Pondering Tidbits of Truth - July 25, 2019

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

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.

Saint Theophan the Recluse

When your mind does wander during prayer, bring it back. When it wanders again, bring it back again. Each and every time that you read a prayer while your thoughts are wandering (and consequently you read it without attention and feeling,) then do not fail to read it again. Even if your mind wanders several times in the same place, read it again and again until you read it all the way through with understanding and feeling. In this way, you will overcome this difficulty so that the next time, perhaps, it will not come up again, or if it does return, it will be weaker.

(From Homily I Beginning to Pray)

 Saint Louis de Blois

No one at all can humbly read or think of the passion of our Lord… without reaping from this exercise fruit most useful for salvation; just as no one could touch flour or balm, even with the tips of his fingers, without having his fingers whitened with flour and perfumed with the odor of balm. Even if the image of Jesus crucified be only piously glanced at, the look will not have been in vain.

(From A Book of Spiritual Instruction)

 Saint Bernadette Soubirous

Jesus does not want us to be attached to possessions, to human honors, to creatures. He asks humility. But His love and His generosity make this detachment less difficult and less cruel to our nature. Nothing else matters to me anymore, nothing has any value for me but Jesus, no place, no thing, no person, no idea, no feeling, no honor, no suffering, nothing that can turn me away from Jesus. For me, Jesus Himself is my honor, my delight, my heart, my spirit, He whom I love, what I love, my home Heaven here on earth. Jesus is my treasure and my love and Jesus crucified is my only happiness.

(From A Holy Life: The Writings of St. Bernadette)