Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 18, 2017

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

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.

Juan Donoso Cortes

"Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight, and if the world is going from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers."

(From The Soul of the Apostolate)

Blessed Henry Suso, O.P. and The Eucharist

Today we remember Blessed Henry Suso, O.P. (1290-1365) a German Dominican priest, mystic and spiritual writer.

Some suggest that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction when discussing  this gifted Friar. He had as many critics as he did followers. There is a brief but interesting account of his life in Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P.'s classic St. Dominic's Family - Lives of over 300 Famous Dominicans. You can also get a glimpse into his life and writings at New Advent.

His best known work, A Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, is one well worth reading and pondering. Here is a Eucharistic prayer from that book for your use and reflection:

A Prayer To Be Said When  Thou Goest To Receive Our Lord

(Image Source:Willing Shepherds.org) O Thou living fruit, Thou sweet blossom, Thou delicious paradise apple of the blooming fatherly heart, Thou sweet vine of Cyprus in the vineyard of Engaddi, who will give me to receive Thee so worthily this day that Thou shalt desire to come to me, to dwell with me, and never to separate from me!

Eucharistic Reflection

In a post last June, I shared an excerpt from The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, written by Dominican priest and mystic, Blessed Henry Suso, O.P. (1295-1366). The book sets forth an on-going dialogue between God (Eternal Wisdom) and a man (The Servant) who is searching for Wisdom and Truth. What follows is another excerpt from Chapter XXIII (How We Ought Lovingly To Receive God).

Eternal Wisdom. -- Answer Me now a question. What is that of all lovely things which is most agreeable to a loving heart?

 

The Servant.-- Lord, to my understanding nothing is so agreeable to a loving heart as the beloved Himself and His sweet presence.

Eternal Wisdom. -- Even so. See, and on this account, that nothing which belongs to true love might be wanting to those who love Me, did My unfathomable love, as soon as I had resolved to depart by death out of this world to My Father, compel Me to give Myself and My loving presence at the table of the last supper to My dear disciples, and in all future times to My elect, because I knew beforehand the misery which many a languishing heart would suffer for My sake.

The Servant.-- Oh, dearest Lord, and art You Yourself, Your very Self, really here?

Eternal Wisdom.—You have Me in the sacrament, before you and with you, as truly and really God and Man, according to soul and body, with flesh and blood, as truly as My pure Mother carried Me in her arms, and as truly as I am in heaven in My perfect glory.

The Servant.-- Ah, gentle Wisdom, there is yet something in My heart, may I be allowed to utter it to You? Lord, it does not proceed from unbelief, I believe that what You will You can do; but, tender Lord, it is a marvel to me (if I may venture to say so) how the beautiful, the delightful and glorified body of my Lord in all its greatness, in all its divinity, can thus essentially conceal itself under the little shape of the bread which, relatively considered, is so out of all relation. Gentle Lord, be nor angry with me on this account, for, as You art my Wisdom elect, I should be glad by Your favor to hear something on this head out of Your sweet mouth.

Eternal Wisdom.-- In what manner My glorified body and My soul, according to the whole truth, are in the Sacrament, this can no tongue express, nor any mind conceive, for it is a work of My omnipotence. Therefore ought you to believe it in all simplicity, and not pry much into it. And yet I must say a little to you about it. I will thrust this wonder aside for you with another wonder. Tell Me how it can be in nature that a great house should shape itself in a small mirror, or in every fragment of a mirror, when the mirror is broken? Or, how can this be, that the vast heavens should compress themselves into so small a space as your small eye, the two being so very unequal to each other in greatness?

 

The Servant.--Truly, Lord, I cannot tell, it is a strange thing, for my eye is to the heavens but as a small point.

 

Eternal Wisdom. -- Behold, though neither your eye nor anything else in nature is equal to the heavens, yet nature can do this thing, why should not I, the Lord of nature, be able to do many more things above nature? But now, tell me further, is it not just as great a miracle to create heaven and earth, and all creatures out of nothing, as to change bread invisibly into My body?

 

The Servant.-- Lord, it is just as possible for You, so far as I can understand, to change something into something, as to create something out of nothing.

Eternal Wisdom. -- Do you wonder then at that, and not at this? Tell Me further, you believe that I fed five thousand persons with five loaves, where was the hidden matter which obeyed My words?

The Servant. -- Lord, I know not.

Eternal Wisdom. -- Or do you believe you have a soul?

The Servant .-- This I do not believe, because I know it, for otherwise I should not be alive.

Eternal Wisdom. -- And yet you can not see your soul with your bodily eyes.

The Servant. -- Lord, I know that there are many more beings invisible to human eyes than such as we can see.

Eternal Wisdom. -- Now listen: many a person there is of senses so gross as hardly to believe that anything which he cannot perceive with his senses really exists, concerning which the learned know that it is false. In like manner does the human understanding stand related to divine knowledge. Had I asked you how the portals of the abyss are constructed, or how the waters in the firmament are held together, you would perhaps have answered thus: It is a question too deep for me, I cannot go into it: I never descended into the abyss, nor ever mounted up to the firmament. Well, I have only asked you about earthly things which you see and hear, and understand not. Why should you wish, then, to understand what surpasses all the earth, all the heavens, and all the senses? Or why will you need inquire into it? Behold, all such wondering and prying thoughts proceed alone from grossness of sense, which takes divine and supernatural things after the likeness of things earthly and natural, and such is not the case…

(Image credit to  Saints SQPN. The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom can be found at The Library of Christian Classics.)

PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION

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A Forgotten Spiritual Treasure

It is a shame that some Catholics have succumbed to the falsehood that any spiritual book written prior to Vatican II is antiquated and of no value for the souls of contemporary Catholics hungering for spiritual nourishment and guidance.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Have you ever heard of The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom written by Blessed Henry Suso, O.P., a fourteenth century Dominican priest and mystic? I just discovered this gem and will be spending a great deal of time mining the wisdom contained in this forgotten book. While its language needs some updating (which I have attempted to do in the following excerpts), its insights are eternal. It’s a little lengthy but worth the read.

The book sets forth an on-going dialogue between God (Eternal Wisdom) and a man (the Servant) who is searching for Wisdom and Truth. In Chapter XXIII (How We Ought Lovingly To Receive God) the Servant comes to a life-changing realization of how he has taken the Eucharist for granted. Let’s listen in on a portion of the conversation between this soul and His God. We will no doubt find much fruit for our own contemplation:

“The Servant…Lord, teach me how I should behave myself towards You, how, with due honor and love, I should receive You.

Eternal Wisdom.--You should receive Me worthily, you should partake of Me with humility, you should keep Me earnestly, you should embrace Me with conjugal love, and have Me in My godly dignity before your eyes. Spiritual hunger and actual devotion must impel you to Me more than custom…

The Servant…I have plucked the red roses and have not smelt them; I have wandered among the blooming flowers and have not seen them; I have been as a dry branch amid the fresh dews of May. Never, O never can I sufficiently repent Your having been for many a day so near me, and my having been so far from You. O, sweet guest of pure souls, what a sorry welcome have I hitherto given You, what an ill return have I so frequently made You! How little desirous have I not shown myself of the sweet bread of angels! I had the precious balsam in my mouth, and felt it not. Ah, Thou delight of all angelic eyes, never as yet did I feel true delight in You! If it were announced to me that a bodily friend would visit me in the morning should I not rejoice at it all the night before? And yet, never did I prepare myself for the reception of You, as in reason I ought, You worthy guest, whom heaven and earth equally honor… O God, how often have I stood distracted and without devotion on the very spot where You were before me, and with me in the Blessed Sacrament; my body indeed stood there, but my heart was elsewhere. How often have I thought so little of You in Your presence, that my heart has not even offered You an affectionate salutation, with a devout inclination? Gentle Lord, my eyes ought to have looked at You with joyous delight, my heart ought to have loved You with the fullness of desire, my mouth ought to have praised You with heartfelt, fervent jubilee; all my strength ought to have melted in Your glad service. What did not Your servant David do who leapt so joyously with all his might before the ark, in which there was nothing but corporal bread of heaven, nothing but corporal things! Lord, now do I stand here before You, and before all Your angels, and with bitter tears fall at Your feet…O, forgive me all the dishonor that ever I offered You, for I am sorry for it, and must ever be sorry for it; for the light of Your wisdom begins only now to enlighten me; and the place where You art, not only according to Your divinity, but according to Your humanity, shall be honored by me evermore…Tell me, gentle Lord, what is it You give Your beloved with Your real presence in the Sacrament, provided she receives You with love and desire?

Eternal Wisdom.--Is that a fitting question for a lover? What have I better than Myself? He who possesses the object of his love, what else has he to ask for? He who gives himself, what has he refused? I give Myself to you, and take you from yourself, and unite you to Me. You lose yourself, and art wholly transformed into Me. What does the sun in his brightest reflection bestow on the unclouded sky? Yes, what does the bright star of the morning dawn bestow on the dark night? Or what do the fair and ravishing adornments of summer bestow after the cold, wintry, melancholy season?

The Servant.--O Lord, they bestow precious gifts.

Eternal Wisdom.--They seem precious to you because they are visible to you. Behold, the smallest gift that flows from Me in the Blessed Sacrament reflects more splendor in eternity than any sunny brightness; it sheds more light than any morning star; it adorns you more ravishingly in eternal beauty than ever did any adornment of summer the earth. Or is not My bright divinity more radiant than any sun, My noble soul more resplendent than any star, My glorified body more ravishing than any ravishment of summer? And yet all these things have you truly received here.

            You can find this classic at The Library of Christian Classics.

June 7, 2011