Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

  "… our first task is to adore and glorify God. It is the highest expression of our gratitude to Him and the most beautiful response our life can offer to the extraordinary love He bears us. To adore God one must set oneself apart -in silence. Come here in the silence of the heart, to listen to God. This is what it means to enter into a sacred disposition. There are sacred places set apart for God, chosen by God - these places must not be profaned by any activity other than prayer, silence and liturgy. Our churches are not theaters, nor concert halls, nor venues for cultural or recreational events. The church is the House of God. It is reserved for Him alone. We enter it with reverence and veneration, properly clothed, because we tremble before the greatness of God. We do not tremble out of fear but out of reverence, awe and wonder. …Sacred places do not belong to us; they belong to God. The purpose of the liturgy is the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful, ...

(Photo ©Father Lawrence Lew, O.P. Used with Permission) We see clearly how in lands of comfort, wealth and abundance, man destroys himself, self-destructs, because he forgets God and thinks only of his riches and earthly well-being. What saves the world is the bread of God. Man must be nourished with the bread of God - and the bread of God - is Christ Himself. What will save the world is a man kneeling before God, to adore and to serve Him. God is not at our service. It is we who are at His service. (Cardinal Robert Sarah, July 26, 2025 Homily marking the 400 th anniversary of Saint Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at her shrine in Sainte-Anne d’Auray, Brittany, France)

“No human effort, however talented or generous it may be, can transform a soul and give it the life of Christ. Only the grace and the Cross of Jesus can save and sanctify souls and make the Church grow. Multiplying human efforts, believing that methods and strategies have any efficacy in themselves, will always be a waste of time. Christ alone can give his life to souls; He gives it in the measure in which He Himself lives in us and has completely taken hold of us. So it is with the saints. Jesus lives in their whole lives, in all their actions, in all their desires. The apostolic value of an apostle is measured solely by his sanctity and by the intensity of his prayer life." (Robert Cardinal Sarah from The Day Is Now Far Spent )

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 “The final means of acquiring both distrust of self and confidence in God is that before attempting to perform any good action, or to encounter some failing, we should look at our own weakness on the one hand, and on the other contemplate the infinite power , wisdom and goodness of God. Balancing what we fear from ourselves with what we hope from God, we shall courageously undergo the greatest difficulties and severest trials.” (From The Spiritual Combat and a Treatise On Peace of Soul ) Robert Cardinal Sarah “I wish to underline a very important fact here: God, not man is at the center of Catholic liturgy. We come to worship Him. The liturgy is not about you and me; it is not where we celebrate our own identity or achievements or exalt or promote our own culture and local religious customs. The liturgy is first a...

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 . Robert Cardinal Sarah “Excessive, presumptuous, slanderous, and immoderate chatter often has disastrous consequences. Silence fosters recollection; it is always compromised by facile words and demagoguery. A person can recollect himself, but if he is not capable of holding his tongue, his meditation will not help him to enter into the mystery of God or to prostrate himself silently at the foot of his throne.”   (From The Power of Silence )   Vince Sigala “I was suddenly standing in the back of a church. Behind me were two, solidly heavy, large wooden doors. There was no way through this entrance from the outside and no way out of from the inside. I was made to know that the doors had been locked by God Himself. Outside of the doors, there was great confusion, chaos, horror, fear, and death. As I looked toward the altar, a pries...