Eucharistic Reflection - Why Did You Come Down To This Dirty, Miserable Earth?

Pick up a copy of Pondering Tidbits of Truth, Volume 6  and listen for God's still voice. He will use the words in this volume to reignite the flame of faith in your heart and draw you closer to Him.

Monday Musings - Eucharistic Revival - Missing Our Eucharistic Lord?

Stirring Slumbering Souls predated our Bishops' plea to rediscover belief in the Real Presence. This book received a Seal of Approval from the Catholic Writer's Guild. It provides fuel to set your heart ablaze and reignite your love for our ever-present Eucharistic Lord.

Look at what others have had to say about this remarkable and timely book - Stirring Slumbering Souls - 250 Eucharistic Reflections 

This book accomplished what author Michael Seagriff hoped: that is to ignite my heart and stir my soul to love Jesus more and more. The words contained in this volume speak Truth and breathe Life and offer the reader a broad sampling of some of the finest thoughts and reflections on the Eucharist--our source and summit and surest Love. I can't wait to get to Adoration!...“Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful gem with me. I feel like every single Catholic should read it and have a copy and then share it with someone who isn’t and then we would be all set in this world. Such richness here and it stirs up so much in the soul.

Anne Costa

 

Stirring Slumbering Souls is an eloquent treasury of Eucharistic reflections which you will enjoy reading over and over again. I read the reflections during Eucharistic adoration and just before bedtime. They were comforting, peaceful, insightful, and gave me a new appreciation and love for the Eucharist. I highly recommend this book for all who desire to grow in their love of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Jean M. Heimann 

If you bring this book with you to adoration, there is material enough to meditate upon for weeks or even months. Seagriff then supplies ten questions for further reflection, testimonies of adorers, and various prayers. I can't imagine anyone reading this book without their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament increasing.

Connie Rossini

Stirring Slumbering Souls is a beautiful anthology from saints, mystics and friends of Jesus. This book has the potential to facilitate deeper reflection and response for its readers who truly seek to grow in their faith and appreciation for the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For some, just one quote could bring the moment of change and profound conversion for which they have longed. For others, this will be a companion to them in their prayer times at home and in Church. As for me, it will be among my select and treasured go-to spiritual books.

 Christine M. Arabik, M.A.

This book of beautiful reflections contains inspiring quotes from priests, religious, lay people and saints. An ideal resource to take to Eucharistic Adoration. Highly recommend!

Ellen Gable Hrkach

Michael Seagriff’s recently published, Stirring Slumbering Souls, gently reminds us that “to the Real Presence of Jesus, we often respond with our real absence!” (Father Florian Racine)…Seagriff reminds Christians of Jesus’ love and longing for us. Sadly, many who profess a belief in God’s presence in the tabernacle, casually enter a church still distracted by the cares of the world. If Saint Matthew (16:17-18) asks Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, but fail to see? Do you have ears, but fail to hear? Michael Seagriff answers with a carefully researched collection of two-hundred and fifty meditations that document the church’s response to Jesus’ call to intimacy.

Don Mulcare

Seagriff has done an exceptional job at bringing together all the voices, that we need to hear. Voices that sing the same song: Spend time with Jesus now, in faith. If you can’t find the time, or the desire, to spend time with Jesus now, then why should Jesus think that you would want to spend eternity with him, later?

Ginny Lieto

Michael Seagriff describes himself as a simple man, but his thoughts and reflections, and his choice of 250 Eucharistic Reflections in 'Stirring Slumbering Souls', are anything but simple. Rather, his choice reflects his profound love of his Lord and his devotion to The Eucharist. Buy a copy and keep it with you to read and re-read. You will be profoundly moved.

David Torkington

There are so many decisions we each make, daily, that lead us towards or away from holiness. The saints were never perfect. But each day, aware of God's unconditional forgiveness and love, they set out to strive for holiness, and to love each other and God as He loves us. If we were not sure what role Eucharistic Adoration has played in the making of our saints, Michael's new book, "Stirring, Slumbering Souls," leaves ZERO doubt! 

Mary Lothers

As Lent draws to an end, this is the perfect time to get your copy here. 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - March 21, 2024

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.

Jesus to Saint Catherine of Siena

“I require that you should love Me with the same love with which I love you. This indeed you cannot do, because I love you without being loved. All the love you have for Me you owe to Me, so that it is not of grace that you love Me, but because you ought to do so, while I love you of grace, and not because I owe you My love. Therefore to Me, in person, you cannot repay the love which I require of you, and I have placed you in the midst of your fellows, that you may do to them that which you cannot do to Me,  that is to say, that you may love your neighbor of free grace, without expecting any return from him, and what you do to him, I count as done to Me, which My Truth showed forth when He said to Paul, My persecutor - 'Saul, Saul why persecute you Me?' This He said, judging that Paul persecuted Him in His faithful. This love must be sincere, because it is with the same love with which you love Me, that you must love your neighbor.”

(From The Dialogue)

 

John Tauler, O.P.

"And because she [our Blessed Mother] was full of the Holy Ghost, she had known from the prophets that her Son was to die, and that it was for this that He had taken a mortal body, and that so it seemed good to His Heavenly Father. Therefore, it was that she knew not how to desire anything else. 

Hence, even as Christ Jesus gladly offered Himself to the Father as a living Victim for the salvation of men, so also the most Blessed Virgin Mary offered her own Son for the salvation of the human race; and it was far more pleasing to her to be deprived of His consolation, than to hinder man's redemption....But because she understood that it was God's will that she should suffer together with her Son, she gladly offered herself for this, for she was ready, indeed, to die with her sweet Son Jesus, for the salvation and redemption of wretched men. Moreover, she kept back her sorrow within the secret places of her heart, because she desired no outward comfort from men, seeking rather to abide in that sorrow until our Lord Himself delivered her and consoled her."

(From 40 Day Meditations On the Life and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ)

 

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

“So long as such mercy is available for all who despair of their own confusion and conflicts and inner incompleteness, it follows that sin is never the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is the refusal to recognize sins. For if we are sinners, there is a Savior. If there is a Savior, there is a Cross. If there is a Cross, there is a way of appropriating it to our lives, and our lives to it. When that is done, despair is driven out and we have the “Peace which the world cannot give.” 

 (From Path to Peace)

 

Eucharistic Reflection - The Cause of Sweetness

"The visit to the Blessed Sacrament is a source of so much sweetness because we have in the tabernacle, the same God who is the source of happiness for the elect in heaven. The Eucharist becomes thus an earthly paradise. One asked a saint if it were hard for him to remain so long in the church. 'Ah!' he answered, 'I would spend an eternity there!' He was right. Our Lord is in heaven; He is also in His tabernacle. What a joy! The saints in heaven are they weary of contemplating, adoring and praising Jesus Christ or of remaining in His presence? We ought to experience a happiness like theirs near the tabernacle where the same God dwells. "

(From the Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars)

Monday Musings - Talk to Him As A Friend to a Friend

 Jesus to St. M. Faustina Kowalska;

“Poor soul, I see that you suffer much and that you do not have even the strength to converse with me. So I will speak to you. Even though your sufferings were very great, do not lose heart or give in to despondency. But tell Me, my child, who has dared to wound your heart? Tell Me about everything, be sincere in dealing with Me, reveal all the wounds of your heart. I will heal them and your suffering will become a source of your sanctification…

My child do not be discouraged. I know your boundless trust in Me; I know that you are aware of My goodness and mercy. Let us talk in detail about everything that weighs so heavily upon your heart…

Talk to me simply, as a friend to a friend. Tell Me now, my child, what hinders you from advancing in holiness?…

My child make the resolution never to rely on people. Entrust yourself completely to My will saying ‘Not as I want, but according to Your Will, O God, let it be done unto me.’  These words, spoken from the depths of one's heart, can raise a soul to the summit of sanctity in a short time. In such a soul I delight. Such a soul gives Me glory. Such a soul fills heaven with the fragrance of her virtue. But understand that the strength by which you bear sufferings comes from frequent Communions. So, approach this fountain of mercy often, to draw with the vessel of trust whatever you need.

(From Divine Mercy in My Soul – Diary of St. M. Faustina Kowalska (1487)

Eucharistic Reflection - To Have The Right Intention

"There are some people who go to Holy Communion to gain the esteem of the world. It avails them nothing. Others go out of habit. Poor Communions, they have not the right intention. 

Go to Communion to obey Jesus Christ, who has commanded you to do so, under pain of not having eternal life. Go to Communion to obtain the graces that you need, humility, patience, purity. Go to the Holy Table to unite yourself to Jesus Christ so that He will make of you other Christ’s, which happens to those who receive Him worthily.

When you go to Holy Communion you should always have an intention, and say when about to receive the Body of Our Lord: 'O my good Father, who art in heaven, I offer you, at this moment, your dear Son, such as He was when He was taken down from the Cross, and laid in the arms of the Holy Virgin, and as she offered Him to You in sacrifice for us. I offer Him to You by the hands of Mary, to obtain such or such graces, faith, charity, humility.' 

My children, listen well to that. Every time I have obtained a grace, I have asked it like this; I have never been disappointed."

(St. John Marie Vianney, Meditation 15(3) from The Eucharistic Reflections of the Cure of Ars)

Monday Musings - Some Soul Searching

 

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Some time ago, a friend asked me a difficult question. I am a coward and often avoid responding directly to challenging inquiries. That's not always a good idea. Listen here and you will see what I mean.

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - March 7, 2024

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. Catherine of Siena

"The wound in the side of Christ, the Precious Blood and the Pierced Heart were a constant preoccupation of St. Catherine of Siena. In a beautiful passage in one of her letters, she summarizes the inner meaning of these devotions:

'Place your lips to the side of the Son of God, for it is an opening which emits the fires of charity and pours forth its Blood to wash us from our iniquities. The soul which reposes there and looks with eyes of its soul on the Heart opened and consumed by love will be made comformable to Him, for seeing itself so much loved it cannot fail to love in return. That soul becomes perfect because what it loves it loves for God and it loves  nothing outside of Him. In desire it becomes to Him another self, since is has no other will but that of God'."

(From Dominican Spirituality - Principles and Practice by William A. Hinnebusch, O.P.)

John Tauler, O.P.

"...it has been decreed, that there should be placed in all the churches the mirror of truth, that is, the image of the Holy Cross of Christ Jesus; so that as often as [one] crosses the threshold of the temple, man may contemplate the figure of his Maker hanging upon the Cross; and that straightaway there may come into his mind that wonderful love, which his God then declared to him; that he may so exercise and occupy himself therein, as to forget all strange and outward images, and may imagine that his crucified Lord is addressing him in these words: 'Ecce homo: 'Behold the man'. Behold how I hang here, despised, mocked, wracked, fastened with nails, wounded, deprive of all comfort. My arms naked and stretched out towards you, to take you back into My grace. Behold how I hang there, with My Head bowed down, that I may give you the kiss of peace and reconciliation with My side and Heart open, that I may bring you, My chosen bride, into the pleasant chamber of My Heart, and there embrace you with love everlasting.

Then man, in his turn, as if accepting Christ's loving invitation to approach His sweet Wounds, turns himself, full of confidence, to God, and to Christ's nailed and pierced feet, and throwing himself down with as lowly submission as he can, thinks how he himself has inflicted, by his foul sins, all this bitter sorrow on his Lord and God, and at the same time confesses all his sins with bitter sorrow and burning tears, saying: 'Enter not now, O most merciful God, into judgment with your useless and sinful servant, for in Your sight shall no man living be justified.' If in your angels evil was found, how much more unclean will man be, who was conceived in concupiscence, and born in sin?"

(From 40 Day Meditations On the Life and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ)

Father Jacques Phillipe

"The Christian life is a combat a war without mercy." It [Christian life]  can not be viewed "as the quiet unfolding of an inconsequential life without any problems; rather it must be viewed as the scene of a constant and sometimes painful battle, which will not end until death - a struggle against evil, temptation, and the sin that is in [us]."

(From March 2024 issue of Magnificat, excerpting from Searching for and Maintaining Peace)

Eucharistic Reflection - Come To The Throne of Mercy!

Jesus to St. Faustina:

"My child do you fear the God of mercy? My holiness does not prevent Me from being merciful. Behold, for you I have established a throne of mercy on earth - the tabernacle - and from this throne I desire to enter into your heart. I am not surrounded by a retinue or guards. You can come to Me at any moment, at any time; I want to speak to you and desire to grant you grace."

(From Divine Mercy In My Soul - Diary of St. M. Faustina Kowalska)

Monday Musings - There Is Still Room