Many are more willing to subject themselves to extremely painful and sometimes risky medical procedures in order to regain their physical health, but flee from the sufferings essential for the salvation of their souls.
"There are some people who go to Holy Communion to gain the esteem of the world. It avails them nothing. Others go out of habit. Poor Communions, they have not the right intention. Go to Communion to obey Jesus Christ, who has commanded you to do so, under pain of not having eternal life. Go to Communion to obtain the graces that you need, humility, patience, purity. Go to the Holy Table to unite yourself to Jesus Christ so that He will make of you other Christ’s, which happens to those who receive Him worthily. When you go to Holy Communion you should always have an intention, and say when about to receive the Body of Our Lord: 'O my good Father, who art in heaven, I offer you, at this moment, your dear Son, such as He was when He was taken down from the Cross, and laid in the arms of the Holy Virgin, and as she offered Him to You in sacrifice for us. I offer Him to You by the hands of Mary, to obtain such or such graces, faith, charity, humility.' My children, listen w
Pondering Tidbits of Truth i s my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time. St. Catherine of Siena "The wound in the side of Christ, the Precious Blood and the Pierced Heart were a constant preoccupation of St. Catherine of Siena. In a beautiful passage in one of her letters, she summarizes the inner meaning of these devotions: 'Place your lips to the side of the Son of God, for it is an opening which emits the fires of charity and pours forth its Blood to wash us from our iniquities. The soul which reposes there and looks with eyes of its soul on the Heart opened and consumed by love will be made comformable to Him, for seeing itself so much loved it cannot fail to love in return. That soul becomes perfect because what it loves it loves for God and it loves nothing outside of Him. In desire it becomes to Him another self, since is has no other will but that of God'. " (From Dominican Spirituality - Prin
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. Jesus to Saint Catherine of Siena “I require that you should love Me with the same love with which I love you. This indeed you cannot do, because I love you without being loved. All the love you have for Me you owe to Me, so that it is not of grace that you love Me, but because you ought to do so, while I love you of grace, and not because I owe you My love. Therefore to Me, in person, you cannot repay the love which I require of you, and I have placed you in the midst of your fellows, that you may do to them that which you cannot do to Me, that is to say, that you may love your neighbor of free grace, without expecting any return from him, and what you do to him, I count as done to Me, which My Truth showed forth when He said to Paul, My persecutor - 'Saul, Saul why persecute you Me?' This He said, judging that Paul persecuted Him in His
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ReplyDeleteYes. And since it comes from God and not ourselves, it is a great blessing for the salvation of souls.
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