Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 28, 2019

 
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. Francis de Sales

“Souls but little confirmed in piety advance well and happily when the Lord gives them consolations in prayer. But if He afterwards deprive them of these, they immediately become languid and discontented, like children who thank their mother when she gives them sweet things and cry when she takes them away, because they are children, and do not know that a long course of such things is hurtful to them and causes worms. Sensible consolations of the soul often produce the worm of self-satisfaction and that of pride which is the reason why the Lord, who gives them to us at first to encourage us, afterwards takes them away that they might not hurt us, and therefore merits no less thanks in taking them away than in giving them.” 

(From Introduction to the Devout Life)

St. Catherine of Siena

[Jesus to St. Catherine:] Each one, according to his condition, ought to exert himself for the salvation of souls, for this exercise lies at the root of a holy will. Whatever may contribute by words or deeds toward the salvation of your neighbor is virtually a prayer.”

(From The Dialogue)

Johannes Tauler, O.P.

“Just as the artist foresees in his mind how he will make each stroke of the brush on the canvas—how short or long or wide (and there is no other way if the painting is to become a masterpiece!) where he should use red or blue—so God does the same, and a thousand times more, in our lives through much suffering and many strokes of color. He does so in order to achieve in us the masterpiece that pleases him the most, so long as we truly embrace these gifts—these bitter circumstances—from him.”

(From Johannes Tauler: Sermons - Classics of Western Spirituality)