Pondering Tidbits of Truth - December 29, 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.

 

 

 

David Torkington

 “ ‘Prayer’, he [Cardinal Hume] said, ‘is trying to raise the heart and mind to God.’…

The quality of our prayer is ultimately determined by the quality of our endeavor. It was for this reason that the great Mystic and mother Saint Angela of Foligno said that prayer is the School of Divine Love. In other words, it is the place where we learn how to love God by trying daily to raise our hearts and minds to him. I intend to introduce you to the different means and methods that tradition is given us to help us keep trying to turn and open our minds and hearts to God in this book but first let me say this. There are no perfect means to help us keep trying to raise the heart and mind to God, just different means. What helps you at the beginning, may not help you later. What helps you in the morning, may not help you in the evening. What helps me might not help you. Remember the famous words of Dom John Chapman, ‘Pray as you can and not as you can't.’ The acid test is does this means of prayer help me to keep trying to raise my heart and mind to God?”

(From The Primacy of Loving the Spirituality of the Heart)

 

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen   “The man who thinks only of himself says only prayers of petition; he who thinks of his neighbor says prayers of intercession; he who thinks only of loving and serving God, says prayers of abandonment to God’s will, and this is the prayer of the saints.”

(From Go to Heaven)

 

Father Donald Haggerty

"Work for God is too easily considered by a standard of achievement in the world. But there are no real successes in any spiritual work that are equivalent to an accomplishment in the world. Certain patterns, however, begin to show after a time. A work desired by God seems always to include some measure of frustration and failed exertion. At the same time, failure in a work undertaken for God often conceals fruits whose delay in manifesting themselves is only temporary. It is hard to accept these patterns until they are observed over a certain length of time in our lives. Nothing significant is ever done for God and for souls without some taste of crucifixion and the offering it requires from us."

(From The Contemplative Hunger)

 

A Different Kind of Eucharistic Reflection

I love the melody of the Eucharistic Prayer when Father chants it at Mass. On the way to Church last Thursday, I chanted that melody aloud but used words that came to mind and not those in the prayer. I sang from the moment I pulled out of my driveway until I arrived. I praised and worshiped God. It was a blessed time.

I thanked Him for such an undeserved gift and prayed that I might appreciate Holy Communion more today than I have ever had in the past.

As has been my practice as of late, as I approached the altar, I recited the words of a prayer one of my Lay Dominican sisters had shared with me: “MY GOD! If I am to die today, or suddenly at any time, I wish to receive this Communion as my Viaticum..."

After receiving the Sacred Body and Blood, I returned to my pew, thanking God for this most magnificent Gift. I stayed a few minutes after Mass to continue my prayer of gratitude.

I left Church, got into my car, and began the short drive home.

I had driven about a mile, when, without warning, a car raced out of a grocery store parking lot like a torpedo headed directly at me. There was no way we could avoid crashing into each other. I did not even have time to look in the side or rear-view mirrors or to slam on the brakes.

It was like watching a video in slow-motion. I stared blankly toward the other driver. I prayed and awaited the inevitable and inescapable impact.

There was no way in this physical realm in which we live to avoid a collision under these circumstances. None.  And yet…

How can I describe the indescribable?

By Divine intervention, grace and mercy there was no collision. I cannot tell you what happened. Somehow, known only to God and our guardian angels, there was no collision. No one was injured. Neither car was damaged.

I immediately thanked God!

Our loving Lord chose to make today’s Holy Communion a memorable one as I had asked, by sparing me and the other driver from serious injury or death.

No one is worthy of such grace…