will add-, not having trust in overcoming all the rest of adversities.
Prayer: O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. O Lord, blot out our sins. O Master, pardon our iniquities. O Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy name’s sake.
(Easetern Prayer)

Friday
If God has not abandoned you in the past, how would he abandon you in the future when now, more than in the past, you want to belong to him from now onwards? Do not fear that something bad could happen to you in this world because it may never happen to you. But, in any case, should this ever happen to you, God will give you the strength to overcome it. The divine Teacher sent Saint Peter to walk over water. When the wind blew and facing the danger of the storm, Saint Peter was afraid and that made him almost drown. He asked the Teacher for help, and he replied to him saying: “Man of little faith, why have you doubted?”, and extending his hand he held Peter. If God makes you walk over the tempest waters of adversity, do not doubt, my little daughter, God is with you, be brave and you will be saved.

Prayer: O my God relying on Thy infinite goodness and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
*Act of Hope

Saturday
The fourth precept is that of eternity. Little should be of importance to God’s children to live these most brief moments that pass by as long as they can live in eternal glory with God. .., consider that you are already on the path to eternity, that you have already set foot on it. As long as eternity is a happy one as a consequence of your deeds, should it be important that these transitory moments are of suffering?
The fifth precept that I plead that you keep fixed in your mind is that of the apostle St. Paul: “Keep in mind that I do not focus on anything else but in the cross of my Jesus”.
Keep in your heart, .., our crucified Jesus and every cross of the world will seem like roses. Those who have felt the pain of the crown of thorns of our Savior, who is our Head, will not feel any other wounds whatsoever.

Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us, Immaculate Heart of Mary Pray for us, St Joseph Pray for us.