Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 29, 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.

Caryll Houselander

"You see, God's will for you is to serve Him, in His way, as He chooses, now. It is only a want of humility to think of extreme vocations, like being a nun or a nurse, while you try to bypass your present obvious vocation, which is to restore your will to God's, so that you may become what He wants you to be, and may be able to use the faculties He has given  to you for His service."

(From The Letters of Caryll Houselander)

St. Paul of the Cross

"Build an oratory within yourself, and there have Jesus on the altar of your heart. Speak to Him often while you are doing your work. Speak to Him of His holy love, of His holy sufferings and of the sorrow of most holy Mary."

(From Flower of the Passion -Thoughts of St. Paul of the Cross)

St. Francis de Sales

"It is horrible irreverence to Him who with so much love and sweetness invites us to perfection, to say, 'I don't want to be holy, or perfect, or to have a greater share in Your friendship, or to follow the counsels You give me to advance in it."

(From Finding God's Will For You)

Eucharistic Reflection - He Comes To Life In Us

Christ who has been sacrificed on the altar is laid in the tomb of their hearts. There is no place where He will not come: prisons, hospitals, schools, camps, ships at sea, cathedrals and little tin churches; he comes to them all. He comes into the houses of the sick and the dying, regardless whether they are mansions or slums.

 

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

He comes to all kinds of people, from little children at First Communion, who bring Him their first tender acts of love and reparation to be myrrh and aloes on His wounds, to old sinners who open their empty hearts to Him hurriedly, at the last minute, just as Joseph of Arimathea’s empty tomb was opened hurriedly, at the last minute before the feast, to receive His crucified body.
 

Every day crowds of unknown people come to Him, who feel as hard, as cold, as empty as the tomb.  They come with the first light, before going to the day's work, and with the grey mind of early morning, hardly able to concentrate at all on the mystery which they themselves are part of: impelled only by the persistent will of love, not by any sweetness of consolation, and it seems to them as if nothing happens at all.  

 

But Christ's response to that dogged, devoted will of a multitude of insignificant people is His coming to life in them, his Resurrection in their souls.  In the eyes of the world they are without importance, but in fact, because of them and their unemotional Communions, when the world seems to be finished, given up to hatred and pride, secretly, in unimaginable humility, Love comes to life again.  There is resurrection everywhere.

(From The Risen Christ by Caryll Houselander)

Monday Musings - Just To Be Clear

Lay Catholic artist, writer, poet and mystic, Caryll Houselander, leaves no doubt that the person who desires to advance spiritually in this earthly life must come to understand and conform his/her life to the truths set forth below:

"You see, God's will for you is to serve Him, in His way, as He chooses, now. It is only a want of humility to think of extreme vocations, like being a nun or a nurse, while you try to bypass your present obvious vocation, which is to restore your will to God's, so that you may become what He wants you to be, and may be able to use the faculties He has given to you for His service."

(From The Letters of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - March 23, 2017

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.

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

Father R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

"In those persons who we are not naturally attracted to we have to see souls that have been saved by the Blood of Christ, souls that belong to the Mystical Body of Christ, souls which might even be closer to His Sacred Heart than our own. It often happens that we spend many years alongside very beautiful souls without our ever noticing it."

(From The Three Ages of the Interior Life)