Eucharistic Reflection – Don’t Ever Be A Hissing Candle



 

(Adoration Chapel-St. Agatha's)

“But anyone who would approach this gracious sacrament while guilty of deadly sin would receive no grace from it, even though such a person would really be receiving Me as I am, wholly God, wholly human. But do you know the situation of the soul who receives the sacrament unworthily? She is like a candle that has been doused with water and only hisses when it is brought under the fire. The flame no more than touches it but it goes out and nothing remains but smoke. Just so, this soul brings the candle she received in holy baptism and throws the water of sin over it, a water that drenches the wick of baptismal grace that is meant to bear the light. And unless she dries the wick out with the fire of true contrition by confessing her sin, she will physically receive the light when she approaches the table of the altar, but she will not receive it into her spirit. 

If the soul is not disposed as she should be for so great a mystery, this true light will not graciously remain in her but will depart, leaving her more confounded, more darksome, and more deeply in sin. She will have gained nothing from this sacrament but the hissing of remorse, not because of any defect in the light (for nothing can impair it) but because of the water it encountered in the soul, the water that so drenched her love that she could not receive this light.”

(God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue)

Sunday Snippets - June 15, 2013

It's Sunday.  Come join a dedicated group of Catholic bloggers at RAnn's place where you are sure to find something that will speak to your heart and touch your soul.

 

Here are my offerings:

 

Monday Musings - Does This Make Any Sense to You? A Punch to the Gut

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Eucharistic Reflection - Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament

(Source: Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament)

"Mary devoted herself exclusively to the Eucharistic Glory of Jesus. She knew that it was the desire of the Eternal Father to make the Eucharist known, loved and served by all men; that need of Jesus’ Heart was to communicate to all men His gifts of grace and glory. She knew, too, that it was the mission of the Holy Spirit to extend and perfect in the hearts of men, the reign of Jesus Christ, and that the Church had been founded only to give Jesus to the world.

All Mary’s desire, then, was to make Him known in His Sacrament. Her intense love for Jesus felt the need of expanding in this way, of consecrating itself - as a kind of relief, as it were - because of her own inability to glorify Him as much as she desired.

Monday Musings - Does This Make Any Sense to You? - A Punch to the Gut

Yesterday, in a small upstate Village in New York State, thousands of adoring and appreciative boxing fans came out to cheer and pay tribute to several boxing legends and a well-known national actress who processed and paraded through the Village’s streets.

Months of preparation went into this annual event. Many came several hours before the parade began in order to stake claim to prime viewing positions. This weekend event attracts national television and media coverage, as well as visitors from all parts of this nation and even from some foreign countries – assembled to publicly honor and pay homage to men and women who made a living by physically pummeling each other. They certainly have the right to do so.

This acclaimed group of human celebrities paraded right past the local Catholic Church, where the only Divine Person deserving of such public acclamation and worship remained locked in a tabernacle, ignored, unappreciated and alone.

Last week we Catholics celebrated the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We were and have been encouraged for centuries to take Him out of the locked tabernacles in our churches on this feast day and to honor and adore the King of King and Lord of Lords, by publicly processing and carrying Him onto and over the streets of our cities, towns and villages. Few, so very few, parishes were or have been willing to do so. How can that be?

I guess we value those who punch each other with their hands more than He Who allowed Himself to be pummeled, crucified and killed out of love for us.

Doesn’t seem right to me.

 

Sunday Snippets - June 9, 2013

It's Sunday (well to be perfectly honest it is actually Saturday night)and time to join an interesting group of Catholic bloggers at RAnn's place where you are sure to find something that will speak to your heart and soul. Take a few minutes and visit!

 

 

Just got back from a Day of Reflection and will be leaving in the early morning for a vacation with my bride. Published my new e-book last week (Fleeting Glimpses of the Silly, Sentimental and Sublime) and spent the week getting another ready.

I have one post that I would like to share with you today:

Pondering Tidbits of Truth -June 6, 2013

Flowers have been awesome this year haven't they?

Prayer to the Sacred Heart

St. Gertrude offers us a great prayer on this feast day of The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:

(Sacred Heart Parish, Winchester, VA)

Prayer to the Sacred Heart

Hail! O Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and quickening source of eternal life, infinite treasure of the Divinity, and burning furnace of divine love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary, O my amiable Savior. Consume my heart with that burning fire with which Yours is ever inflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Your love, and let my heart be so united with Yours, that our wills may be one, and mine in all things, be conformed to Yours. May Your Your divine will be equally the standard and rule of all my desires and of all my actions. Amen.

Pondering Tidbits of Truth

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.

Pope Francis

Paul is a nuisance; he is a man, who with his preaching, his work, his attitude, irritates others, because testifying to Jesus Christ and the proclamation of Jesus Christ makes us uncomfortable, it threatens our comfort zones – even Christian comfort zones, right? It irritates us. The Lord always wants us to move forward, forward, forward – not to take refuge in a quiet life, or in cozy structures, no? And Paul, in preaching of the Lord, was a nuisance. But he had deep within him that most Christian of attitudes: Apostolic zeal.” 

(Homily – May 16, 2013)

 

St. Thomas Aquinas

“Man needs to know two things: the glory of God and the punishment of Hell. For through being drawn by His glory and terrified by His punishments, men are careful on their own account and refrain from sin.” 

(The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom edited by Father John A. Hardon, S.J.)

 

St. Pius X

"Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants.”

(Notre Charge Apostolique)