Stay with Me, Lord: 30 Days with Padre Pio (Great Spiritual Teachers)

Discover the timeless spiritual counsel of Padre Pio―one of the most beloved and powerful spiritual guides of the twentieth century―whose life was profoundly marked by intense suffering and extraordinary union with Christ. Stay with Me, Lord, the newest book in the Great Spiritual Teachers series, offers a month of daily readings that draw you into Padre Pio’s prayer of intimacy, dependence, and surrender.

At the heart of Padre Pio’s devotion was a single, piercing longing: that Christ would never leave him. This longing gave rise to his powerful post-Communion prayer, “Stay with Me, Lord”―the heartfelt plea of a soul that could not imagine separation from its Savior. It is a prayer of dependence, intimacy, and trust, and a window into Padre Pio’s very heart.

Stay with Me, Lord invites you to make this prayer your own and to discover how uniting your suffering with Christ can become a path to deeper love, healing, and holiness. Padre Pio reminds us that “when we suffer, Jesus is closer to us”―a truth that offers hope in every season of life.

Each day features a brief morning meditation drawn from Padre Pio’s own writings, a simple mantra for use throughout the day, and an evening prayer to focus your thoughts as the day ends. This easy-to-use format is designed to help busy people pray in the footsteps of a great spiritual teacher.

Padre Pio’s enduring witness stirs our desire for closeness to Christ and shows that no suffering is ever wasted when it is entrusted to him.
 

“It is not uncommon for prayer to seem impossible. Let Padre Pio be your spiritual director! Pio was not only a spiritual master but a faithful priest, sought after for his deep devotion to being an instrument of Divine Mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He knew suffering in his own mind, body, and soul and in his fellow traveling humans. This book is one for our day. The time is now to start praying, knowing it is often the greatest and most practical action we can take in the face of the overwhelming.” -- Kathryn Jean Lopez, Religion editor of National Review magazine, Senior fellow at the National Review Institute

“People see the miracles of Padre Pio, but he was purified by trials, rejected by his own, and misunderstood by many. He overcame these daily trials by repeating the humble plea ‘Stay with me, Lord.’ His heart was a burning furnace of love. If you struggle―falling again and again―yet deeply ache for your heart to burn with that same divine love, Padre Pio can help. Through his intimate letters in this book, he speaks directly to that longing: a flame of living love that invades the soul, burns away distractions and illusions, and leaves us desiring God even more intensely. Padre Pio's witness shows that even in weakness, dryness, or repeated stumbles, the Lord’s gentle fire purifies, delights, and draws us closer. Let these thirty days of reflections, prayers, and Padre Pio's own words accompany you: Stay with him, and watch your heart slowly catch fire." --Fr. Agustino Torres, CFR, Founder of Corazón Puro