Prayer is the breathing of our soul

Transcribed from the recording and lightly cleaned for reading — false starts removed, proper names and Scripture references restored. Nothing has been added or reordered. The quotations he reads from his laptop follow the wording on Saints Quotes.

Quotes on prayer

How are you doing, folks? Today I have a different device. Instead of starting with a song and with my guitar, I want to start with this device here, which is a computer. I have put down a few of the quotes that I have on my website on the subject we’re going to talk about today, and that is prayer.

So I’m going to start by quoting St. John Paul II, who says: “A man is worth as much as he prays.”

St. Teresa of Ávila said: “He who does not pray sooner or later becomes an animal.” St. Teresa of Ávila said: “He who does not pray throws himself into hell without the help of demons.”

St. Augustine said: “He who prays stops sinning, and he who sins stops praying.” St. Alphonsus Liguori said: “He who prays is saved; he who does not pray is condemned.”

Our Lady of La Salette, in her apparition, said: “When one does not pray, the devil takes over the mind.” St. John Vianney said: “Penance is as important for the body as prayer is for the soul.”

Then we have a phrase from a blessed — he’s not a saint — Blessed Joseph Allamano. He said: “Heresies are not overthrown by much study, but by much prayer.” St. John Climacus said: “We will discover the power of prayer when the demons rise up to prevent us from praying.” St. John Chrysostom says: “There is nothing more powerful on the face of the earth than a man who prays. He becomes a participant in the power of God.”

Editor’s note: Joseph Allamano, founder of the Consolata Missionaries, was canonised by Pope Francis on 20 October 2024. He is now Saint Joseph Allamano.

St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina says: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” St. Augustine says: “Your prayer is your desire.” St. Pio of Pietrelcina also says: “There are two main reasons to pray with great satisfaction. First, to render to God the honour and glory that are due to Him. Second, to speak with Him and hear His voice through His inspirations and interior illuminations.”

St. Teresa of Ávila says: “The essential thing is not to think much, but to love much.” St. Bonaventure, this lovely Italian saint, says: “Personal morning prayer is the most important prayer of the day, because upon it depend the graces that will come for the rest of our day.” St. Alphonsus Liguori said: “The fire of Pentecost burns in our mental prayer.” St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus says: “Silence is a prayer.”

And then I have another few quotes that talk about devotion to Our Blessed Lady and to the Blessed Sacrament, devotion to Mass and the importance of attending.

The novena to Padre Pio

As you are aware, today we start a novena in honour of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. On the 23rd of September he is celebrated in the Church, and he is the only priest in the history of the Catholic Church who received the stigmata.

You may recall that St. Francis received the stigmata — in fact, on the 17th of September, this week, we remember it. During the time he used to pray St. Michael’s Lent, he received the stigmata, when he was there in his forty days of prayer. But St. Francis was never a priest. Padre Pio is the only one in the history of the Church who received the stigmata — the visible signs of Christ in his hands, in his heart and in his feet — and he kept those signs for fifty years. He’s a mystic. It’s impressive.

Nine months of prayer, and a fifth child

But today I wanted to continue the story that I ended in the last video, called Your life is starting now, where I went to Medjugorje and Our Lady told me those very words. I told you that I prayed for nine months, from the feast of the Annunciation, the 25th of March, to the 24th of December, just before Christmas, asking God for the grace of my matrimony and for Our Lady to give us the grace to be fertile.

And so we have four kids. My wife is pregnant, and we are waiting for the fifth child, who will be called Francesco in honour of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, because we received a relic of Padre Pio. I also received from my colleague at work a sort of plant that was in the place where he celebrated in Italy. She has this growing, and apparently when you get these pieces of the tree you’re supposed to cut them and share them with someone else. So she shared it with me, because I have a small statue of Padre Pio at my work and she knows I really like him. I’m really devoted to him.

So I got married in 2018, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. I came from a very bad life that I was living, and I struggled and I suffered — the addiction of sexuality, a filthy life that I was living — preparing myself to get married and receive such an amazing sacrament of the Church, which is a confirmation of your vocation in life to be parents. There was a lot of suffering. There were a lot of difficulties. But prayer — prayer with my future wife at the time, prayer with the Legion of Mary, prayer in Mass, prayer of the Holy Rosary, prayer through the Sacred Scriptures, prayer through the intercession of saints — prayer. That’s what kept me going. And that’s the only way for us to reach miracles.

Luke 18: the widow and the unjust judge

I prepared this to be a passage for this reflection. This is in the book of Luke — or better, in the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 18, verse 1:

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

This parable is just unbelievable. It starts in a way where most people miss the intention with which St. Luke wrote it. He says Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

Well, you heard all these quotes about prayer: that we either pray or we sin; that if we don’t pray we are condemned to hell without the help of demons — if we don’t pray, we are already condemned. And Jesus told this parable to say that we need to pray always, in every circumstance, on every occasion, no matter where. St. Paul even talks about it: I want the men, the community, to raise their hands and pray to God the Father in heaven, everywhere.

The breathing of the soul

And so prayer is crucial for our life. As we read, prayer is as important for the soul as penance is for the body. Our soul needs to breathe, and prayer is the way our soul breathes. A lot of people are suffocating. A lot of people are spiritually dead because they don’t pray — because they say decorated prayers, which are valid, but their heart is far away. While they’re praying, they’re thinking about other things. While they are praying, they are worried about other things. People go to Mass, but they’re thinking about things outside Mass. People say the Rosary, but they are thinking about other things that are more important to them than the Rosary itself.

And when Jesus visited the sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, He said that Mary had chosen the better part, the one that would not be taken from her: the time she spent at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him, praying.

And so Jesus told this parable about the widow who used to bother this judge. He didn’t grant her justice because he cared about God, or cared about her, or cared about people. He feared neither man nor God. He only listened to her, he only did her justice, so that she would stop bothering him. And this is the main thing in prayer. We need to be consistent. We must not lose heart, and we need to pray always, asking God for the things that we need. God wants us to say these prayers. God is waiting for us.

But sometimes we lose heart, because it seems that God is delaying, that things are not going to happen. St. Thérèse of Lisieux: God does not put a desire in our hearts — a dream in our hearts, rather — that He is not able to fulfil. So if this dream that we have in our hearts comes from God, He is able to fulfil it. But we need to do our part. We need to pray.

Mass, the Rosary, and the basics

And so I have tried, since I was baptised when I was fifteen, to keep my prayer life in order — in other words, to pray always. I learned from a sister — I always call her Sister, or Madre, but it’s St. Teresa of Calcutta — who said that the secret of prayer is to pray a lot.

Now, there are different types of prayer, but in my case Mass has always been the centre. Mass is the most important and the most powerful prayer that we can make. The Rosary is the second. And the others — spontaneous prayer or mental prayer, devotions, novenas, prayer with the Scriptures, all the other prayers — are obviously important. But if we don’t do the basics, how can we expect to do other things, extra things?

Tomás and Catarina

And so I was saying my Rosary, and we prayed this novena for nine months, and we got married on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the 8th of December 2018. And in December 2019 our first son was born, Tomás.

That was a big joy. I remember the day he was born. I had never lived such enthusiasm — I call it the most impactful physical experience that I have had. The moment I saw my son being born, there were like fireworks in my head, and my head started to spin, and it was like I was going in circles in my own body. It was such a special thing.

But in order to get there, I said a full Rosary. I prayed from the moment we went to the hospital at midnight — my wife didn’t sleep — until my son was born, thirteen hours later, at 1 p.m. If it wasn’t for prayer, I wouldn’t have been able to go through this. And it was such an immense joy when he was born. But the period when she was struggling, when she was suffering, when the baby wasn’t coming out, was very difficult. Prayer is what kept me going.

Then we had a second child, Catarina. Catarina was born on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, after whom we named our first son. And it was always prayer — before, during and after. I was here in Belfast when my daughter was born, and I was saying the Rosary.

Brazil, and Teresa

And there was a period in our life, during the Covid times — well, I told you that I was able to get my house in the south of Belfast. We were selling the house, because our family was growing — we were four by that time — and I got a sale agreed, but I didn’t have another house to move to. So my wife, because she’s very devoted to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, prayed a novena to St. Thérèse, asking for direction for us to do the right thing, to do what God wanted, and to get a response by Friday. And it was on the Friday of that week that I received a response from my work allowing me to move and work from Brazil.

So I got the offer to work from home, from Brazil, as everyone was working at that time. It was the end of 2020, 2021 — I mean 2021 to 2022, sorry — and we went to live in Brazil.

A lot of things happened there, and we were always praying, asking for God’s direction. She got pregnant again, and Teresa, who was named after St. Thérèse of Lisieux, was born on the 31st of December. We were praying through the difficulties of a young couple going through this challenge in life: to get married, to have kids, and to live a Catholic life. It was a very difficult pregnancy. My wife suffered a lot; there was a lot of sickness. Through prayer we endured, because sometimes our prayer needs to get us through the difficulties.

She was born, and my work was asking me to come back to Belfast, so I did. In March 2023 I came back. I was in Brazil for a year and two months. There were a lot of challenging moments back in Brazil, and it was only through prayer — not only my prayer, but my wife’s prayer, my kids’ prayer, our presence at Mass, our Rosary, the Scriptures. We used to have those — I don’t know what you call them — those things you kneel on to pray at home, like they have in church.

Glenavy: the desert

So we came back and found a place. We were living in Glenavy — for the first time here in Northern Ireland, out in the countryside. And then she got pregnant again, with Afonso, who was named after St. Alphonsus Liguori.

It was the worst period of our matrimony, the most difficult and challenging period that I have been through in my married life. A lot of things happened. There were a lot of physical, spiritual and mental difficulties, if you can put it that way. I was praying and asking Jesus to take the lead of my house. I was praying for Our Lady to guide me.

But you see, when you go through the dark night of the soul, as St. John of the Cross used to call it — the desert, where it seems your prayer is not being heard — there’s nothing really that you can do apart from waiting. It’s a season of waiting, when we’re going through the dark night of the soul.

But since we are vulnerable, there are a lot of temptations. And there’s one phrase I would like to quote now as well. St. Teresa of Ávila said that when you make spiritual progress — when you are praying and you are constant in your prayer — hell gathers and prepares to destroy you, to bring you down, because you’re bothering hell; because your holiness, as St. Pio would say, takes away the sins of the world. And so the devil plots against people who pray and make spiritual progress.

So there were a lot of things, and my marriage was in a very difficult situation. My wife wasn’t sleeping very much; there were my kids at home, my situation living in the countryside, my work. And so — you know — there was one day when I had the opportunity to speak to my friends in the Legion of Mary, and I asked them to pray for me, to pray for my family, to pray for what I was going through, because I was going through a period of desert. And I wasn’t, as the Word says, living in the Spirit. I was living in the flesh. I was trying to do God’s will.

Romans 7: the inner conflict

I will get this passage as well, because I think it’s very fitting. St. Paul confessed that he did this. It is Romans chapter 7, the inner conflict:

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

So this is the inner conflict: the fight between our human nature and our spiritual nature. But we need help. I think that’s the message here. When you’re going through this, you need to ask people to pray for you. You need to ask people to pray for your circumstances, so as not to lose heart and not to allow the devil to steal the graces that you have built.

Because if you have prayed, if you are doing God’s will, if you are striving for holiness, if you are willing to do what God asks of you, you are building your house — your foundations — on the rock, which is our Lord Jesus Christ. And the devil hates this. But he is not able to destroy your building when you are strong, when you are in the life of grace, when you are led by the Spirit, when you are doing what God wants you to do. He is going to come — he’s very patient — he’s going to come when you are vulnerable, when you are not as strong in prayer, when you’re hanging by a thread. But that thread can keep you going for a lot of days, a lot of weeks, a lot of months, and sometimes a lot of years. You need to keep that thread, the thread of grace.

Do not allow the devil to convince you that there is no coming back. There is. Even if you fall, even if you commit mortal sin, even if you break away from the life of grace, even if you go to the bottom of the well in mortal sin and you don’t know how to come back — there is a way back. The grace is there. The prayer that you make has an impact on the world.

And as the living Body of Christ, we as Church take on the graces. We benefit from the graces of other people, and we suffer together as well. So don’t you ever think that you are alone when you’re going through difficulties, struggles, sin. We have the Church Militant. We have the Church Triumphant, where we can rely on the prayers of the saints, of Our Lady, of St. Joseph. And we have the Church in purgatory, which can intercede for us as well. So there is a multitude, a variety of resources. But there is one thing that we cannot do, and that is give up.

Luke 6: can a blind person guide a blind person?

There is another passage that I left here, just to touch on, because when we are going through trials, tribulations and difficulties, we sort of get blind. And the worst thing we can do is ask someone who is also going through tribulations to give us guidance. We need someone that we trust. We need a group of people who pray — really pray — who can do penance, who can make sacrifices, who can offer up prayers, who can offer up Masses, who can offer up Rosaries, who can offer up novenas for your intentions. And Jesus also told this parable. It’s in the Gospel of St. Luke as well, chapter 6, verse 39:

He also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?”

So this is when you are in your difficulties, in your trials, and you ask someone who does not pray for advice. That’s the worst thing. We need to rely on people of faith. Our friends need to be striving for holiness in the same way. We need to have friends who are friends with Jesus as well: people who go to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, people who say the Rosary — people who say the full Rosary — priests, spiritual directors, intercessors in heaven, intercessors in purgatory, intercessors on earth. There are resources on YouTube and social media, but we need to filter them. We need to make sure they are Catholic. We need to make sure we trust them and that they know us.

And I think the main thing is love. People will really take on the duty to pray for you if they love your soul, if they love your family, if they love you. Without love, graces don’t happen, because people are going to say “I’m going to pray for you”, but they give up.

Afonso

And so, in this period of my life, the Legion of Mary was praying for me. A lot of people were praying for me. Friends back home in Brazil were praying for me. And the miracle happened, after what seemed like an eternity.

It was the most difficult pregnancy so far. My wife couldn’t sleep. She had a lot of pain in her back, and for about three or four months it was agony for her. I was there trying to help the way I could, but I was very weak. I was doing the best I could — looking after the house, working, and trying to keep things in their place.

And Afonso was born, and it was like a miracle. He was born in the sac — I think that’s what you call it. The waters broke at the moment he was born, but he was still born enveloped in the sac. And he’s just a great child. And now we’re waiting for the fifth child, Francesco, who is being named after Padre Pio.

You know, I received a special grace a few months ago, when I was able to look back on my history, from the moment I was born to today. And the thing that helped me through joy, sadness, vocation, spiritual life, work, finances, psychologically, mentally, was always prayer. My own prayer, my family’s prayer, my children’s prayer, my friends’ prayer; organisations like the Legion of Mary and their prayer; priests offering Masses, their sacrifice, their own lives given up for the Kingdom of God; novenas.

Two novenas to St. Joseph

I was renting a house when I got back, when I was living in Glenavy in 2023, and we were really struggling with financial difficulties — paying rent, living away from the city, and all these things. So as a family we said a novena to St. Joseph, asking his intercession for us to be able to buy a house. There was no way that this could happen. There was no way whatsoever.

I said a second novena to St. Joseph, and we came to see a house in Belfast on the feast of St. Joseph, in March. I was one hundred per cent sure that we were going to get this house, because it was exactly what we were praying for. Though we didn’t have the means to do so, St. Joseph opened a path in the darkness that we could not see. We got a sale agreed, and in October last year we moved to this house, which is here in the north of Belfast.

Just to sum up what I started to say — I digressed with buying my house — the fact that I, as a foreigner, came to this country and was able to buy a house a few years ago, sold the house, went to Brazil, came back to Belfast, went to Glenavy and then bought a house again: this is a miracle. This is impossible with human eyes. I could not have foreseen that at all; I didn’t expect to see it at all. But it was through God’s mercy, Our Lady’s intercession, and the people who were praying for me.

The final battle

So you see — what’s the point of getting things if you lose what is essential? The final battle will be about the family. And so you need to pray for your family. You need to pray to keep your family together, no matter what happens. You need to see His plan for humanity with God’s eyes.

The Holy Trinity is a family — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God — and He wants us to be a family as well. If your vocation is not to form a family and get married, your vocation is to be part of the family of the Church. If you are to be a priest, you are in the ministry, at the front of the family that follows you. And so we need to really pray. We need to really take this seriously.

Quotes to finish

And since I started like this, I’m going to finish like this: proposing that you pray Padre Pio’s novena, which starts today and goes until the 22nd, the day before his feast. And I will offer a few of the quotes to increase in your heart the desire to pray the Rosary and to see Holy Mass as the most powerful prayer that you can make. If you cannot go to Mass, get people to offer up Masses for your intentions.

So this is Pope Adrian VI. He says: “The Rosary is the scourge of demons.” Pope John XXIII said: “The Rosary is the most powerful prayer after the Holy Mass.” And Padre Pio said: “The Rosary is the weapon for these times.”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux said: “In dangers, in straits, in doubts, think of Mary, call upon Mary.” Padre Pio also said: “Invoke your Guardian Angel, for he will enlighten you and guide you on the path of God. God gave him to you. So use him.”

St. Augustine said: “Chastity is a gift that God gives only to those who ask for it.” St. John Climacus said: “Offer to the Lord the frailty of your nature, fully acknowledging your powerlessness, and without realizing it, you will receive the gift of chastity.”

And here is St. Teresa of Ávila talking about the Eucharist: “We must be in the presence of the Eucharistic Jesus as the angels in heaven are before the divine essence.” St. John Bosco, talking about adoration: “Do you want the Lord to give you many graces? Visit Him often. Do you want to receive few graces? Visit Him seldom. Do you want to overcome the devil? Take refuge at the feet of Jesus. Do you want the devil to overcome you? Do not visit Jesus!”

St. Josemaría said: “When you approach the tabernacle, think that He has been waiting for you for twenty centuries.” St. Louis de Montfort, talking about thanksgiving — the period of prayer after you receive Jesus in the Eucharist at Holy Mass: “I prefer half an hour of thanksgiving to an hour in heaven, because in heaven I will not be able to receive Communion.” Think about that.

And here are a few quotes about the Holy Mass. “He who is absent from Sunday Holy Mass has a reserved seat guaranteed in hell.” St. John Mary Vianney also said: “If we knew what the Holy Mass truly is, we would die of love.” St. Bonaventure said: “The Holy Mass is a work of God in which all the love He has for us is presented to us. In a certain way, it is the synthesis and sum of all the favours He has granted us.”

St. Lawrence Justinian said: “No human tongue can recount the favours that spring, as from a fountain, from the Sacrifice of the Mass: the sinner who is reconciled with God, the just who becomes more just, the faults that are cancelled, the vices that are eradicated, the virtues and merits that increase, the snares of the devil that are confounded.” And St. Thomas Aquinas: “The celebration of the Holy Mass is worth as much as the Death of Jesus on the Cross.”

And here is the phrase I mentioned before, from St. Teresa of Ávila: “When the devil sees a soul making spiritual progress, he summons all of hell to pull that soul from the presence of the Lord.” Remember this. When you are making some spiritual progress, hell hates you and the demons will come after you. But you have St. Michael the Archangel, you have the angels, you have Our Lady, you have St. Joseph, you have the Blood of Christ, you have the Holy Cross, which is being celebrated today, you have Padre Pio — you have a multitude of saints, of mystics, of graces, of resources at hand.

A living witness

That’s how I would like to finish today. I hope this is helpful to your life in some way. Prayer is at the core of the Catholic Church. Prayer is at the core of our lives.

And I am a living witness of it. Through prayer, through consecration to Our Lady — I was going to be aborted. I wasn’t. I was going to commit suicide. God found a path for me; I didn’t commit suicide. I was lost for so much time, in so many periods of my life. And it was through the prayer of people around me, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, through Christ’s friendship, through the Word of God, through the intercession of saints — St. Joseph, Padre Pio, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas.

And now, since my kids were named after them, out of this love and devotion, they are our intercessors, the saints we always pray to at home when we say the Rosary: St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and now Padre Pio, who was called Francesco Forgione. That’s why my son is going to be named after him.

Anyway, I hope this is useful for you, and that you may share it with other people, so that we can help each other through our prayer, through our connection with God, and share in this fountain of graces that comes to those who pray. Thank you very much, and God bless you.