Pondering Tidbits of Truth - June 4, 2015

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 Federico Suarez 

"The Cross, then, is the great place of prayer, just as it is the great altar, the great monstrance, and the first tabernacle. It is not in vain that we are told to begin and end our prayers with the sign of the Cross."

(From The Sacrifice of the Mass)

Father Salvatore Canals

"Before wanting to make saints out of those people we love, we must make them happy and joyful, for nothing better prepares a soul for grace than joy.

You already know that when you have in your hands the hearts of those whom you wish to make better, if you are able to attract them through the meekness of Christ you have already gone halfway on your apostolic road. When they love you and trust you when they are content, the field is ready for the sowing. For their hearts are open like fertile ground, ready to receive the white grain of your word as an apostle or educator.

If you know how to speak without wounding although you may have to correct or reprimand, hearts will not close themselves to you. The seed will fall on truly fertile ground and the harvest will be plentiful. If things were otherwise your words would find, not an open heart, but a brick wall; your seed would not fall on fertile ground but 'on the side of the road' of indifference or distrust; or 'on the rocky ground' of a soul that is ill-disposed; or 'among the thorns' of a wounded and resentful heart.

We must never lose sight of the fact that our Lord has promised his effectiveness to friendly faces, to cordiality, good manners, and clear, persuasive words which direct and form without wounding. We should never forget that we are men relating to other men, even when what we want is to do good to souls. We are not angels. And therefore our appearance, our smile, our manners, are factors which condition the effectiveness of our apostolate"

(From Jesus As Friend)

Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O.

To the monk hidden behind high cloisters it is well-known that man as man is more than an economic unit, a political pawn, or a social being. He knows that man, in his innermost Essence, has a hunger for happiness, a desert-thirst for truth, a restless, relentless, insatiable gnawing for the beautiful. So in the face of the learned diagnoses of the professionals, the simple monk dares to say that modern man is suffering from a malignancy that may well cause his death; and he names it a nostalgia for God which has been brought on by an amnesia of the dignity of man. “

(From God, A Woman and The Way)