Pondering Tidbits of Truth - June 23, 2022

 

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.

 

 

Antony The Great

“Antony said, ‘Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their prayer chambers or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of their inner peace. So, like a fish going toward the sea, we must hurry to reach our prayer chamber. If we delay outside, we will lose our interior watchfulness’.”

(From The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers)

 

Father Peter Hannah, O.P.

"[Pope Benedict XVI reminds us]: Truth should be spoken with charity; but charity demands that one is actually speaking truth. Charity, Benedict wrote,  ‘is of fundamental importance in human relations’, but ‘without truth, charity degenerates to sentimentality…more or less  interchangeable with a pool of good feelings, helpful for social cohesion but of little relevance’ (Caritas in Veritate, #3).

Benedict’s warning deserves attention. There can be a temptation, when desiring someone to come over to one’s own view - in this case, not one's own view only, but the Catholic faith - to forsake critical aspects of the faith so that they become more ‘amenable’ to the person receiving. But then one is actually not persuading the other of the truth but enervating and misrepresenting the truth in order to elicit acceptance and encourage ‘good relations.’ This was not the vision of John XXIII [when he convened Vatican II]; nor is it the way of Our Lord. In the Gospels we see Jesus ready to receive anyone who approaches Him with a genuine and open disposition. But He does not alter the message itself when His audience is confused or taken aback.

When Jesus speaks maybe the most important truth of all so far as the Church’s life goes - His own flesh as the life of the world - those around Him are immediately offended. ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ (John 6: 60). Our Lord's response is not to respond by feeding His followers half-truths that they can accept, ‘adjusting Himself’ to their sensibilities, and leaving the full truth out of it. He rather repeats it, fully aware of their difficulty in accepting: ‘Do you take offense at this?...no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father.’ Then, we are told, ‘many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with Him (John 6: 66). Jesus is ‘inclusive’ of all who are open to the truth; but also realizes not all will accept it and discover the life He brings."

(Excerpted from May-June 2022 edition of Light & Life – Voice of the Rosary Center & Confraternity)

 

Venerable Luis of Granada, O.P

"Certainly God, who is so merciful, takes no pleasure in our afflictions, but in His love He sends us these necessary remedies to cure our infirmities. Thus suffering purifies the stains of sinful pleasures, and the privation of innocent gratifications expiates unlawful indulgence. He punishes us in this world, that He may reward us in the next; He treats us with merciful rigor here to save us from His wrath in eternity. Hence Saint Jerome says that God's anger against sinners is never more terrible then when He seems to forget them during life. It was through fear of such a misfortune that Saint St Augustine prayed, ‘Here Oh Lord burn, here cut, that Thou mayst spare me in eternity.’

(From The Sinner’s Guide)