Pondering Tidbits of Truth - November 30, 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. Alphonus Liguori

“Good friends find pleasure in one another's company. Let us know pleasure in the company of our best Friend, a Friend who can do everything for us, a friend who loves us beyond measure. Here in the Blessed Sacrament we can talk to Him straight from the heart.” 

(From Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament and to the Blessed Virgin Mary)

St. Josemaria Escriva

"For every soul is a wonderful treasure; every man is unique and irreplaceable. Every single person is worth all the blood of Christ."

(From Christ Is Passing By)

St. Gertrude

"They ought not to call my sweetest Jesus my only Son, but rather my first-born Son. I conceived Him first in my womb, but after Him, or rather, through Him, I conceived every one of you to be His brothers and to be my children, adopting you in the womb of my maternal charity."

(The Blessed Mother to St. Gertrude)

Worth Revisiting - God Is Always With Us, Isn't He?

Thank you Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for  hosting Catholic bloggers at Worth Revisiting. It is a privilege for us to share our work with you and your readers. Stop by for a visit now. 

God Is Always With Us, Isn't He?

(Originally published August 20, 2013)

((St. Agatha's, Canastota, NY)

(Photography©Michael Seagriff)

We believe that God is always with us, don’t we? Isn’t He? Or do we believe that, only when things are going well? How often do we thank God for His blessings when our lives seem to be on the right track and our burdens light? Do we take Him for granted during those satisfying times?  

What happens when we feel abandoned by God? How do we react when times are hard and challenging, when our daily crosses seem too heavy to bear? Do we accept them and thank God for sending them? Or like Gideon (Judges 6:13) do we doubt God’s presence among us by asking “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” 

Gideon doubted God’s presence among His people and asked for a sign before he did as God had asked of him.  God gave him a sign. 

In the midst of our daily struggles will we too ask for a sign before we accept God’s will for us? Or will we become willing cross bearers because we believe, as Saint Claude de Colombiere taught, that “(apart from sin) nothing happens to us in life unless God wills it.”?

Eucharistic Reflection - He Thirsts!

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

"It is there in His Eucharist that He says to me: 'I thirst, thirst for your love, your sacrifices, your sufferings. I thirst for your happiness, for it was to save you that I came into the world, that I suffered and died on the Cross, and in order to console and strengthen you I left you the Eucharist. So you have there all My life, all My tenderness'."

(Mother Mary of Jesus, Foundress of the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice)

Monday Musings - Crosses or Toothpicks

[The end of the Church's liturgical year seems like a good time to revisit an earlier post which also is a chapter in my book, Fleeting Glimpses of the Silly, Sentimental and Sublime.]

Let me repeat some obvious truths. God is more powerful than any of us. He draws each of us to Himself. He wants to excite our hearts. He longs to fill our minds and souls with the Truth. He desires that we yield ourselves totally to His will. We are often reluctant to do so because we know we may be mocked, laughed at and persecuted. 

In truth, our fidelity to God and His Word may bring us pain and suffering. It is so difficult to follow Him. At times we don’t want to do as He asks. What He wants from us sometimes seems too painful, too difficult, and too burdensome. We want to flee and hide from Him.  But we can’t. He is everywhere. He has given us Himself.  Our salvation and that of others hinges on our sharing and living this Truth. So we must go on - imperfectly and inconstantly no doubt - but we must go on, trusting that God will be at our side.

Book Review - Fatima- The Apparition That Changed The World by Jean M. Heimann

Not A Mere Remembrance

On October 13, 1917, more than seventy thousand individuals watched (many in absolute terror) as the sun danced in the sky before plummeting towards frightened onlookers. Many expected to die. Just as suddenly, the sun stopped its deathly spiral and returned to its normal perch, sitting passively in the sky – just a portion of the miracle Our Lady of Fatima had promised her three young seers, Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco.

Although we recently marked the 100^th anniversary of this supernatural event, relatively few people in the world even knew it had occurred and of those who did, not nearly enough of them have heeded our Blessed Mother’s call to prayer, repentance and penance. Tragically, our heavenly Mother’s appearances and pleas have been, for the most part, forgotten or ignored.

But not by Jean M. Heimann. This well-respected author wanted to not only memorialize this great miracle but to do something about the world’s amnesia, moral decay and near destruction. In her most recent book, Fatima -The Apparition That Changed the World, Heimann makes Fatima and our Lady’s messages come to life, not only with words but with breathtakingly beautiful photographs. The timeline and bibliography she included in this book are treasure troves of additional resources.

Be Sure To Thank HIM!!

(Image source: Father Lawrence Lew, O.P.)

Worth Revisiting - Eucharistic Reflection - Dominus Vobiscum

Thank you Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for  hosting Catholic bloggers at Worth Revisiting. It is a privilege for us to share our work with you and your readers. Stop by for a visit now. 

My contribution this week:

Eucharistic Reflection - Dominus Vobiscum

(Originally published June 14, 2016)

Here is what the poet P. Claudel read into the priest’s imploring look as he turned to the people and recited the words Dominus vobiscum (The Lord be with you):

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Lord is with you, my brothers! My brothers,

did you hear me?

My little flock, it is not only the paten, it is not only

the chalice with the wine,

it is you—the whole of you—that I would like to hold

and raise in my hands...

See, the collection plate is coming round. Have you nothing else to give,

except that miserable farthing?

Eucharistic Reflection - The Bread of Life

(Photo by Michael Seagriff)

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration offers to our people the opportunity to join those in religious life to pray for the salvation of the world, souls everywhere and peace on earth. We cannot underestimate the power of prayer and the difference it will make in our world. Jesus has made Himself the Bread of Life to give us life. Night and day, He is there.

(Attributed to St. Teresa of Calcutta)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - November 16, 2017

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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 of Avila

"Dear brothers and sisters, I pray God may open your eyes and let you see what hidden treasures he bestows on us in the trials from which the world thinks only to flee. Shame turns into honor when we seek God's glory. Present affliction become the source of heavenly glory. To those who suffer wounds in fighting his battles God opens his arms in loving, tender friendship. That is why he (Christ) tells us that if we want to join him, we shall travel the way He took. It is surely not right that the Son of God should go His way on the path of shame while the sons of men walk the way of worldly honor: 'The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant greater than his master'." 

Worth Revisiting - Hidden God

It is a privilege  to share one of my posts with Allison Gingras at Reconciled to You and Elzabeth Riordan at Theology is A Verb as part of their weekly Worth Revisiting promotion.

Stop for a visit here.

My contribution this week is short and direct:

Our duty and primary mission as Catholics is to make Him known by the way we live our lives. Guess we have a bit more work to do!

Eucharistic Reflection - Our Waiting Lord

He loves. He hopes. He waits. If He came down on our altars on certain days only, some sinner, on being moved to repentance, might have to look for Him, and not finding Him, have to wait. Our Lord prefers to wait Himself for the sinner for years rather than keep him waiting an instant.

St. Peter Julian Eymard

Virtual Book Tour - Julia's Gift

Let me be honest. I am not a romance novel kind of guy but whenever Ellen Gable asks me if I would like a review copy of her most recent effort, I never hesitate to answer in the affirmative. Ellen is a superb storyteller, whose unique story lines and compelling characters, keep her readers riveted to the pages of her tales. Her most recent gem, Julia’s Gift, is no exception.

When was the last time you read a love story that unfolds in the midst of the brutality and death of World War I?  How is it that an author who is some 100 years removed from the times and war she uses as the setting of her novel and who herself has never actually seen the destruction war wrought, do so, so skillfully that her readers feel they are there in France, witnessing Julia and Major Winslow navigate the dangers of war and the improbable twists and turns that their relationship takes? - only someone who has taken the time to do painstakingly detailed research.

Worth Revisiting - The Shameful Silence of Our Spiritual Shepherds

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

It is a privilege for us to share our work with you and your readers. Stop by for a visit now. 

My post for this week:

Monday Musings - The Shameful Silence of Our Spiritual Shepherds

(This was originally posted on July 10, 2017. Sadly, the shameful silence continues.)

Watch out! The sheep are stirring - looking for their silent Shepherds to speak!

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Every day human lives are violently destroyed within the wombs of their mothers and harvested for their body parts. This is EVIL always and under all circumstances.

For the most part, the Catholic Bishops in this country remain unwilling as a group to publicly call out this evil by name with one unified voice and to demand the end of all public financial support for such barbaric, inhuman and sinful conduct.

Yet, these same silent shepherds, under the umbrella of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), rarely hesitate to immediately criticize the latest health care, immigration, or welfare reform proposals –  issues which are important concerns but about which reasonable people can disagree. None of those issues, however, are intrinsically evil as is the slaughter of innocent life and the trafficking in human body parts.

Harsh words? I think not. Truth often stings!

Eucharistic Reflection - Messages of Love

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

"Wherever I may be I will often think of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I will fill my thoughts with the holy tabernacle (even when I happen to wake up at night) adoring Him from where I am, calling to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, offering up to Him the action in which I am engaged. I will install one telegraph cable from my study to the Church, another from my bedroom, and a third from our refectory; and as often as I can, I will send messages of love to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament." 

Venerable Andrew Beltrami

Monday Musings - Only One Thing Should Matter

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - November 2, 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.

Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O.

"Preaching by example will always be the foremost instrument of conversion…Lectures, good books, Christian newspapers and magazines, and even fine sermons must gravitate around this fundamental program: that we need to influence people by an apostolate of good example, the example of fervent Christians, who make Jesus Christ live again on this earth by spreading about them the good odor of His virtues." 

(From The Soul of the Apostolate)

St. Vincent de Paul

"Believe me, we will never be of any use in doing God’s work until we become thoroughly convinced that, of ourselves, we are better fitted to ruin everything than to make a success of it." 

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J.

"The soul that does not attach itself solely to the will of God will find neither satisfaction nor sanctification in any other means however excellent by which it may attempt to gain them. If that which God Himself chooses for you does not content you, from whom do you expect to obtain what you desire? . . . No soul can be really nourished, fortified, purified, enriched, and sanctified except in fulfilling the duties of the present moment."

(From Abandonment to Divine Providence)