Pondering Tidbits of Truth - November 21,2013

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.

                     Frank Morriss

“Unfortunately, there is a tendency to think that the laity need only gather together and receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit. It is a situation readily open to that master of deceit – Satan, who can quite easily convince the foolish that he is indeed the holy spirit, when he is not even a holy spirit.”

(From Lumen Gentium: The Church of Our Time Looks at Herself)

St. John Chrysostom

“Zeal for the salvation of souls is of so great a merit before God, that to give up all our goods to the poor, or to spend our whole life in the exercises of all sorts of austerities cannot equal the merit of it. There is no service more agreeable to God than this one. To employ one's life in this blessed labor is more pleasing to the Divine Majesty than to suffer martyrdom. Would you not feel happy if you could spend large sums of money in corporal works of mercy? But know that he who labors for the salvation of souls does far more; nay, the zeal of souls is of far greater merit before God…than the working of miracles.”

St. Alphonsus de Liguori

“Our most loving Redeemer, on the last night of his life, knowing that the much-longed-for time had arrived on which He should die for the love of man, had not the heart to leave us alone in this valley of tears; but in order that He might not be separated from us even by death, He would leave us His whole self as food in the Sacrament of the Altar; giving us to understand by this that, having given us this gift of infinite worth, He could give us nothing further to prove his love: He loved them to the end.”

(From The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ)