Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

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. Bernadine of Siena   “Let Mary never be far from your lips and from your heart. Following her, you will never lose your way. Praying to her, you will never sink into despair. Contemplating her, you will never go wrong.”   (Source: Father Eva Chibuzo Asadu)   St. John Henry Newman "My Lord, I offer you myself in turn as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. You have died for me, and I in turn make myself over to you. I am not my own. You have bought me; I will by my own act and deed complete the purchase. My wish is to be separated from everything of this world; to cleanse myself simply from sin; to put away from me even what is innocent, if used for its own sake, and not for yours. I put away reputation and honor, and influence, and power, for my praise and strength shall be in you. Enable me to ...

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. Dom Lorenzo Scupoli "No creature ever loved Jesus Christ more ardently, nor showed more perfect submission to His will, than Mary, His mother. If then, this Savior, immolated for us sinners, gave His mother to us, an advocate and intercessor for all time, she cannot but comply with His request, and will not refuse us her assistance. Let us, then, not hesitate to implore her pity; let us have recourse to her with great confidence in all our necessities, as she is an inexhaustible source of blessing, bestowing her favors in proportion to the confidence placed in her."   (From Spiritual Combat )   Alice von Hildebrand “But the recognition of our nothingness should go hand in hand with an awareness that God, the infinitely good and merciful God, loves His creatures, these poor beggars that He has knighted by making them to His image ...

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. Vinny Flynn "A spiritual Communion acts on the soul as blowing does on a cinder-covered fire which was about to go out. Whenever you feel your love of God growing cold, quickly make a spiritual Communion.’ ‘Quickly!’ There’s a sense of urgency here. The saints are trying to tell us that we should not limit our union with Christ in the Eucharist to sacramental Communion once a week, or even once a day. We need Christ’s living presence in our lives moment-by-moment to nourish us and protect us from sin, so we need to renew our union with Him regularly, especially any time we feel ourselves drifting away. Christ is not merely present in the Eucharist during Mass! The Eucharist is an ongoing fulfillment of Christ’s Gospel promise to remain with us: ‘Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age’ (Mt. 28:20)."   (From...

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. Peter Kreeft. Ph.D   “What is the best argument for the evangelist to use when telling the Good News? The most effective one is joy. It’s irresistible because it’s what everyone deeply wants. We can put up walls of argument against arguments, but we can’t argue with joy.”   (From The Mystery of Joy )      Venerable Fulton J. Sheen  "If you have never before prayed to Mary, do so now. Can you not see that if Christ himself willed to be physically formed in her for nine months and then be spiritually formed by her for thirty years, it is to her that we must go to learn how to have Christ formed in us? Only she who raised Christ can raise a Christian."   (From Advent Meditations with Fulton J. Sheen )     St. Therese...

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. Dan Burke and Connie Rossini   "When we have too many vocal prayers to say, our goal easily changes to getting them done instead of praying them well. They become less, rather than more, contemplative. The Holy Spirt might be moving us to linger silently on the meditation of a mystery, but we feel that we can't stop or we will never fit all our prayers in. So we find ourselves working against the Holy Spirit...We forget that the very purpose of prayer is communing with the Lord."   (From The Contemplative Rosary )     Dom Lorenzo Scupoli   "No creature ever loved Jesus Christ more ardently, nor showed more perfect submission to His will, than Mary, His mother. If then, this Savior, immolated for us sinners, gave His mother to us, an advocate and intercessor for all time, she ca...

(Originally posted on October 17, 2017) While I was on retreat a few years ago at the Abbey of the Genesee , I paused (as I often do on my visits there) before the statue of our Blessed Mother which welcomes visitors to the monastery.  It is a simple but beautiful image. I think you will agree. On that day, as I prayerfully gazed into her eyes, these words came to me: "Come closer my child. Draw near to me. I want to embrace and kiss you as only a Mother can." What a gift to us "poor banished children of Eve"!

Certainly our Blessed Mother never intended to limit these words of encouragement to the ears of St. Juan Diego. No, this is the message she wants all her children to hear and embrace:

(This image of Our Lady (used with permission) graces the entrance to the Abbey of the Genesee in Piffard, NY)

Thank you Allison Gingras and Elizabeth Riordan for another opportunity to re-publish our favorite posts on Worth Revisiting .   Go there now   and be nourished spiritually. V isit Allison at Reconciled To You and Elizabeth at Theology Is A Verb during the rest of each week.   You will enjoy your visit. Although I have shared this before, I decided to post it again:  Remembering Our Lady of Guadalupe    (Originally posted on December 12, 2014) While my wife and I were cleaning out our attic and basement a few weeks ago, we discovered a long lost treasure - photographs from a trip that my eldest daughter and I had taken to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City more than twenty-five years ago. At the time of that visit, the original Church built at the request of the Blessed Mother, was deemed unsafe to enter. A new modern structure – much larger had been erected nearby. I remember pa...

Thank you Allison Gingras at  Reconciled To You   and Elizabeth Riordan at  Theology Is A Verb   for  hosting Catholic bloggers at  Worth   Revisiting .      It is a privilege for us to share our work with you and your readers .      Here is my contribution for this Month of the Rosary:   Rosary Reflection - No Longer Relevant or Needed in Our Time? (Originally posted October 10, 2015) There is confusion among some Catholics these days – no doubt planted by the Evil One, who fears the Blessed Mother and the power of her Rosary. Some would have us believe that recitation of the Rosary is an antiquated devotion no longer relevant or needed in current times. Nothing could be further from the truth as can be seen by the Blessed Mother’s promise to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de Roche and as she herself re-emphasized to the children at Fat...

[Each Monday of October, in commemoration of it being the Month of the Holy Rosary, I will post a rosary reflection in hopes of  fostering greater devotion for, and an increased commitment to, its daily recitation. I highly recommend Champions of the Rosary - The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon by Father Donald H. Calloway, MIC] (Photo©Michael Seagriff) “The Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the holy rosary.”                 (Servant of God, Lucia Dos Santos from Champions of the Rosary )