This has been edited; notes on that are at the bottom. Amongst the many devotees of St. Padre Pio, the “Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus” is a very popular prayer. Adherents are invited to recite it daily; during Pio’s life, it was to unite their prayers to him. Now that he’s in Heaven it is STILL to unite our prayers to him. We are not separated from the Church Triumphant. Those of us in the Church Militant are united with them in prayer. They are the ‘Great Cloud of Witnesses’ of whom St. Paul wrote about. 

This novena prayer was recited every day by Padre Pio for all those who asked for prayers.

The faithful are invited to recite it daily, so as to be spiritually united with the prayer of Padre Pio.

I say this prayer every day. I’ve known about it for years, but only developed the daily habit as a result on a monthly St. Padre Pio Healing Mass I used to attend. 

The prayer itself is in bold typeface, intentions in italics and my comments in regular typeface. These are typically my intentions and why I picked them. I am posting it on this Sacred Heart Friday so as to introduce it to you and perhaps how I pray it might help you in figuring out the intentions. For some reason during the early years of my saying this I struggled with what intentions to pray for. I ‘solved’ that by studying the actual words of the prayer and getting inspiration from them. 

I. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.” Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of [insert your intention.]  

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

My intentions are typically for “the grace of salvation for myself, my family, friends, loved ones, other people I have known or would like to have known, and people I will know.” My reasons are that since the prayer is about ‘knocking’ and ‘it will be open to you,’ I pray for salvation. I will be knocking on Heaven’s door someday and I want that opened to let me in! It is the one intention that God always answers. He wants us home with Him. If we want salvation, we will get it. It isn’t just ‘given,’ like we can go off and do whatever we want and then we’ll be saved. No, we get the ‘grace of salvation,’ those free helps from God, be they inspirations, or signal graces, or encouragements and consolations or some such indications as to His Will in our lives. We have to cooperate. On our deathbed these graces will hopefully overwhelm us as we battle Satan’s last attempts to snatch us from Heaven’s grasp. Which leads us to…

II. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, if you ask any thing of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.” Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of [insert your intention.] 

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

I ask for “the grace of final perseverance, for myself, my family, friends, loved ones, other people I have known or would like to have known, and people I will know.’’ Satan knows his last chance to get you is when you’re at your final hour. He spares no effort. It doesn’t really matter if you’re someone famous and important or just a nobody. Every soul that he can keep from Heaven’s glory is a victory for him. My reasons for this intention is that since it invokes calling on ‘the Name’ of Jesus, you are calling upon the authority of Jesus to keep the demons from harassing you at death. Whenever we pray ‘in Jesus’ Name,’ we are submitting the prayer to the authority of Jesus. If it is His will, it will happen. If it isn’t, then it won’t.

III. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” Encouraged by your infallible words I now ask for the grace of [insert your intention.] 

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

In this part I pray for ‘the grace to die in the arms of Holy Mother Church, with the Sacraments.’ I desire the Anointing of the Sick (‘Last Rites’) and Viaticum. To be able to confess my sins to a priest and receive Holy Communion (‘Bread for the Journey.’) Since the invocation is about ‘words’ and words re used in administering the sacraments, that was my clue for this one. 

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender mother and ours.

Say the Hail, Holy Queen and add: St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.

 So that’s it. That’s the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by St. Padre Pio and how I say it. You can use my intentions once in a while or  just offer up your own. I just ‘had to get this out there’ and explain how I use it. 

EDITED: I have edited this on July 29, 2024 to update the intentions. I made some additional wording for the first two: “for myself, my family, friends, loved ones, other people I have known or would like to have known, and people I will know.” Instead of just myself, I include all of these others. The “family, friends, loved ones” are obvious. But I chose to include “other people I have known,” which takes in just very casual relationships from whatever situations we found ourselves in (work, apartment building, public commutes) as well as enemies. The “would like to have known” refers to people that I briefly came into contact with, but for a variety of reasons, any potential relationship was interrupted. Many of these individuals still inhabit a portion of my mind, however briefly we crossed paths. The “people I will know” is also obvious, but there’s a chance I may still be around for another few years or even decades, and there are still people ahead of me on life’s path. There’s no reason why I should wait until we meet before I begin to pray for them. 

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