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 Louis of
Granada, O.P.
"The abominable sin of
detraction is so prevalent at the present day that there is scarcely a society.
a family an individual not guilty of it. There are some persons so perversely
inclined that they cannot bear to hear any good of another, but are always
alive to their neighbors faults, always ready to tear his character to pieces.
Detraction is committed
when we tell another’s real faults; calumny, when the fault we mention is not
real but the invention of our malicious lies. Thus though we may not be guilty
of calumny, how often does it happen that a person, from criticizing the
failings of others which are generally known, is gradually led to mention some
hidden and grave sin which robs him of his reputation and his honor! That the
fault revealed is true in no manner saves the detractor from the guilt of
mortal sin…
Henceforward consider
your neighbor's character as a forbidden tree which you cannot touch. Be no
less slow in praising yourself than in censoring others, for the first indicates
vanity and the second a want of charity. Speak of the virtues of your neighbor,
but be silent as to his faults. Let nothing that you say lead others to think
that he is aught but a man of virtue and honor.”
(From The Sinner’s
Guide)
St. Francis of Paola
“I earnestly admonish you,
therefore, my brothers, to look after your spiritual well-being with judicious
concern. Death is certain; life is short and vanishes like smoke. Fix your
minds, then, on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Inflamed with love for
us, he came down from heaven to redeem us. For our sake he endured every torment
of body and soul and shrank from no bodily pain. He himself gave us an example
of perfect patience and love. We, then, are to be patient in adversity."
(From Office of Readings for April
2nd, the memorial of St. Francis of Pala)
Robert Cardinal Sarah
“Silence is not the exile
of speech it is the love of the one Word. Conversely, the abundance of words is
the symptom of doubt. Incredulity is always talkative.
We often forget that
Christ loved to be silent. He set out for the desert not to go into exile but
to encounter God. And at the most crucial moment in His life, when there was
screaming on all sides, covering Him with all sorts of lies and calumnies, when
the high priest asked Him: ‘Have you no answer to make Jesus’ preferred silence.
It is a case of true
amnesia. Catholics no longer know that silence is sacred because it is God's
dwelling place. How can we rediscover the sense of silence as the manifestation
of God? This is the tragedy of the modern world: man separates himself from God
because he no longer believes in the value of silence.
Without silence, God
disappears in the noise. And this noise becomes all the more obsessive because
God is absent. Unless the world rediscovers silence, it is lost. The earth then
rushes into nothingness.”
(From The Power of Silence
Against the Dictatorship of Noise)
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