Happy Feast of St. Padre Pio! and hello St. Therese!

"Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer."  - St. Padre Pio

Before another moment passes, let's conclude our novena to Padre Pio in honor of his feast and his many promises to care for us from Heaven:

O Saint Padre Pio, holy bearer of the Wounds of Christ, accept us this day as your spiritual sons and daughters and keep us always on the Little Way by your intercession. Do thou, O our Spiritual Father, stay there at the Gates of Heaven until all of your spiritual children have entered through, even and including us. We commend to you, too, all those dear to us, all who have asked our prayers, all for whom we have promised to pray, and all who need our prayers. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen.

Aah, now we can relax and celebrate!

Cupcakes are nice, but in case you don't have one near at hand (or even if you do have one in hand, if you find yourself so blessed), I was thinking of celebrating today by considering that awesome quote of our spiritual father's, the quote that shows up often and has so much to offer:

"Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer."

Have you found yourself worrying lately?
I have! And it is so silly!
Because one way or another, God Who is Love and Mercy Incarnate does always solve every difficulty. He loves us, and He awaits our smallest sighs in order to respond with the answers and solutions we need.

As I say, I've been worrying lately. More than usual, more than any circumstances could warrant, and enough to make me worry about my worrying. But time and again I find refuge in Marcel's Conversations to increase my confidence and remind myself of the message Padre Pio is telling us, for in the Conversations, Jesus (as well as Mary and Therese) are constantly returning to this theme of not worrying. Marcel was a worrier! And Jesus never tired of working to break him of the habit!

Just today, then, here is what I stumbled upon in the wee hours of Padre Pio's feast, when in the midst of my early worries, Jesus came to rescue me, as well as those (including you!) who stumble onto this post.

Jesus is speaking to Marcel and says:

"Do not worry any more, ever. . ."

Marcel replies:

"I do not understand why, I wish not to be troubled yet I always am. Yesterday, Jesus with the ginger beard [one of the Redemptorist missionary priests in Marcel's house] repeated what he had said the other day: 'When one has Mary for a true Mother, it is not appropriate to worry.' And after having heard these words my anxiety dissolved. Little Jesus, at such times, are You pleased with me?"

Our adorable Jesus answers:

"Yes, I am always pleased with you, because whatever concerns you in no way offends Me. However I have one fear; it is that if you worry excessively, you will end up being angry, even with Me . . . That is why I tell you that it is not appropriate to trouble yourself. Besides, everybody repeats the same thing to you: your Mother Mary, your sister Therese, and, if St. Alphonsus spoke to you, he would only tell you not to worry, since it is a useless thing to do and often even harmful. That is enough, little brother, go and rest; the time is up." (438)

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What a joy to hear Jesus anticipating Padre Pio, or as we might expect, discovering that St. Pio is echoing Jesus, when both of them tell us that worry is a useless thing to do!

Don't worry if your worry addiction is hard to break. There are many remedies proposed in Conversations. For today, in honor of Padre Pio and St. Therese - both of whom counsel us to replace worry with confidence in God - I want to offer you two of these remedies.

One which we shared in a recent post is Our Lady's wonderful antidote to offer our worries as so many sacrifices to help Jesus snatch souls from the Liar and fill His own net with more children. She says that even if our worry lasts the span of a second (mine unfortunately tend to last longer, but then again, the beauty is that this remedy applies to any and all worries, however short or long lived in our imaginations), we can say, "Little Jesus, I offer You this worry as a sacrifice," and then be at peace. Our Mama tells us this is even better than if we had never worried, because Jesus uses our offerings to save souls! It's so simple and direct:

"Little Jesus, I offer You this worry as a sacrifice!"

But today I found another help regarding worrying, and this one came soon after the passage quoted above where Jesus counsels, "Do you not worry any more, ever." The next day, which was Palm Sunday, 1946, Jesus went on to tell Marcel and us: 

"Are you very tired? All right, that's enough, try to rest. I love you dearly little brother and I gladly allow you to rest . . . However, although tired, do not be sad, agreed? Little brother, you are very sensitive; the slightest vexation causes you suffering. Offer all of it to Me. If you suffer in this way it is because of your weakness; do not trouble yourself about it, since it does not offend Me in any way. That's enough, take a rest. I am kissing you and I do not cease to hold you tightly in My arms on Mary's bosom." (441)

As I mentioned already, when we worry a lot, we can begin to worry about our worrying! Thanks be to God, He wants to reassure us that there is no need. Yes, we want more confidence and to worry less. Yes, we aren't seeing our progress in confidence and we seem to continue worrying ad infinitum. But "if you suffer in this way it is because of your weakness; do not trouble yourself about it," since it does not offend Jesus in any way!

And best of all, Our Savior offers an alternative. Instead of fretting about fretting, we can take a rest. He is kissing us and He doesn't cease holding us tightly in His loving arms, safe on Mary's lap, leaning into her maternal and Immaculate Heart.

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Enter St. Therese!
Where Marcel is, she is never far, but she comes now as her feast approaches, and she comes in particular to invite us to importune her with whatever worries Pio has not yet managed to shake from us!

More than worries, though, we can present to her the many petitions that come our way and spring from our own situations. While we are on this earth, there is suffering, and those in Heaven are very interested in helping to alleviate it. They love us like crazy and want to share God's infinite love with us.

What I find so awesome about Our Heavenly Father's providential dovetailing of St. Pio's feast (the day of his entrance into eternal life) and the opening of the novena to Therese (at least I like to start today, in order to say the last prayer on her October 1st feast) is that these saints, while so different, are so much alike!

They are different because Therese is a little girl and Padre Pio an old man. Because she lived hidden, and he lived famous. Because she strikes many as sentimental, and he strikes many as gruff and harsh. 

In truth they are two peas in a pod!
They were both madly in love with Jesus!
They both wanted to pour His love onto the whole world!
And they both promised to stay very near their spiritual children - namely those who called upon them and sought their help - until the last trumpet sounds. 

Finally, when they promised to stay very near, they had in mind (as Therese literally expressed it) "to come down!"

These are no distant saints! How ever many holy cards they grace (and praise God for holy cards!), Pio and Therese are not content to stay in the picture. They want to leap down from heaven and into your life in the most sensible - as in the 5 senses, as well as reasonable - ways. Both of them have signature scents, frequently of flowers, that their petitioners experience, not to mention Therese's shower of roses. They want to be completely close to us and they want us to know they are there!

I discovered, too, that Padre Pio was quite inspired by St. Therese. It turns out that while his bilocations were typically for the sake of those he went to comfort, heal, offer the sacraments, etc., there was one occasion on which he seemed to bilocate for his own joy. He was seen at Therese's canonization in Rome, despite his actually factually being in his monastery in San Giovanni Rotondo, which he never left! Yay Padre Pio for showing us what miracles and happiness our devotion to our sisters and brothers the Saints can bring about!

Let's do it then. Let's go with Padre Pio on his feast to ask his little sister Therese to join him in procuring all the miracles, favors, and graces we need from Jesus, and let's keep going with Pio to Therese throughout the next days until we are able to finish our novena to her on her feast.

I have a favorite prayer to her that I'll be saying with confidence and love for all your intentions. If you join in late, if you miss a day or days, if you can't seem to drum up a lot of confidence and find yourself instead mired in that useless worry - well no worries! We're praying for you: Marcel, Padre Pio, and I, and - the whole glory of the communion of saints - Therese herself will be praying with us and on account of us asking her. She who never refused God anything assures us that He cannot now refuse her anything, so ask away! Her specialty (like Pio's) is miracles procured from her darling best friend and spouse, Jesus, and she will procure them now for us!

With our guardian angels beside us, then, let's pray:

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus
Please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden
and send it to me as a message of love.

O Little Flower of Jesus,
please ask God to grant the favors
I now place with confidence in your hands . . . 

St. Therese, help us to always believe as you did,
in God’s great love for us,
so that we may imitate your “Little Way” each day.
Amen.

Draw us, we will run!

And happy feast of St. Pio! May he draw you closer than ever to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, relieve all your worries, and obtain from the Blessed Trinity the answer to all your prayers!