“Let your whole life be spent in self-surrender, in prayer, in work, in humility, in giving thanks to our good God.”
—letter to Annita Rodote, February 6, 1915
“I don’t have time,” is a familiar mantra for a lot of people. We bemoan the fact that we are too busy for any number of things—exercise, work, prayer. The reality is, though, that we do have the time, we just need to prioritize and schedule it. We tend to make the time for things that matter to us.
Padre Pio’s spiritual life was everything to him and everything he did contributed to it. He could have very easily taken some days off from waking early for prayer or cut his day in the confessional short, saying he was tired. But he never did. He made the time because it was important to him.
In that spirit, spend time reflecting on the things that truly matter and ways that you can devote more time to them. How can the nurturing of your spirit help in other parts of your life?
In Padre Pio’s Own Words
It is true that I have consecrated everything to Jesus and intend to suffer everything for his sake. But I am not convinced this is really the case. I am completely deprived of light, and that is enough to fill me with fear and dread and make me think that I am under the severe hand of divine justice….
My spirit is always fixed on God, and God is never absent from my mind.
However, the more I fix my eyes on him, the more aware I become that he is concealing himself within clouds that are like mists that rise from the dewy earth at sunrise.
The heavenly Father is still having me participate in the sufferings of his only-begotten Son, including physically. That suffering is so intense it cannot be described or imagined. I do not know whether it is through lack of strength or through some fault of my own that, when I am in that state, I cry involuntarily like a baby.
(To Fr. Benedetto of San Marco in Lamis, March 6, 1917)
Prayer
St. Pio, help us to focus on those things that matter the most in our lives.
Remind us to spend time on endeavors that will bring us closer to God.
