Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

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.   Full disclosur e: This week’s post differs from what you ordinarily find here in that its three thought-provoking quotations come from books I compiled, edited and published. The Catholic Writer’s Guild issued its Seal of Approval to each of the three books from which the following material was excerpted. They are cited here, not to promote myself, but in hopes that something you read will touch your heart and stir your soul.    Mr. Michael Seagriff, O.P. “Our God does not need any of us, not even for a millisecond. Yet, as Jesus hung from the cross more than 2000 years ago, He let us know He was thirsty – not a physical thirst - but an unquenchable spiritual thirst as our Lord, Savior and Redeemer to be loved by those He created and for whose eternal benefit He died. In the ensuing centuries, not enough of us have made suf...

  It means being in the presence of Jesus Himself. Really, actually—not just thinking about Him, or even praying to Him, which I can do anywhere. Jesus is really right there in the same place as I am—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. I have had the privilege of being in His presence in a very small chapel, where it literally was just me and Him! Nothing extraordinary happened. No special feelings or revelations. Just Jesus and me. There was, once, an occasion when I felt that Jesus actually spoke to me in words. It certainly seemed like that. I was on retreat and woke up in the middle of the night. I had a choice of going back to bed or getting up and going to the Eucharistic chapel where Jesus was, in the monstrance, waiting. I went there and that’s when I thought I heard Him tell me to go to a certain priest for spiritual direction. I followed through and have been blessed by this kind and understanding priest ever since.    On another occasion when I was on retrea...

 

"Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the most tender of friends with souls who seek to please Him. His goodness knows how to proportion itself to the smallest of His creatures as to the greatest of them. Be not afraid then in your solitary conversations, to tell Him of your miseries, fears, worries, of those who are dear to you, of your projects, and of your hopes. Do so with confidence and with an open heart.” ( St. Damien of Molokai)  

 

Dearest Lord Jesus! You are present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist, we know.  Sometimes, as in the miracle You granted us in Bordeaux, France in 1822, You appear as a person, blessing the faithful.  Sometimes, as in Chirattakonam, India, in 2001, You appear as an image.  Particularly poignant to me are the miracles in which the Eucharist becomes a piece of flesh.  I’m thinking specifically of the 1996 miracle in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since this was obviously a miracle — You allowed the Host to turn into flesh and stay uncorrupted for 3 years in the Tabernacle—then Cardinal Bergoglio allowed a sample to be sent to a doctor without sharing any information with the doctor about the source of the sample.   The doctor, a cardiologist/forensic pathologist, was disturbed by the fact that the sample was a piece of heart muscle that belonged to a living person when taken, and that this person had been beaten about the chest (as evidenced by...

“If a man is ever to enjoy communion with Christ, so as to have the blood of God running in his veins and the spirit of God's throbbing in his soul, he must die to the lower life of the flesh. He must be born again… And hence the lore of Calvary is the lore of every Christian: unless there is the cross there will never be the resurrection, unless there is the defeat of the Calvary there will never be the victory of Easter, unless there are the nails there will never be the glorious wounds, unless there is the garment of scorn there will never be the robes blazing like the sun,   unless there is the crown of thorns there will never be the halo of light...for the law laid down at the beginning of time which shall be effective until time shall be no more, is that no one shall be crowned unless he has struggled and overcome." (Ven. Fulton J. Sheen from The Moral Universe )