Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

We thank Allison Gingras at  Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at  Theology Is A Verb   for hosting Worth Revisiting each week. It is a privilege to share our work with them and their followers .  We Don't Love God As He Deserves  (Originally posted on March 17, 2019) (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) Let's be honest. We need to take a closer look at how we treat the God we profess to love. Listen here.

“My Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, how can I ever express the sympathy and sorrow which should be expressed for the unbelievable foolishness which we show in our daily neglect of You. The church is so crowded on Sunday [written in 1954] with men and women who are ready to do what they must do to save their souls. But on weekdays, the same Church has but a handful of people who rise a little earlier to come and kneel at Your feet. Others will rise earlier for a number of other reasons, but for an extra half hour with You, they will not do so.  (Photo©Michael Seagriff) You offer so much in the Mass and Holy Communion, yet we do so little to deserve Your generosity and love. Lord, place my heart in Yours for a moment and inflame it with the fire of Your love. Let me grow in appreciation of Holy Communion so that I may come to You more often. You desire to come to me that You many grant me more graces and blessings. In Holy Communion the privilege is all mine. I s...

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) Consider the generosity of our Savior: what He acquired by dying becomes ours by eating. As often as we receive this Sacrament with proper dispositions, we make our own the fruits of all the labors, injuries and sufferings of His life, especially those borne at the time of His passion and death. Just as the power and the sensations of the head reach all the members of the body, in the same way, because Christ is “ the head of the Church which is His Body ” (Eph. 1:23 ), the treasures of His grace are made abundantly available to all who through charity are one with Him as living members. Venerable Louis of Grenada

It should trouble the hearts of all Catholics to see how we have lost the sense of the Sacred within our Church buildings, where for the m ost part we act as if our Lord is not really, substantially and physically present among us in our tabernacles and on our tongues. In far too many parishes, our Church’s have become nothing more than another social gathering space with the focus on those present rather than on the God to Whom our prayerful silence, reverence and worship is owed.  What is even worst is how hurt our Lord is by our neglect and irreverence. But how many of us ever think of how He feels? Listen and feel His anguish and pain:  “I remain unknown. I am left alone. Even those who claim to profess the mystery of my Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar forsake Me. I am treated with a terrible indifference, with coldness, and with a lack of respect that causes the angels to weep because they cannot offer Me reparation for the coldness and i...

I have shared this post before: It is only with much perseverance and undeserved grace that our meditation and contemplation will bear fruit - fruit which we should share with those around us. On those occasions when we are so blessed, most of us will resort to sharing our experience with written or spoken words. A rare few who ponder persistently the mysteries of our Faith and the life of our Savior Jesus Christ, and who have been blessed with artistic gifts, will receive a greater grace - the ability to share the fruits of their meditation and contemplation through the creation of penetrating, piercing, and powerful images of He Whom they have contemplated. Take time this Good Friday (and from time to time thereafter) to gaze upon and ponder the drawing posted below. Let your eyes, heart, mind and soul take in every painstakingly created feature of this compelling representation of our Lord. Ponder the depth of God's love for you as He suffered such a savage, barbar...

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 Venerable Fulton J. Sheen "The executioners expected Jesus to cry, for everyone pinned to the gibbet of the Cross had done it before Him. Seneca wrote that those who were crucified cursed the day of their birthday, the executioners, their mothers, and even spat on those who looked upon them. Cicero recorded that at times it was necessary to cut out the tongues of those who were crucified to stop their terrible blasphemies. Hence the executioners expected a word, but not the kind of word that they heard...Like some fragrant trees which bathe in perfume the very axe which gashes them, the great Heart on the Tree of Love poured out from its depths something  less than a cry than a prayer - the soft, low prayer of pardon and forgiveness." (From The Life of Christ ) Ven. Cardinal Nguyen Von Thuan "Kn...

We thank Allison Gingras at  Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at  Theology Is A Verb   for hosting Worth Revisiting each week. It is a privilege to share our work with them and their followers .   Eucharistic Reflection - I Want My Priests and My People Close to Me To Console Me (Originally posted on April2, 2015) (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) Holy Thursday should be among the most treasured days in our Church as we commemorate and give thanks for the Gift of the Eucharist and the Priesthood. It must be an occasion for the spiritual re-invigoration of our priests and of all whom they serve. God is quite clear as to what He expects from His priests! - to make the Eucharist the center of all that they do - all that they do .  This begins and is sustained only by spending time in His Eucharistic Presence, adoring Him, listening to Him and allowing Him to complete their priestly transformation into other Christs, Hi...