Category: Art Work

The 9th Station of the Cross

I was commissioned, along w a few other sacred artist in 2017 to illustrate a book with meditations on the Stations of the Cross. I love collaborating with creatives to build up the body of Christ!

This reflection is not that book, but sharing the image i painted above. This meditation is from a book i picked up in Medjugorje in 2018, written by Tomislav Ivancic. I love these reflections so much that i visit this book all year long! Im so glad i get to share them here with you.

9th Station of the Cross, Suffering a Total Defeat

I fell a third time. The people believed that that would be my final breakdown. And just when they supposed that i would never make it, I summoned up all my strength, took the cross and dragged it to Golgotha.

A person can go on even if nobody thinks that it is possible. the moment will come when people tell you… “there’s nothing more to be expected from you. It’s the end.” You yourself will think… ” I can’t go on”.

This is the moment of complete helplessness. it is the moment of your surrender, of the realization of your failure. Do you really want to abandon all hope then? Do not be afraid. There is another door, and you will meet Me again behind it. If you can not rely on yourself any longer, I will be there. You will cry from the bottom of your heart and I will answer. It is the cross to lose and to be left alone, to have nobody who believes in you anymore, to be given up. If you accept this cross, i will surprise you with My presence and My strength. You will be able to go to the ends of the earth in My name.

Are you willing to accept this cross? Don’t worry. I am with you. I have conquered the world.

Promise that you will not offend or mock either Jesus or the cross.

St. Faustina

Apostle of Mercy

As you know by now, before i prepare to paint a Saint, I pray with them and ask, “how would you like to be portrayed?” The only thing that Faustina wanted was to be on her knees under His merciful Rays. She wanted to have a look of peace on her face, submitting herself to these rays, this shower of mercy.

I painted St. Faustina rather quickly but she was quite particular about the depths and importance of the Rays, because of this, the Rays took me over 2 1/2 weeks to finish. They are layer upon layer of color and medium. Finally, Faustina was pleased and the icon was completed. (side note… watching the movie Love and Mercy, i was shocked to see how Faustina instructed artist Eugene Kazimierowski, in the same manner she hounded, i mean inspired me! i cried like a baby in the theater at the confirmation of her guidance. ) In my frustration I complained, “why have you been so hard?!” Her reply was “do you think mercy is easy?” I knew interiorly that she was asking me to be merciful with myself. And I thought of the crucifix.

Jesus died for me in His mercy. Being merciful with myself is really embracing His merciful love in humility.

It takes humility to be forgiving, a lot of humility. When we can forgive ourselves, we are acknowledging that we are a sinner and nothing more, and that we need God.

Someone asked me once the difference between mercy and grace…the crucifix, that is mercy! I finished this icon of St. Faustina on Our Lady of Mercy feast day, Sept. 24… I just can’t make this stuff up! It’s just too good!

He who knows how to forgive prepares for himself many graces from God. As often as I look upon the cross, so often will I forgive with all my heart – St. Faustina

This picture was sent to me by a sweet young lady who took my Saint Faustina icon to The National Shrine of Divine Mercy to be blessed! Wow, oh wow! Felt like i was with her in spirit, and was so happy she shared this with me. xo

The 5th Station of the Cross

I was commissioned, along w a few other sacred artist in 2017 to illustrate a book with meditations on the Stations of the Cross. I love collaborating with creatives to build up the body of Christ!

Fifth Station of the Cross, Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the Cross.

Allowing others to help you…

Nobody respected me. So many people did I cure, but even they left me, just like those who I was close to. Full of wounds and full of blood, shaken after meeting my mother, I needed loving hands to support me.

The only one who came had to be forced. I longed for help given in compassion and love. Simon had to be forced. Simon had to be forced to help me. It is a cross to find nobody willing to suffer with you in love. If you accept it, you are no longer alone in suffering because I am with you.

And something else. Have courage to allow others to help you. I did it, too, although I am omnipotent. Let others surpass you, let them take care of you, admit it that you need them.

This is a cross and you cannot avoid it. Learn to understand that it is a door to me. Don’t be astonished if all in you opposes this cross, for the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit, what is contrary to the sinful nature. Gal 5:17.

Receive your cross and follow me so you are with me.

“Don’t be afraid to carry the Cross. There is my Son to help you.” message April 5th, 1985

St Joseph, his time is now

Patron of Families and the Universal Church.

In March of this year, I began a work with my 29^th icon, St Joseph. I’m very blessed to pray with the Saints through art. The Holy Spirit and St Joseph took such a hold of me during the process of this painting that I actually had to step away from the prayer due to the weight and responsibility I was feeling in his message.

Here are some of the things that St Joseph spoke to my heart…

First, he talked about this immense joy he had. That when God called him, he felt so unworthy and sinful. He talked to me a lot about clay and making vessels and that Our Lord chose him, nothing but a broken vessel, to protect the treasure of salvation. Almost constant St Joseph showed me his hands in clay. When he began to walk in his mission with Our Lady and Jesus, the Lord poured out so much joy into their days together. Then he showed me how his time was coming in the Church, like never seen in the history of the Redemption. St Joseph would be coming to reclaim the family and the Church. He spoke to my heart about the coming days and the power of grace being poured out right now.

When I recently returned to this prayer with Saint Joseph in October, he spoke to me with a father’s heart… one of concern and protection. St Joseph said, “they ignore my son and hurt my dear Mary, now is my time.”

In the icon you will see dear Joseph cradling sweet Baby Jesus with his left hand and Jesus resting, relieved to be in His earthly father’s arms again. Jesus holds St Joseph’s lily… the biblical passage, “The just man shall blossom like the lily” is applied to St. Joseph in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet it is Our Redeemer who holds this Lily now, and the stem of the Lily pierces though the Eucharist, which is setting like a sun over the Vatican, as a symbol of purification. In Joseph’s right hand, he hold out the Vatican, representative of the One True Church, marred, yet alive, and St Joseph is calling us to return to our Faith.

Notice the 3 circles in the Eucharist, Jesus halo and St Joseph’s halo, aligned perfectly with their faces. Three is the number of the Trinity, resurrection, divine wholeness, completeness and perfection. Isaiah 40:22 “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”

Jesus is wrapped in a red blanket, which represents His Most Precious Blood, and is pouring out through the Church, into the baptismal waves of His grace. The Family, are they going into the Church or going out? This is for the viewer to discern, as this should change as we go into the sacramental graces, we carry them out in our mission as priest, profit and king.

Saint Joseph…pray for us!

Our Lady of America

Our Lady of America came to me, through the Holy Spirit, while I worked in my art journal. This often happens when i set aside time to be open and explore with the Lord. While i painted her, many words of warning for our country were given and how the US is in a fragile place, due to our turning away from God and turning towards false idols, the evil of abortion and human sex trafficking. We have embraced a culture of death and lost our way to Truth.

I knew immediately that the city inside Mary’s mantle was New York and felt there will be a torrent of water wash over the city. The nest with the single egg in this torrent is very fragile, with just a short time remaining, yet protected by Our Lady, Herself. The wheat spikelet grows out of a rock, in the midst of this torrent, and represent the few faithful who hold back the justice of God by their prayers…pleading for His unfathomable mercy. The 4 stars represent the four regions of our country and the current President and Vice President, chosen by His people, ordained by God. The image of the eagle represents God, who comes to save us by Our Lady intercession. The eagle is found throughout the Bible but primarily in the Old Testament. It is a sign of strength and able to bear much weight, as Moses wrote, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Ex 19:4). This is further symbolized when Moses said of God “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions” (Duet 32:11). The eagle can bear up the young eaglets on its pinions, which are the outer wings. This is basically what God did when He brought Israel out of captivity from Egypt and continued to bear her up in her wanderings in the wilderness.

And finally Our Lady of America overshadows The Statue of Liberty, whose artist was a Freemason and given by the Freemasons and is nothing but a demonic idol. As this work was revealed to me, it pointed me to much evil in the church and in the US, which i am still learning about and trying to wrap my head around. I encourage you to seek these answers for you self and ask Our Lady to guide you… only Truth can set us free.

This image of Our Lady is not a sign of despair, no, not at all. Our Lady of America offers us great hope for such a time as this!! She is an image of justice and reminds us that the victory will always be HIS!

Our Lady of America…. pray for us!

Want to learn more about Our Lady of America? Check here.

Why does the world need sacred art more then ever?

Many years ago, before i even came into the Church, I joined a brand new parish community, which i am still a part of today. This parish started out meeting in peoples homes, then in a small single building, then a high school, and today, we are STILL building this Church. Something really special and sacred about sticking w a community though the growth of a new parish. Lot’s of grace is needed and offered for those who commit to His plan.

Within a few weeks of completing the first building, an anonymous donor gifted the parish w a beautiful Mary statue for our courtyard. It was powerfully beautiful, bright and greeted parishioners as they pulled up to our parish. Our parish priest, upon receiving it, decided to consecrate the entire parish community to Our Lady. He didn’t know that on the same day he dedicated our parish to the intercession and guidance of Our Blessed Mother, that someone would come in the night and desecrate and vandalize it so badly, that Her face would become marred with hate. This sent out a sad and angry ripple out into our parish. For many years, we continued to see this marring on Our Lady’s statue until recently, when she was restored to the beauty intended by the artist.

This hate for the beautiful, takes on many forms…pornography, self mutilation, and the desecration of our bodies though abuse are an example of this. God gives us our temples of the Holy Sprint, beautiful and chosen. Let’s look at marriage and family today… one of the most beautiful gifts from God, but torn apart by the enemy with division, perversion, and abandonment. We are children of God, beautiful, bright, and yet we let go of this identity and choose the dark. This sends a sad and angry ripple out into the world.

Pope John Paul II quoted the line in his Letter to Artists, under the heading “The Saving Power of Beauty”:

“People of today and tomorrow need this enthusiasm [of wonder] if they are to meet and master the crucial challenges which stand before us. Thanks to this enthusiasm, humanity, every time it loses its way, will be able to lift itself up and set out again on the right path. In this sense it has been said with profound insight that “beauty will save the world” (§16).

This quote, Beauty will save the World comes from a book titled The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. At the beginning of the novel, the central character Prince Myshkin is shown a portrait of a young woman named Nastassya Filippovna by a Madame Yepanchin, his hostess. She holds Nastassya in contempt because her moral reputation is tarnished.

“So, you appreciate that kind of beauty?” she asks the prince.

“Yes. That kind—” the prince replies with an effort.

“Why?” she asks.

“In that face—there is much suffering,” he says, as though involuntarily, as though he is talking to himself.

“Beauty like that is strength,” one of the other women in the room angrily declares. “One could turn the world upside down with beauty like that.”

Dostoevsky once wrote in his Notebooks, “Suffering is the origin of consciousness.” A novel like The Idiot could only have been created as the fruit of the author’s personal sufferings. If you have heard my story, you know i know just a tad about suffering too. We have all suffered, yet do we join together in the victory of the suffering? Can there be a resurrection without the crucifixion?

The beauty that will save the world is the love of God. This love germinates, flowers, and comes to fruition only in a crucified heart. Only the heart united with Christ on the Cross is able to love another as himself, and as God loves him. “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” Isaiah 61:3 KJV

The fight for beauty is a true battleground of the soul and intimately linked to the crisis of faith. As an artist and speaker, i have a unique position on the battlefield. I not only share the art that healed me, i share the testimony of the One who heals.

Recently i have been painting Sacred Hearts for the beautification of this suffering and to help unite homes and families to +JMJ+ Sacred Hearts through home enthronements. Through these works, God continue to remind me that “you can’t create without dying.”

And the dying is so sweet when we do it here on earth! When we offer up our small sufferings to the Lord and for His use, they become a gift of love.

Taken from A Daily Pilgrimage to Purgatory….

“Holy Souls in Purgatory, is there anything you regret when you think of your life on earth? I deeply regret my neglect of acts of mortification. How easy they would have been on earth, but how difficult they are now in Purgatory. Here the smallest suffering is more poignant than the most cruel torments on earth. In the world it meant only patience and resignation in the hardships and adversities of my life; it meant only giving from my surplus to the poor, and devoting myself to works of atonement; it meant only gaining Indulgences and performing works of piety. Nothing could have been easier, and my Purgatory would have been shortened considerably. If God would but grant me the grace to exchange the years during which I must still remain in this place of sorrow for as many years of life on earth! No commands would be too severe for me; no pains could frighten me; the most difficult works of penance would be sweet and give me comfort at the thought of this consuming fire. You who now smart under the insignificant trials and hardships of this life! You who now earn your daily bread by the sweat of your brow, rejoice! The smallest suffering endured in the spirit of atonement and offered to the Sacred Heart in the spirit of expiation, will save you from a long and painful Purgatory.”

So will beauty save the world? When we suffer for the sake of it, it will. Just look at a crucifix.

Mary Magdalene Convert and Sinner

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene… the beloved sinner who experienced a profound conversion at the feet of Jesus. She is the patron saint of penitents and converts. She is a friend of women, she has been a friend to me.

When i painted Mary back in 2017, i was surprised by the love and care that the Holy Spirit took in my prayer with her. I felt a sense that the Lord protected Mary, and i was to protect her too by creating a work that would show the Spirit of who she was. The Lord kept insisting, “I want her to have a loving look of awe.” When i stated i didn’t know how to paint that, He simply repeated the request and i continued to fumbled around the canvas for many days and hours. I had not been painting icons very long, she was my 11th, and God was still working overtime on my trust issues. Mary was going to help me understand conversion in a new way! Yet i was more concerned with getting this “loving look of awe” thing down then worrying about my own conversion. Finally, The Voice inside my heart seemed satisfied w my efforts when It silenced. I must have painted her mouth 10 times over trying to quiet the Holy Spirit and i knew that His insistence came from a protective Father who was working on my obedience and perseverance. Who was working on my trust.

I have to be honest in saying i wanted to walk away a few times due to my inability to paint this icon. I could feel such a love that it left me astounded and feelings of unworthiness crept in often. After all, who was i to paint such a precious soul? and then my friend Mary spoke…” who was i to wash his feet? Who was i to be delivered? who was i to be the first at the tomb? ”

When i felt her words penetrate me, i knew her. and she knows me.

I think it’s in our unworthiness that we come to the truest mirror. and when we stare at that brokenness, that wound, that sin, we have a choice. Will we look up in with that loving look of awe at Our Redeemer, or will we sit in the defeat of our self worth? Do we stay in the pit, or rise in the Victory? No one is beyond the saving grace of God!

Many scholars believe that the 7 demons cast out of Mary represented the 7 deadly sins. This women knew sin. And where sin abounds, Grace abounds even more. So is it even a wonder to us why this sinner would be the first witness of the Resurrection? Of course she was! Because she rose in the Victory of Jesus long before He walked out of that tomb.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us!

February’s Saint of the Month

Saint Bakhita!

St. Josephine Bakhita was born in Sudan, Africa, in 1869 and lived a humble and happy life with her family until at age 7 when she was kidnapped and sold as a slave. Poor Bakhita suffered very harsh treatment as a slave and for the next 12 years she would be bought, sold and given away over a dozen times. She spent so much time in captivity that she forgot her original name. The name “Bakhita,” which means “fortunate,” was given to her in sarcasm by the people who kidnapped her.

As a slave, her experiences varied from fair treatment to cruel. One of her masters left 114 scars on her body and another master beat her so badly for breaking a vase, she almost died. Finally in 1883, Bakhita was sold to Callisto Legnani, Italian consul in Khartoum, Sudan and was treated with more kindness. Although she was not free, she was still a slave. Two years later, Callisto took Josephine to Italy and gave her to his friend and was made a babysitter to Mimmina Michieli, whom she accompanied to Venice’s Institute of the Catechumens, run by the Canossian Sisters. While Mimmina was being instructed, Josephine felt drawn to the Catholic Church. As a little girl, she would look up at the moon and stars and knew that someone had created them and that she wanted to know this master. She was baptized and confirmed in 1890, taking the name Josephine. Josephine was finally happy to address God as “Master” and carry out everything that she believed to be God’s will for her. When the Michieli’s returned from Africa and wanted to take Mimmina and Josephine back with them, the future saint refused to go. The Michieli’s didn’t want to give up Bakhita so they took her to court to try and force her back to being their slave . During the court case, the Canossian Sisters and the Church intervened on Josephine’s behalf and the judge concluded that since slavery was illegal in Italy, she had actually been free since 1885. For the first time in her life, Josephine was free and could choose what to do with her life. She chose to remain with the Canossian Sisters.

At the age of forty-one, Josephine felt God calling her to become one of the sisters. The Canossian Sisters accepted her into their community. For twenty-five years, Sister Josephine carried out humble services in the convent. She cooked, sewed, took care of the chapel and answered the door. Her health had suffered because of all the tortures she had endured as a slave, so she was given the role as porteress ( just like St Martin de Porres and Blessed Solanus Casey!). She had a lot to do with all the local children who named her “la nostra madre moretta” which means “Our little brown mother.” During World War I, Sister Josephine helped to care for the wounded. She became known for her kindness and goodness. She was a source of comfort and encouragement to everyone who came to her in need. A young student once asked Bakhita: “What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?” Without hesitation she responded: “If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today”

In her later years, she began to suffer physical pain and was forced to use a wheelchair. But she always remained cheerful. If anyone asked her how she was, she would reply, “As the master desires.” On the evening of February 8, 1947, Josephine spoke her last words, “Our Lady, Our Lady!” She then died. Her body lay on display for three days afterwards. She was canonized on October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II and St. Bakhita’s body lays incorrupt today. Bakhita’s story is fascinating particularly because of the story of her slavery and how God was with her every step of the way, writing something beautiful from the sad chapters of her early years as a child. Unfortunately, there is still childhood slavery in the world today. St Bakhita is venerated as a modern day African Saint and is the Patron Saint of Human Trafficking and the country of Sudan.

Beautiful Saint Bakhita…pray for us!

December’s Saint of the Month

Our Lady of Guadalupe!

On Dec. 12, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, marking the day when, in 1531, the Blessed Mother appeared in Mexico to a 57-year old peasant named Juan Diego. According to the earliest reliable account of the story, Juan Diego was walking near Tepayac Hill (called Mexico City today) when he encountered a beautiful woman surrounded by a ball of light as bright as the sun. Speaking in his native tongue, the beautiful lady identified herself: “My dear little son, I love you. I desire you to know who I am. I am the ever-virgin Mary, Mother of the true God who gives life and maintains its existence. He created all things. He is in all places. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. I desire a church in this place where your people may experience my compassion. All those who sincerely ask my help in their work and in their sorrows will know my Mother’s Heart in this place. Here I will see their tears; I will console them and they will be at peace. So run now to Tenochtitlan and tell the Bishop all that you have seen and heard.”

In trying to convince the archbishop of what he had seen, Juan Diego eventually was asked for a sign to prove what he had seen. Upon returning to Mary and sharing this with her, Mary said “My little son, am I not your Mother? Do not fear. The Bishop shall have his sign. Come back to this place tomorrow. Only peace, my little son.” Unfortunately, Juan was not able to return to the hill the next day. His uncle had become mortally ill and Juan stayed with him to care for him. After two days, with his uncle near death, Juan left his side to find a priest. Juan had to pass Tepayac Hill to get to the priest. As he was passing, he found Mary waiting for him. She spoke: “Do not be distressed, my littlest son. Am I not here with you who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Your uncle will not die at this time. There is no reason for you to engage a priest, for his health is restored at this moment. He is quite well. Go to the top of the hill and cut the flowers that are growing there. Bring them then to me.” While it was freezing on the hillside, Juan obeyed Mary’s instructions and went to the top of the hill where he found a full bloom of Castilian roses which were neither in season nor native to the region. Removing his tilma, a poncho-like cape made of cactus fiber, he cut the roses and carried them back to Mary. She rearranged the roses and told him: “My little son, this is the sign I am sending to the Bishop. Tell him that with this sign I request his greatest efforts to complete the church I desire in this place. Show these flowers to no one else but the Bishop. You are my trusted ambassador. This time the Bishop will believe all you tell him.” At the palace, Juan once again came before the bishop and several of his advisors. He told the bishop his story and opened the tilma letting the flowers fall out. But it wasn’t the beautiful roses that caused the bishop and his advisors to fall to their knees; for there, on the tilma, was a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary precisely as Juan had described her. The next day, after showing the Tilma at the Cathedral, Juan took the bishop to the spot where he first met Mary. He then returned to his village where he met his uncle who was completely cured. His uncle told him he had met a young woman, surrounded by a soft light, who told him that she had just sent his nephew to Tenochtitlan with a picture of herself. She told his uncle:”Call me and call my image Santa Maria de Guadalupe”.

Within six years of this apparition, six million Aztecs had converted to Catholicism! The tilma shows Mary as the God-bearer – she is pregnant with her Divine Son. Since the time the tilma was first impressed with a picture of the Mother of God, it has been subject to a variety of environmental hazards including smoke from fires and candles, water from floods and torrential downpours and, in 1921, a bomb which was planted by anti-clerical forces on an altar under it. There was also a cast-iron cross next to the tilma and when the bomb exploded, the cross was twisted out of shape, the marble altar rail was heavily damaged and the tilma was…untouched!

In 1977, the tilma was examined using infrared photography and digital enhancement techniques. Unlike any painting, the tilma shows no sketching or any sign of outline drawn to permit an artist to produce a painting. Further, the very method used to create the image is still unknown. The image is inexplicable in its longevity and method of production. It can be seen today in a large cathedral built to house up to ten thousand worshipers. It is, by far, the most popular religious pilgrimage site in the Western Hemisphere.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, St Juan Diego…pray for us!

September’s Saint of the Month

Padre Pio!

St. Padre Pio was born Francesco Forgione on May 25, 1887 in the small farming town of Pietrelcina, Italy. His family was devoutly Catholic, attending daily mass and praying the rosary together. Padre Pio had 4 living siblings and 3 who had passed away. Pio was a very good child and at the age of five he dedicated his life to God. He loved to pray and as a young boy he could see and talk with Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and his guardian angel. But even as a boy, St. Pio had to battle the devil and this continued throughout his life. Padre Pio was also ill most of his life, but his love of prayer and the Blessed Mother carried him though.

Padre Pio’s parents first learned of his desire to become a priest in 1897. A young Capuchin friar was canvassing the countryside seeking donations. Padre Pio was drawn to this spiritual man and told his parents, “I want to be a friar… with a beard.” At 15 years old, St. Pio entered into the Capuchin Order, where he studied to become a priest. On August 10, 1910, the twenty-three year old Fra Pio was ordained a priest and a day later celebrated his first Mass. When Padre Pio said mass, sometimes it would last for hours because he would experience a very deep love and union with God. What seemed like 5 minutes of prayer to him, would actually be hours! One day, about a month after being ordained, he was praying and Jesus and Mary appeared to him and gave him the wounds of Christ in his hands and feet, the stigmata. At first this was hard on St. Pio, because he didn’t want people to see the wounds or be afraid but soon after he accepted this special gift from God. Years later he received all 5 wounds of Christ, and claimed that the most painful was his right shoulder, where Jesus carried His Cross. Many people accused St Pio of faking this stigmata and this caused him unwanted attention and frustration, yet something more he could offer up to Jesus.

By the time Padre Pio was 33 yrs old, his piety and love of Jesus was very well known. People would travel from all over to attend mass or go to confession with St. Pio. It was reported that he could read souls in the confessional. St Pio had many extraordinary gifts and charisms including the gift of healing, bilocation, prophesy, miracles, discernment of spirits, the supernatural ability to go without food and sleep, the gift of tongues (the ability to speak and understand languages he had never studied), the ability to read souls, the gift to see angelic forms, and the sweet fragrance which came from his stigmata.

Padre Pio became a spiritual director and had many spiritual daughters and sons. He had five rules for spiritual growth: weekly confession, daily Communion, spiritual reading, meditation and examination of conscience. In explaining his spiritual growth rules, Padre Pio compared dusting a room, used or unused on a weekly basis, to weekly confession. He suggested two times of daily meditation and self-examination: in the morning to “prepare for battle” and in the evening to “purify your soul.” Padre Pio’s motto, “Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry” is his motto into daily life. A Christian should recognize God in everything, offering everything to Him saying, “Thy will be done”. In addition, all should aspire to heaven and put their trust in Him and not worry about what he is doing, as long as it is done with a desire to please God.

St. Pio life was filled with piety, service, and dedication. All his actions were for the Glory of God! He even founded the Home to Relieve Suffering. Pio calls it “a place that the patient might be led to recognize those working for his cure as God’s helpers, engaged in preparing the way for the intervention of grace.” On Sept. 23rd, 1968 at the age of 81, St. Padre Pio died, repeating his final words, JESUS, MARY, until his final breath. Pio was canonized by Saint John Paul the Great on June 16, 2002. Today, his grave in Italy is visited by 8 million pilgrims per year, second only to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine. St. Pio…pray for us!

Learn more about St Pio and check out this video!

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