Worth Revisiting - Cold As Death

We thank Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for  hosting Catholic bloggers at Revisiting Wednesday. 

It is a privilege for us to share our work with them and their followers.

Stop by for a visit now. 

[40 Days For Life's Fall campaign launches tomorrow. This is an event worthy of, and in need of, your participation. I thought I would share a reflection I wrote nearly four years ago.]

Cold As Death

(Originally published on February 21, 2013)

Yesterday was abortion day at our local Planned Parenthood center. Three of us were outside praying for the staff, the parents and the unsuspecting children encased in their mothers’ wombs.

It was bitterly cold. In fact, this is the first time over the past four years when I ever felt cold enough to wear a hooded sweatshirt and gloves. But it was not just the physical cold and wind that was bothersome. It was the pervasive coldness emanating from this place of death on this particular day. If you ever reverently touched the hand of a loved one or friend while praying farewell at their casket, you know the type of cold I am trying to describe.

It seemed more women than normal were entering this evil place and fewer were willing to interact with the sidewalk counselor this day. The honking horn and raised middle finger were auditory and visible evidence of the pleasure the evil one takes in using his minions to belittle and demean the handful who engage in this spiritual warfare.

Despair would be such an easy response to this on-going slaughter!

 “What good are you fools doing?” one could imagine Satan whispering in our ears. “Look around! Count the number of woman who flock here! Where are your fellow parishioners? Oh, how happy I am when your pastors do not let you post flyers or notices in your Churches about your prayerful vigils. Where are your bishops and priests? How ecstatic I am when no prayer warriors show up!”

Eucharistic Reflection - Meeting You

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Jesus, today's adoration is the meeting of my soul and all of my being with you. I am the creature meeting the Creator; the disciple before the Divine Master; the patient with the Doctor of souls; the poor one appealing to the Rich One; the thirsty one drinking at the Font; the weak before the Almighty; the tempted seeking a sure Refuge; the blind person searching for the Light; the friend who goes to the True Friend; the lost sheep sought by the Divine Shepherd; the wayward heart who finds the Way; the unenlightened one who finds Wisdom; the bride who finds the Spouse of the soul; the 'nothing' who finds the All; the afflicted who finds the Consoler; the seeker who finds life's meaning.

(Blessed James Alberione from Eucharist Adoration by Marie Paul Curley, FSP)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 21, 2017

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 Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S.

"We need God. Without Him we can do nothing. But God also needs us. He needs us to bear witness to the fact that He exists; that God became man; that God died; that God rose again; that men can become like God. God needs us to be animated Gospels and give the world the almost unbelievable ‘Good News’ that God is our Father and we are heirs to all that almighty God possesses."

(From God, A Woman and the Way)

Father J. Urteaga Loidi

"If you give yourself to God give yourself the way the saints did. Let no one and nothing occupy your attention and slow you down: you belong to God. If you give yourself, give yourself for eternity. Let neither the roaring waves nor the treacherous undercurrent shake the concrete solidity of your foundations. God depends on you: He leans on you. Put all your energy into it and row against the current...'Duc in altum'. Launch out into the deep waters with the daring of those others who loved Christ."

(From Man the Saint)

Worth Revisiting - No Time To Be Timid

Thank you Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for once again hosting Catholic bloggers at Revisiting Wednesday. 

It is a privilege for us to share our work with you and Your followers.

Stop by for a visit now. 

Monday Musings - No Time To Be Timid

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.

Eucharistic Reflection - His Mother Pleads: Put Him in the Centers of Our Churches and Our Hearts

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

Jesus is surrounded today by an emptiness, which has been brought about especially by you priests who, in your apostolic activity, often go about uselessly and very much on the periphery, going after things that are less important and more secondary forgetting that the center of your priestly day should be here, before the tabernacle, where Jesus is present and is kept especially for you.

He is also surrounded by the indifference of many of my children, who live as if He were not there and, when they enter church for liturgical functions, are not aware of His divine and Real Presence in your midst. Often Jesus in the Eucharist is placed in some isolated corner whereas He should be placed in the center of the church and He should be placed at the center of your ecclesial gatherings, because the church is His temple which has been built first for Him and then for You.

(Blessed Mother to Father Stefano Gobbi from To the Priests: Our Lady’s Beloved Sons)

Monday Musings - Guest Blogger - The "Thankless Job"

[I am honored to welcome Rev. Mr. Adolph Uryniak as my guest blogger today. Ordained to the permanent Diaconate in 2006, the good Deacon resides in New York State with his wife, Sue, their three sons and precious grandchildren. He fuels and sustains his passion to evangelize by spending much time each week before the Eucharistic Lord he loves and serves so well.]

"The Thankless Job" by Deacon Adolph Uryniak

Adoration Chapel-St. Agatha's Parish

Luke's Gospel (17:5-10) prompts two thoughts on which to focus our attention. First, Jesus is asked by His apostles  'to increase their faith', to which He responds:  ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…’ and then, a bit later, the admonishment “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”

Faith, along with Hope and Love, that is Love in the sense of agape or unconditional love, form the Theological Virtues which are directed immediately toward our relationship with God as being infinitely trustworthy and lovable and hence a worthy object of total commitment throughout our life.

The second thought reminds us that in growing in our commitment to God by growth in service through the Theological Virtues of Faith Hope and Love, we are just doing what we are supposed to do, in other words we are engaged in a ‘thankless job’.

A Timely Reminder

Worth Revisiting - Want To "Save a Soul Today"?

We thank Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for once again hosting Catholic bloggers at Revisiting Wednesday. 

It is a privilege for us to share our work with them and their followers.

Stop by for a visit now. 

This is my contribution:

Want To "Save a Soul Today"?

(Originally published on January 10, 2013)

 

When was the last time the first thought that came into your mind as you got up to enjoy the gift of another day was “Let me save a soul today?” For most of us, my educated guess would be, either not recently or never.

Have you heard a homily within the past year urging you to pray for the salvation of your soul and/or the souls of your loved ones and friends?  - not so much.

Do you ever think of where the souls of the 6,815 people (as estimated by the CIA World Factbook) who die on average everyday in this country have gone? Probably not!

Odd (and troubling) isn’t it, that even though the primary mission of the Catholic Church is to save souls, we rarely hear or think about that subject?

To paraphrase the great wisdom of Servant of God Madeleine Delbrel: how then can we desire to be saved, if we do not know we are lost?

For lots of reasons, too many Catholics have become quite complacent or even unconcerned about their eternal residence or that of those they love. After all, we are all “good and decent folk” and our loving and merciful God is not going to send any of us to some eternal inferno forever. We are partially right but terribly incorrect as well: God does not send anyone to hell. Those who populate that Godless hole have chosen to be there by the way they chose to live their lives here – their way, rather than God’s.

So maybe it’s time for all of us to pay closer attention to the salvation of souls and actually do something that will help us and others avail ourselves of His mercy and occupy the heavenly mansions God wishes to give us.

Father Joseph Homick of the Contemplatives of St. Joseph in California thinks so. He wants to make a simple but powerful flyer, Save a Soul Today! available to anyone who wishes copies. E-mail him with your request at: savesouls2day@gmail.com.

Imagine how many souls could be saved, if everyone who reads this article tells their friends about it and then orders copies of this pamphlet from Father for their respective parishes! I am obtaining copies for my parish. Will you?

With the good Father’s permission, the content of his flyer (less the instructions on how to say the Chaplet) follows. Please read and share this widely:

Eucharistic Reflection - We All Need It!!! God Deserves It!!!

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

"The cure for all the spiritual cancers and evils in our world is Jesus Christ and His wonderful presence in the Blessed Sacrament...We all need Eucharistic Adoration in our lives if we ever hope to make it safely into the harbor of Heaven."

(From The Cure for Spiritual Cancer by Father Daniel Doctor from Courageous Priests)

Monday Musings - Share His Love

The End Of Prayer Shaming - Will You Pass This On?

Surely you have two minutes to view this video...

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 7, 2017

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.

St. John Chrysostom

"Necessity obliges us to pray for ourselves. Fraternal charity obliges us to pray for others. God finds the prayer motivated by charity to be more meritorious than the prayer motivated by necessity."

(From St. Bernard's Sermon on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

A Mistress of Novices for the Intsitute of the Blessed Virgin Mary

"...There is no health  of soul nor hope of eternal life but in the Cross. The more the flesh is brought down by affliction, the more is the spirit strengthened by interior grace. We are not exhorted to pray for the Cross, but we may and ought to pray for a love of the Cross. The price of great graces is humiliation - The Royal Way of the Cross. Humiliations are precious drops from the chalice of our Lord's Blood.

When our Lord  loves anyone, He presses him to His Heart as a tender friend would do; but round Jesus' Heart there is a crown of thorns, and the more He presses us to His Heart, the more these thorns enter into ours. How many - even Religious - there are who only seek the shadow of the Cross, how many who lean against it, how few who climb up and are fastened to it!"

(From Meditation on the Passion)

St. Basil

"The vendor does not become sad that he has to barter the goods he has at fairs to acquire the merchandise he wants; but you become sad at exchanging the chance of eternal life for a handful of dust."

(From Catena Aurea, Vol. VI, 313)

Worth Revisiting - Will We Use Our Ears To Hear?

We thank Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for once again hosting Catholic bloggers at Revisiting Wednesday. 

It is a privilege for us to share our work with them and their followers.

Stop by for a visit now. 

What follows is my contribution for this week:

Monday Musings - Will We Use Our Ears To Hear?

(Originally published on July 24, 2017)

Some Catholic theologians, clergy and writers teach that we should have a reasonable hope all men and women will be saved.

We should reject this erroneous prediction of  our eternal residency. Even a simple man like I can understand that this claim of universal salvation doesn't really pass the smell test. 

How could it when Jesus Himself told us: "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:14)?

Less we would forget this essential Truth, from time to time our Lord has used others as His messengers. Here are just a few examples:

Eucharistic Reflection - It Is God Himself!

"Wherever the Sacred Host is to be found, there is the living God, there is your Savior, as really as when He was living and talking in Galilee and Judea, as really as He now is in heaven. 

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Never deliberately miss Holy Communion. Communion is more than life, more than all the good things of this world, more than the whole universe: it is God Himself, it is I, Jesus. Could you prefer anything to Me? Could you, if you love Me at all, however little, voluntarily lose the grace I give you in this way? 

Love Me in all the breadth and simplicity of your heart."

(Blessed Charles de Foucauld)

Monday Musings - Where Are You Looking?