Padre Pio to Raffaelina Cerase, June 24, 1915: Let us turn our thoughts to heaven, our true home—earth is only its shadow. May the reasons of faith and the comfort of Christian hope always sustain you in your suffering, and as you remember these, the bitterness of your trial will be sweetened by the heavenly Father with the balm of his goodness and mercy. In addition to the goodness and mercy of the heavenly Father,… faith counsels us and spurs us on to have recourse to insistent but humble prayer with the firm hope of being heard, confident in the promise the divine Master gives us: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will opened to you” [Matthew 7:7], and, “If you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name” [John 16:23].
Yes, let us pray, let us always pray in the serenity of our faith and with tranquility of soul.
—from the book Padre Pio’s Spiritual Direction for Every Day
by Gianluigi Pasquale and Marsha Daigle-Williamson, Ph.D
