Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 15, 2022
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Frank Sheed “A really frightening test of how much value we attach to [Christ] lies in how we feel about friends who never seem to give Him a thought. Do we feel it as unbearable that they should not have the gifts of light and nourishment that He has given us? If not, we should ask ourselves how much those same gifts do actually mean to ourselves. If there were a famine and people lacked bread, we should work hard to relieve it. But if they lack the Bread of Life and it causes not the faintest stirring in us even of care much less of desire to aid their destitution–we have to ask ourselves what that tells us about ourselves. How much does their starvation matter to us? Do we even think of it as starvation?” |
(From The Hidden Manna by James T. O’Connor)
St. John of the Cross
"Never give up prayer, and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what love your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction.”
(From “Counsels to a Religious” in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington D.C.: ICS, 2017) 729.)
Father Bonaventure Perquin, O.P.
“Our cross is usually given to us in installments, weighing differently at different times. It is made up of small cells, little fatigues and worries and things that go wrong. We cannot see the proper shape yet, partly because we are too close; in our self-pity we see each little bit magnified and distorted, and anyhow our loving Father will not let us see it as a whole yet; we would think it too big and heavy, and so lose courage. But we can carry our little crosses, little parts of the cross, and trust that in doing so we are growing like our Master, that one day we shall resemble him: glorified as he is in heaven, with his cross and his wounds glorified too.”
(From Magnificat – The Editorial of the Month - September 2022 issue)