Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 27, 2020

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. Peter Julian Eymard

"This is your mission, O Adorers: to weep at the feet of Jesus despised by His own friends, crucified in so many hearts, abandoned in so many places; to console the Heart of so tender a Father, Whom the devil, His enemy, has robbed of His children. A Eucharistic prisoner, He can no longer go after lost sheep, the prey of ravenous wolves. Your mission is to beg forgiveness for the guilty; to ransom them from divine mercy, which needs willing hearts as substitutes; to become victims of propitiation with the Savior Jesus, Who no longer able to suffer since His resurrection, will suffer in you an through you."

(From In The Light of the Monstrance)

Father Donald Haggerty

"The danger is quite real that souls habituated to constant technological stimuli will never be silent with themselves, never alone in a receptive manner, and so never able to discover God in a personal encounter of prayer."

 (From Contemplative Enigmas)

Archbishop Luis M. Martinez

"The Holy Spirit brings about our sanctification in two ways. The first is by helping us, moving us, and directing us, but in such a way that we are actually doing our own work. It is our glory to fulfill our own destiny. God has given us the wonderful and terrible gift of freedom, by which we ourselves are the artisans of our own happiness or or our own ruin.

But the Holy Spirit has another way of directing. It is His personal direction of our deeds, when He no longer merely illuminates us with His light, or warms us with His fire to show us the road that we must follow. In this second way, He Himself deigns  to move our faculties and urge us so that we may perform His work."

(From True Devotion to the Holy Spirit) 

Eucharistic Reflection - Adore Well

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

"To adore well we must, above all, talk to our Lord; He will answer us. Everybody can talk to our Lord. Is He not in the Eucharist for everybody? Does He not tell us, 'Come ye all to me'? This conversation which goes on between the soul and our Lord is the true eucharistic meditation, that is, adoration.

The grace of it is given to everybody. Go to our Lord as you are. Exhaust your own stock of piety and of love before resorting to books; cherish the inexhaustible book of humble love. It is all very well to have a devotional book with you to regain control of yourself in case the mind wanders or the senses grow drowsy, but remember that the good Lord prefers the poverty of your heart to the most sublime thoughts and affections borrowed from others.

Always begin your adoration, therefore, with an act of love, and bringing your soul under the action of God will be a joy. If you begin with yourself, you will stop half way; or if you begin with any virtue other than love, you are taking the wrong road.

Then speak to Love Itself; speak to Jesus of His heavenly Father Whom He loves so much; speak to Him of the tasks He has undertaken for His Father's glory, and you will gladden His Heart and He will love you all the more. Speak to Jesus of His love for all men;  that will make His Heart and yours expand with happiness and joy. Speak to Jesus of His holy mother whom He loves so much, and you will renew in Him the happiness of a good Son. Speak to Him of His saints so as to glorify His grace to them. The real secret of love is, therefore, to forget oneself like Saint John the Baptist so as to exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus.

Our Lord will thus be pleased with you and will speak to you of yourself. He will tell you His love for you, and your heart will open under the rays of this Sun, just as a flower, dampened and chilled by night, opens under the rays of the luminary of day.

Before leaving the presence of the divine Master, thank Him for His reception of love. Beg forgiveness for your distractions and irreverences. Offer Him a homage of fealty a flower of virtue, a nosegay of little sacrifices. Then leave the church as if were the Cenacle; leave our Lord's presence like the angel who takes his flight from the throne of God to carry out His divine commands."

(St. Peter Julian Eymard from In The Light of the Monstrance)

Monday Musings - Let Us Love God As We Ought And As He Deserves - Part II

[Let me begin Part II of this post by repeating the ending of Part I. You can read Part I in its entirety here.]

Let our boldness continue by allowing the Truth of the following words of St. Peter Julian Eymard to sink in:

           “How many among the best Catholics never pay a visit of devotion to the most 

            Blessed Sacrament to speak with Him from the heart, to tell Him their love? 

            They do not love our Lord in the Eucharist because they do not know Him well

            enough. But in spite of knowing Him and His love and the sacrifices and desires

            of His heart, they still do not love Him. What an insult!

Yes, an insult.

For it amounts to telling Jesus Christ that He is not beautiful enough, not good enough, not     lovable enough to be preferred to what they love.

What ingratitude.”

Part II follows:

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

If you have not yet read The Power of Silence – Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Robert Cardinal Sarah, you must do so as soon as possible. What a treasure!

Let me share a few gems that will serve you well when you spend time with our Lord:

"In modern society, silence has come into disrepute; this is the symptom of a serious worrisome illness. The real questions of life are posed in silence. Our blood flows through our veins without making any noise, and we can hear our heartbeats only in silence.”

“We encounter God only in the eternal silence in which he abides. Have you ever heard the voice of God as you hear mine?”

“In silence, not in the turmoil and noise, God enters into the inner-most depths of our being.” 

 The desire to see God is what urges us to love solitude and silence. For silence is where God dwells. He drapes himself in silence.”

“In silence there is a collaboration between man and God.” 

“Man must make a choice: God or nothing, silence or noise.”

Time in Adoration provides one with the silence we all need and that Cardinal Sarah describes and recommends.

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

How blessed are those parishes which have some form of weekly or daily Hours of Adoration. So few parishes do - even though St. John Paul II asked that every parish in the world have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration chapel!

We don’t need any more committees or study groups. We have made things far too complicated. All God has ever been asking us to do is to get down on our knees in His Presence and to worship and adore Him. – to just gift Him with our time and presence. He can and will do the rest. 

But far too many of us have been too proud, too arrogant to obey and believe Him. We don’t believe that the turmoil in our world, Church, families and personal lives can and will be solved by simply obeying His request to spend time with Him. 

We scoff at such a simple suggestion as did Naaman the Syrian leper who initially refused to take a dip in the Jordan river in exchange for God’s promise to heal him of his leprosy. 

Fortunately for Naaman, he came to his senses and surrendered his will to God. The good news is that it is not too late for us either.

Eucharistic Reflection - Reverence - An Absolute Necessity

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

“The Apostolate of Mary consisted also in the silent but very convincing sermon of outward reverence. This type of preaching suits everybody. A soul desirous of making the Eucharist known and loved will apply herself to it with great care in union with Mary.

How modest and reverent in the divine presence of Jesus was the attitude of Mary, the perfect adorer! All penetrated with faith and absorbed in the presence of Jesus, she acted like the angels before the divine Majesty.

Reverence in church, especially in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, must be also our chief exterior virtue. This respect is the solemn profession of our faith and, at the same time, a grace of piety and fervor; for God punishes irreverences committed in His sanctuary with a weakening of faith and a withdrawal of graces of devotion.

Let us, therefore, be very severe on the matter of reverence in worship. Let our bearing be dignified, our attitude religious; let us observe a strict silence, an absolute recollection of the senses. In church our attention must be for Jesus Christ only; friends must be as if they were not. Jesus is everything: the attention of the court centers on the king; he is the only one honored. At the sight of this profound and religious reverence, the worldly-minded will at least be forced to say: ‘There is something great here!’ The weak, the lukewarm will be ashamed of their tepidity and will pay due homage to Jesus Christ; good example is the royal lesson of wisdom and the most fruitful apostolate.”

(From In Light of the Monstrance  by St. Peter Julian Eymard)