Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 2, 2019

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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.

 

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen

"Death is an affirmation of the purpose of life in an otherwise meaningless existence. The world could carry on its God-less plan if there were no death. What death is to an individual, that catastrophe is to civilization - the end of its wickedness. This is a source of anguish to the modern mind, for not only must human beings die, but the world must die. Death is a negtive testimony to God's power in a meaningless world, for by it God brings meaningless existence to nought. Because God exists, evil cannot carry on its wickedness indefinitely. If there were no catastrophe, such as the Apocalypse reveals, at the end of the world, the univese would then be the triumph of chaos...

Death proves also that life has meaning, because it reveals that the virtues and goodness practiced within time do not find their completion except in eternity."

(From The Power of Love)

St. Claude de la Colombiere, S.J.

"Let me show you a good way to ask for happiness, even in this world.  It is a way that will oblige God to listen to you.  Say to Him earnestly: either give me so much money that my heart will be satisfied, or inspire me with such contempt for it that I no longer want it.  Either free me from poverty, or make it so pleasant for me that I would not exchange it for all the wealth in the world.  Either take away my suffering, or – which would be to Your greater glory – change it into delight for me, and instead of causing me affliction, let it become a source of joy.  You can take away the burden of my cross, or You can leave it with me without my feeling its weight.  You can extinguish the fire that burns me, or You can let it burn in such a way that it refreshes me as it did the three youths in the fiery furnace.  I ask for either one thing or the other.  What does it matter in what way I am happy?  If I am happy through the possession of worldly goods, it is You I have to thank.  If I am happy when deprived of them, it gives You greater glory and my thanks are all the greater.

This is the kind of prayer worthy of being offered to God by a true Christian.  When you pray in this way, do you know what the effect of your prayers will be?  First, you will be satisfied, whatever happens; and what else do those who most desire this world's goods want except to be satisfied?  Secondly, you will not only obtain without fail, one of the two things you have asked for, but, as a rule, you will obtain both of them"

(From Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence)

 Ven. Fulton J. Sheen  

"The human heart is not shaped like a valentine heart, perfect and regular in contour; it is slightly irregular in shape as if a small piece of it were missing out of its side. The missing part may very well symbolize a piece that a spear tore out of the universal heart of Humanity on the Cross, but it probably symbolizes something more. It may very well mean that when God created a human heart, He kept a small sample of it in heaven, and sent the rest of it into the world, where it would each day learn the lesson that it could never be really happy, that it could never be really wholly in love, that it could never be really wholehearted until it rested with the Risen Christ in an eternal Easter."

(From Manifestations of Christ)