Eucharistic Reflection - Listen To What God Says

"When you have received Holy Communion, rise up reverently, return to your place and kneel down; do not at once take your book or your beads. I do not like to see people begin to read as soon as they have come from the altar. 

Oh no, of what use are the words of men when it is the good God who speaks? We must be like someone who is curious and who listens at doors. We must listen to what the good God says at the door of our heart."

(From The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars)

Monday Musings - What Two Things Is The Devil Deathly Afraid Of?

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - October 31, 2024

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.

Father Jose Gonzalez

"Reflect upon the scenario in which you were supposed to receive a very large inheritance but were cheated out of it. How would you react? The right reaction would be to care more for the soul of the person who cheated you than to care about actually being cheated. A person who is fully detached from material possessions will care little about losing such an inheritance or gaining one. It will truly matter not. If that is hard to accept, know that this is a sign that your soul is too attached to the things of this world. Pray for freedom from all greed. That is the only way to obtain the true riches of God."

(From Daily Reflections - October 21, 2024)

 

St. Teresa of Calcutta

"How did Christ love us? He made Himself the Bread of Life. He made Himself a living bread that you and I may eat and live. He made himself so small, so weak, just bread to satisfy our hunger for God.” 

(From Kathy Snider He Comes in Grandeur and Humility published in the Oct 2024 issue of Restoration)

 

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D.

"Of course, technology itself is innocent. It is the worship of it, the idolization of it, that is evil. Adam tilling the garden was technology. Noah's ark was technology. Solomon's temple and Notre Dame Cathedral were technology. So was Cain's rock and the Roman art of crucifixion and the gas chambers in Auschwitz and the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

(From How to Destroy Western Civilization and Other Ideas from the Cultural Abyss)

 

 

 

Eucharistic Reflection - The Heaven of Our Souls

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

"He does not come down from Heaven each day to stay in the gold ciborium. He comes down to find another Heaven He cherishes infinitely more than the first, the Heaven of our souls, made in His image, living temples of the Most Blessed Trinity!"

St. Therese of Lisieux 

Monday Musings - Going to the Well

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

A few nights ago, several of us got together online to engage in an informal Lectio Divina exercise. Let me share a bit of that experience with you.

The moderator chose the well-known story of the Samaritan woman at the well - a passage most of us have read many times (see John:4:7-26).  

The exercise prompted these thoughts:

“How often I have been unwilling to come to the well, to ask for the spiritual nourishment I so deeply need.

How foolish it would be for me to now offer Jesus excuses as to why I had not come to Him. He knows!

I was afraid to ask for that living water – afraid I would be unwilling to drink the cup He would give me.

For a fleeting second, I then recalled the few times in my life where I did drink gluttonously of that living water and relived the amazing things God did in, and through me, when I simply did as He had asked.”

Later in the session, our spiritual adviser emphasized that our Lord never seeks or desires for us to grovel at His feet. He wants to liberate us from fear and sin.  

“God speaks to all of us,” Father stated. "Do we listen to Him?”   He continued: “The hour to listen to Him is now. Say “yes” to Him and He will come rushing into your heart."

Then He left this gem for us to ponder and live:

“We must know God as Love – Love is Who He is!”

Eucharistic Reflection - Indifference To Holy Communion

"You who only communicate rarely are like someone between two sleeps. You know that Jesus Christ is truly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that this food is absolutely necessary for your poor soul. Nevertheless, one sees in you little desire. There are long intervals between your

Confessions and Communions.

You decide to go because of a great feast or a jubilee or a mission, or because others are going, and not because your poor soul needs it. Not only do you not try to merit this happiness, but you do not even envy those who taste it more often. Thus you imitate the Jews. 

They are reproached for refusing shelter to Jesus Christ on the first Christmas night although they did not know Him. You treat Him with the same discourtesy, you who neglect to receive Him into your hearts in Holy Communion. 

Do not forget that at the Particular Judgment Jesus Christ will judge us on all the good we could have done. He will show you all the sacraments that you could have received during your life. How many more times you could have received His Body and His Blood if you had wished to lead a better life. Ah, great God!" 

(From The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars)

Monday Musings - A Catholic Blogger's Prayer

 

“Lord my mind and heart, I believe, are in the right place. Make sure, Lord, that my keyboard is there as well.”

A Catholic Blogger’s Prayer