Pondering Tidbits of Truth - March 13, 2014

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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.

Jose Orlandis

"A Christianity from which we tried to remove the cross of voluntary mortification and penance under the pretext that these practices are the remains of the dark Ages or of an outworn Medieval era, quite inappropriate for a modern Humanistic Age, would be an insipid Christianity, a Christianity in name only. It would not have kept intact the doctrine of the Gospels, nor would it serve to induce men to follow in Christ's footsteps."

(From The Eight Beatitudes) 

Blessed John XXIII

"All the evils which poison men and nations and trouble so many hearts have a single cause and a single source: ignorance of truth - and at times even more than ignorance, a contempt for truth and a reckless rejection of it."

(From Encyclical Ad Petri Cathedram)

St. Alphonsus Liguori

"My soul looks up at the Jesus [on the cross] who is now going to die. Look at those eyes growing dim, that face grown pale, that heart which is beating with languid pulse, that body which is now abandoning itself to death; and look at that beautiful soul which is just on the point of forsaking that sacred body. The heavens are darkened, the earth trembles, the sepulchers are opened; signs now that the maker of the world is about to die."

(From The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ)