There is something extraordinary about watching a saint ask a saint for help.
When Karol Wojtyła, the man who would become St. John Paul II, was a young bishop, he sought out Padre Pio in confession. That encounter left a mark that lasted a lifetime. Padre Pio, the humble Capuchin friar who bore the stigmata for fifty years, became for John Paul II a source of intercession, someone he turned to when the weight of the Cross pressed hardest.
John Paul II would carry his own cross publicly: the assassination attempt of 1981, the long years of Parkinson’s disease, the slow diminishment of his body while his spirit remained fierce. He did not retreat from suffering. He offered it. And in doing so, he often called upon Padre Pio.
A Prayer to Padre Pio for Strength in Suffering
Inspired by the devotion of St. John Paul II
O St. Padre Pio, you who carried in your flesh the wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ, look upon me in my suffering. I do not ask that my cross be lifted, but that I may carry it as you did, with faith, with patience, and with love. Teach me to see in my pain not punishment but participation, not abandonment but union with the Crucified One. Intercede for me before the throne of God, that I may be strengthened in body and soul, and that this suffering may be transformed into something holy. Through your wounds and His wounds, may I find my way to the resurrection. Amen.
Why These Two Saints Belong Together
Padre Pio bore the stigmata from 1918 until three days before his death in 1968. For half a century, he prayed over those wounds every day, treating them as a vocation rather than a spectacle. He understood suffering from the inside, and so he had a particular tenderness for those who suffered.
John Paul II understood this. He wrote in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, one of the most beautiful documents ever written on human suffering, that suffering holds more than endurance can offer. When joined to the redemptive suffering of Christ, it becomes creative. It generates grace.
“In the body of Christ, which is constantly born of the Cross of the Redeemer, it is precisely suffering permeated by the spirit of Christ’s sacrifice that is the irreplaceable mediator and author of the good things which are indispensable for the world’s salvation.” (Salvifici Doloris, §27)
The claim is audacious: your suffering matters. When offered to God in union with Christ, it participates in the salvation of the world.
When You Are in the Dark
Not every moment of suffering feels like union with Christ. Some days it feels like absence, as if God has looked away.
In those moments, it helps to reach toward someone who knows the terrain. Padre Pio lived there. He endured spiritual darkness, physical torment, and decades of suspicion from his own superiors. He did not leave. He prayed. He confessed. He celebrated Mass. He offered.
John Paul II pointed to this again and again: the saints are not distant ideals. They are companions. They have walked the road ahead of us, and they turn back to offer their hand.
An Invitation
If you are suffering today, whether from illness, grief, betrayal, or simply the grinding weight of ordinary life, you are not alone.
Pray this prayer. Ask Padre Pio to intercede. Ask John Paul II, now himself a saint in glory, to walk beside you.
The Cross was not the end of the story. It never is.
“Do not be afraid.” – St. John Paul II
Speak, in charity.