Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 7, 2016

 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 Eugene Boylan, O.C.R.

"One of the reasons why men are so prone to praise one another, to overestimate their own value and abilities, to resent anything that tends to lower them in their own eyes or in the eyes of others, is that they see no hope for happiness outside themselves. That is why they are often so hyper-sensitive, so resentful when they are criticized, so upset by anyone who contradicts them, so insistent on getting their own way, so desirous of being well known, so anxious to be praised, so determined to control their surroundings. They secure themselves like a shipwrecked man holding on to a straw. And life goes on, and they move further and further away from happiness..."

(From This Tremendous Lover)

St. John Chrysostom

“What do you want us to do? Go up into the mountains and become monks? What you are saying makes me want to cry. You think that modesty and chastity are just for monks? No. Christ laid down common laws for all of us. And so, when He said: ‘everyone who looks at a woman lustfully’ (Matthew 5:28), He was not speaking to a monk, but to the man in the street…I do not forbid you to marry, nor do I forbid you to enjoy life. I only ask that you do this with temperance, not with impurity; not with countless ins. I do not lay it down as a law that you go into the mountains and out into the deserts. I want you to be good, modest and chaste even though you are in the middle of the world.”

(From Homilies on St. Matthew’s Gospel)

Father Francis Wendell, O.P.

"We live in a secularist society. Stated that bluntly it means very little. Actually the implications are tremendous. St. Dominic, were he introduced to our society, would be amazed and aghast at the things that are commonplace today. God was a reality in the lives of the people of his age; for us God had become either a myth or has been relegated to the position of a peculiar old relative who is kept more or less hidden away upstairs."

(From Spiritual Powerhouse)