Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

(Source:unprofound.com)  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.  Father Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. “The secondary purpose of the grace which the priest receives at ordination is the sanctification of the faithful. If the priest has the care of souls, he has a special obligation to strive for holiness of life because of his duty toward the Mystical Body of Christ. In no other way will he be able to sanctify the souls committed to his charge or avoid the dangers of the world which are not to be found in a monastery. (Cf. St. Thomas, loc. cit.)

  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.   Father Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.   The primary purpose of the priestly grace is the worthy celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass…The secondary purpose of the grace which the priest receives at ordination is the sanctification of the faithful. If the priest has the care of souls, he has a special obligation to strive for holiness of life because of his duty toward the Mystical Body of Christ. In no other way will he be able to sanctify the souls committed to his charge or avoid the dangers of the world…   (From The Priest In Union With Christ )   Madeleine Delbrel, Servant of  God   From a sand dune, dressed in white, the missionary overlooks an expanse of lands filled with unbaptized peoples. From the top of a long subway staircase, dressed in an ordinary suit or overcoat, we over...

In a previous post , we reviewed the definition of a “worthily and holily celebrated Mass” that Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. offered in his book ThePriest In Union with Christ - a book I again highly recommend . As painful an exercise as the following may be, it would be worthwhile to take a look at two other types of Masses the good Friar describes – “the hurriedly said Mass” and the one that is “outwardly correct but lacks the spirit of faith” - neither of which has resurrected or can resurrect the sense of awe and amazement in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Eucharist to which Catholics are entitled and that Blessed John Paul II advocated and so longed for each of us to experience.   This is, in part, what Father Reginald has to say about a “hurriedly said Mass”:

For some time now, I have been reading The Priest In Union With Christ written by the late Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., described by some as “probably the 20 th century’s greatest theologian” and “one of the Church’s all-time greatest authorities on the spiritual life.”   Given the on-going attack on the nature of the priesthood, our priests and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, this is a book you should read and gift to any priest you treasure. In it, this gifted Dominican urges all of his readers to always remember “that the principal Priest in the sacrifice of the Mass is Christ, and that the celebrant must be striving for an actual and closer union with Him.”   Does this truth come as a surprise to you? He then goes on to describe the different ways of celebrating Mass: the sacrilegious Mass, the Mass which is said hurriedly, the Mass which is outwardly correct but lacks the spirit of faith, the Mass which is faithfully and worthily celebrated, and ...