Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

  Thank you Allison Gingras  (Reconciled To You) and Elizabeth Riordan ( Theology Is A Verb) for another opportunity to re-publish our favorite posts on Worth Revisiting . Stop for a visit now (and every Wednesday). The gifted writers who post there each week will no doubt have much of value to offer you.   Monday Musings - Called To Action Not Silence  (Originally published on July 25, 2016) The Church's selective silence in the face of clear and unambiguous evil is impossible to reconcile with our moral obligations and the ageless wisdom of so many of our forbears in the Faith.  Why do our leaders hesitate for even a second to publicly and unrelentlessly oppose such evils as killing and harvesting of body parts for profit and continued funding of Planned Parenthood?  Why is there any delay in publicly correcting and reprimanding Catholic public figures who support  positions contra...

"You cannot be a follower of Jesus Christ if you have not met Him. If you have not met Him, ask Him for the grace, but do so only if you are ready, for this is a prayer that is always answered. If you have met Him, let that relationship grow so that it becomes so great a source of hope and fulfillment that it is more valuable and fulfilling than life itself. Then become His witness to the world.  (From a Homily on Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration presented at St. Matthew the Apostle Catholic Church)

We should have two goals in this life: to save our souls and the souls of all whom we know, love and meet. Nothing can be more important than this. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) While none of us should presume upon God's mercy, it is an eternal Gift which He offers to all His creatures who humble themselves and ask for it... How painful it is then for so many of us, when those we know and love and who have separated themselves from our loving and merciful God, refuse to  approach Him and give little or no concern to their eternal home. Few Saints cared more about the salvation of souls than St. Catherine of Siena, as evidenced by this excerpt from Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset: "Eternal Father, all things are possible for You. Although You created us without our assistance, You will not save us unless we help. Therefore, I pray You re-create their wills so that they wish for what they do not wish for: I ask this of Your infinite mercy. You have create...

Thank you Allison Gingras  (Reconciled To You) and Elizabeth Riordan ( Theology Is A Verb) for another opportunity to re-publish our favorite posts on Worth Revisiting . Stop for a visit now (and every Wednesday). The gifted writers who post there each week will no doubt have much of value to offer you.  I wanted to share this: Monday Musings - Stirring Up Souls (Originally posted August 31, 2015) Thank God for the gift of Father Mark at Vultus Christi !, who recently reminded us: “There is nothing…as compelling as the sight of a priest in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. In an age of locked churches, of churches opened only for ‘services’ … it is a rare thing. And yet, there is no more effective way of communicating to souls the truth about the Most Holy Eucharist.” (See his full post - When A Priest Adores here ) I certainly concur with the good Father and thank him for both translating and then sharing this ...

"Pope Benedict XVI said that when we look upon Christ in the Eucharist 'we enter into the very dynamic of His self-giving.' For that reason, adoration of the Eucharist, exposed to our view in the monstrance, is particularly important for us, and a particularly powerful encounter with the Lord. I often ask children to imagine walking by the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth. Children who love the Lord might remember that Jesus lives there, and make a gesture of reverence, or say a short prayer. But if we walked by the Lord’s house, and He was out on the porch, and we could look directly at Him, we would stop, and talk to Him, and know that He was hearing us, and talking to us. So it is with adoring Christ in the Eucharist, visible to us in the monstrance. We see Him, and we know that He sees us. We speak to Him, and we know that He hears us. When we adore Christ in the Eucharist, exposed in the monstrance, the Lord engages all of our senses, thro...

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) I found the following gem some time ago. As I travel to be with my suffering sister, I needed to rediscover and share these words of encouragement.  Obviously, Father Farrell's wisdom should be reflected not only in the lives of those blessed to be members of the Dominican family but among all who believe in a loving, forgiving and merciful Lord: "Let God tend to the hopeless-looking things. You are a Dominican, a foreigner to worry and quite a  close friend of gaiety...It seems to me quite entrancing to be able to pile into bed realizing there is someone as big as God to do all the worrying that has to be done.  Worry, you know, is a kind of reverence given to a situation because of its magnitude, how small it must be through God's eyes...You can't get everything done in a day, nor can you get any part of it done as well as it could be, or even as well as you would like, so like the rest of us, you putter at yo...

(Photo©Michael Seagriff) 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. Juan Donoso Cortes "Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight, and if the world is going from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers." (From The Soul of the Apostolate )

Thank you Allison Gingras  (Reconciled To You) and Elizabeth Riordan ( Theology Is A Verb) for another opportunity to re-publish our favorite posts on Worth Revisiting . Stop for a visit now (and every Wednesday). The gifted writers who post there each week will no doubt have much of value to offer you. [I decided to share an excerpt from my book,  Fleeting Glimpses of the Silly, Sentimental and Sublime .]    Is This The End?   Neither my wife nor I had ever driven across country. We were excited to do so since the prize awaiting us in Denver was an extended visit with our daughter Tammy and her husband. We planned a leisurely trip with no set schedule, driving as far or as little as we cared to do on any particular day. We gave no thought to weather conditions along our planned route, assuming the high blue sky and feather like clouds that had been with us from the outset of our journey would accompany us throughout our tri...

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) [Would not our world today be much different] “if all of us Catholics had acted always on the conviction that we are His members; that consequently our actions are Christ’s actions?... (Image source: Wikimedia Commons) You are more than a ciborium carrying the Christ within you; you are more than a monstrance whence His whiteness might shine out; you have been made Christ – you are much more like the Host which the ciborium and monstrance hold! ‘Your shining is to make known His Glory as He has revealed it in the features of Jesus Christ ’."   (From God, A Woman and the Way by Rev. M. Raymond, OCSO)

When we lose the sense of sin, when we fail to appreciate the eternal value of embracing suffering, when we no longer give any thought to making reparation for our sins and the sins of the world, evil triumphs and souls are lost: “We moderns shrink from pain; we shun all that can afflict body or mind. We have forgotten that we were saved by the Body’s agony and the Mind’s torture. We have forgotten that the problem of evil was solved by ropes, whips and thorns, by nails that were pounded through the flesh of God and by three hours of anguish such as no other human has or ever will know.  We have forgotten that pain has a sacred purpose; that all suffering can be and should be sublimated into Sacrifice – His Sacrifice. We have forgotten that we are Christians – members of a Body whose Head is thorn-crowned! We have forgotten that since there is sin, there must be suffering that will atone.” (From God, A Woman and the Way by Father M. Raymond, O.C.S.O.)