Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 12, 2015

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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.

  

Georges Chevrot

 “You are often mistaken when you say, 'I brought my children up wrongly', or 'I did not know how to do good to those around me.' What happens is that you have not achieved the result you were hoping for, that you do not yet see the fruit you would have wished for, because the harvest is not yet ripe. What does matter is that you have sown the seed, that you have given God to souls. When God wants, those souls will return to him. You may not be there to see it, but there will be others who will gather in what you have sown.'1 What matters is that Christ, on whose behalf we have made so much effort, will be beside us.

(From The Well of Life )

St. Thomas Aquinas 
 

"When the devil tempts us by way of suggestion, the suggestion arises from those things towards which one is inclined. And so the devil does not immediately tempt the spiritual person to grave sins; but he begins little by little with lighter sins, so as to lead him shortly to the more serious sins."

(From  http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/WHADEVIL.HTM)

Father Federico Suarez

The priest who is enlightening the people by his homily knows that all his authority comes from his having been sent to carry out a mission. He knows he has no authority in his own right. It is only because, like his Master, he is a mediator between God and men that the Church sends him to preach the Gospel, the Good News of salvation. He knows that, as Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, God wills that all men should be saved, and be led to recognize the truth (1 Tim 2:4). So the truth, that is to say, the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church, is what he has to preach in the homily.

His business is with what needs to be taught for salvation, not with his own personal opinions or with opinions of this or that theologian, however famous or intellectually gifted. However brilliant someone may be, his opinions are no more than those of a man speaking, and the words of men have no power to save souls. Even less should a priest think of using the homily to talk about economics, or sociology, or politics, including national politics.  Apart from the fact that his priestly training has not made him an expert on any of these matters, he has a very serious responsibility to serve the Church and make the right use of the authority given to him. It is wrong for him to attempt to indoctrinate his listeners in temporal matters outside the scope of his ministry. As the Second Vatican Council states: the task of priests is not to teach their own wisdom, but God's word (Presbyterorum Ordinis).

 (From The Sacrifice of the Altar)