Showing posts with label Instructions for Novices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Instructions for Novices. Show all posts

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 1, 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.



St. Augustine

We cannot keep ourselves on the road to perfection and prevent ourselves from failing except by efforts to climb higher. As soon as we begin to stop, we regress, with the result that, if we do not wish to fall back, we have to run ahead always, without slowing down."

(From Instructions for Novices by Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P.)


St. Catherine of Siena

"If sensual affection wants to love sensual things, the eye of understanding is moved in that direction. It takes for its object only passing things with selfish love, contempt for virtue, and love of vice, drawing from these pride and impatience. And the memory is filled only with what affection holds out to it. This love so dazzles the eye that it neither discerns nor sees anything but the glitter of these things. Such is the glitter that understanding sees and affection loves them all as if their brightness came from goodness and liveliness. Were it not for this glitter, people would never sin, for the soul by her very nature cannot desire anything but good. But vice is disguised as something good for her, and so the soul sins. Her eyes, though, cannot tell the difference because of her blindness, and she does not know the truth. So she wanders about searching for what is good and lovely where it is not to be found."

(From Mary's Mantle Consecration- A Spiritual Retreat For Heaven's Help by Christine Watkins)


St. Augustine

"Remember this: When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.

(From Instructions for Novices by Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P.)


Eucharistic Reflection - Approaching The Holy Altar

“To approach the holy altar, one must have an upright intention, that is to say, one should not receive Communion under constraint or on account of habit, human respect, vanity, or any other motive, but for the sake of uniting himself to the intentions for which Jesus Christ instituted this Sacrament, namely to transform us into Himself, to obtain from Him some graces for ourselves and for others, or again, to perpetuate and resurrect in us the memory of His Passion,  as He Himself commanded in the Upper Room.”


(Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P. from Instructions for Novices)
                                       

Eucharistic Reflection - Let There Be No Estrangement


(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

“In vain would one justify his estrangement from Holy Communion by vain pretexts. Such excuses turn against us and serve only to prove that we should receive Communion more often. Do we shudder, for example, for not having much piety? Then one must approach the Divine Eucharist, since it is a consuming fire, capable of kindling the most lukewarm hearts. Do we feel ourselves filled with weaknesses and imperfections? We should have recourse to Holy Communion: it is the bread of the strong, the milk of the weak, the remedy for the sick, the energy for the traveler who advances in the ways of perfection up to the mountain of God. Do we experience temptations, especially against purity? Do we notice other passions rising up in our soul? The wheat of the elect and the wine which makes virgins flower will produce in us chaste thoughts, well-ordered desires, and affections completely spiritual and angelic. Do we find ourselves too attached to ourselves, to the things of this world? The Eucharist, which is the bread come down from Heaven, will inspire a great indifference to creatures and an ever-growing desire for eternal life."


(From Instructions for Novices by Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P.)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - April 21, 2016




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.




Blessed Henry Suso, O.P. 

"Lord, some complain that you give them suffering. Ah. Blessed is that suffering which unites the soul to you. Lord, my cherished Spouse, a pure soul finds such delight in one spiritual embrace from you that she forgets all suffering…"

(From The Exemplar: Life and Writings of Blessed Henry Suso, OP Vol. Two)

Eucharistic Reflection - Would A Stranger Know?

  "The Eucharist is alive. If a stranger who knew nothing about the Eucharist were to watch the way we receive, would he know...