Consider Your Ways

“Consider your ways!” Haggai 1:5

Today is the Feast Day of Padre Pio. He was my mother’s favorite saint and she always asked him to intercede for her concerns. After my father’s kidney stone operation, he was in very much pain, so my mom put her hand over his wounds, and asked for Padre Pio’s help. Immediately the pain subsided, and my father who is a Methodist and did not believe in the intercession of saints, asked her to continue praying over him. 

I was listening to a video of a man who knew Angelo, the great grandson of Padre Pio’s assistant for 25 years. Angelo grew up hearing his great grandfather tell amazing stories about the saint. One man came to visit Padre Pio and said, “Were you the priest...” and Padre Pio continued, “ in your dream? Yes.” The man had dreamed that he asked this priest for help for healing of his father, and his father was healed right away. 

Another story that Angelo remembers is about a woman who went to confession and Padre Pio turned her away after listening to her sins. “You have not confessed everything! Pray the rosary!” She came back a second time, and he turned her away again, “Basta! Pray some more!” The third time she came back for absolution, Padre Pio asked her to close her eyes, “What do you see?” She responded, “I see Jesus and a priest, but I do not know the priest.” Padre Pio then said that was because she had aborted him and he would have been a Pope! 

Padre Pio recommended an examination of conscience twice a day, in the morning to make us ready to face the day, and before we sleep at night. He said, “The person who meditates and turns his mind to God, who is the mirror of his soul, seeks to know his faults, tries to correct them, moderates his impulses, and puts his conscience in order." That is how we can consider our ways, and always be on God’s side.