Pondering Tidbits of Truth - April 9, 2015



(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

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.




Monsignor Ronald A. Knox

"When you have a lot of people singing without any organ accompaniment, there is a constant tendency for the note to drop all the time; it gets lower and lower as it goes on. And therefore, when the choir isn't accustomed to sing­ing without accompaniment, every now and then the choir­master, who has a pitch-pipe concealed on his person, gives a little 'toot' in the background, to remind them of the higher note which they ought to be taking and aren't.

And, you see, we are rather like that We go on living from day to day without thinking much about how we are living, or what we are here for, or whether the things that chiefly interest us are really worth living for; and we get accustomed to our sins, and feel vaguely that it is a pity we go on committing them, but after all, there doesn't seem to be much chance of our stopping; and our prayers get very languid and washed out, and we think of very little except our food and our amusements - do you see what I mean? All the time, the note on which our lives are lived is drop­ping dropping, till it's ready to die away into our boots, and we don't notice, just as the choir doesn't notice when the note drops. So we want that sudden little 'toot' of the pitch- pipe, to pull us together and screw the note of our lives up again. And the pitch-pipe we use ... is meditation on Our Lord's Passion.”

(From A Retreat for Lay People)



St. Catherine of Siena

“I have no doubt that if you turn your understanding's eye to look at yourself and realize that you are not, you will discover with what blazing love your being has been given you. I tell you, your heart and affection will not be able to keep from exploding for love. Selfishness will not be able to live there. You will seek yourself not for your own sake, for your own advantage, but for God's honor. You will seek your neighbors not for your own sake, your own advantage, but will love them and long for their salvation for the praise and glory of God's name. For you will see that God loves people above all else, and this is why, God's servants love other people so much —because they see that the Creator loves them above all else. I love what the person I love loves; that's the nature of love. God's servants, I say, love God not for their own sake but because God is supreme eternal Goodness and deserves to be loved.”

(From The Letters of St, Catherine of Siena, Vol. II, Suzanne Noffke, O.P., Tr.)



Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

"He did at the marriage  feast, what He would not  do in the desert: He worked in the full glaze of men, what He refused do before Satan. Satan asked. Him to turn stones into bread, in order that He might, be an economic Messiah; His Mother asked Him to change, water into wine that He might begin 'His Hour' of Redemption. Satan tempted Him from death; Mary 'tempted Him’ to death. Satan would lead Him from the Cross; Mary sent on His way. Later on. He would take hold 'of the bread' that Satan said men needed, and the wine which His Mother said the guests needed, and would change them both into the memorial of His Passion and His Death, then he would ask that men renew that memorial, even 'unto the consummation of the world.' The antiphon of His life continues to ring; everyone else came into the world to live; He came into the world to die.”

(From The Life of Christ)

Comments

  1. Michael, thank you so much for these quotes. I loved the one from Ronald Knox because it is the antidote to the spiritual weariness we are all tempted to, especially when we are in protracted battles with health, daily life issues, etc. We all need a way to retreat into prayer daily under the guidance of spiritual masters. Knox and Sheen are two beautiful priestly guides of our recent era. I am not excluding greats from other times from the Church Fathers and Doctors onward, just that Knox and Sheen confront us from our own concrete and steel abodes with the noise of man-made machines and constant intrusions of airwaves, microwaves, and other invisible carriers of mostly useless information. Keep up the good work!

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  2. Any value my blog has is not due to me but He Whom we try to serve. Oh, there is so much spiritual treasure yet we settle for junk. God is changing that as we type...God bless Barb!

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