Pondering Tidbits of Truth - April 5, 2018

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. Martin de Porres

"Compassion, my dear Brothers, is preferable to cleanliness. Reflect that with a little soap I can easily clean my bed covers, but even with a torrent of tears I would never wash from my soul the stain that my harshness toward the unfortunate would create." 

(From Hounds of the Lord: Great Dominican Saints Every Catholic Should Know)

Cardinal Robert Sarah

We need priests who are men of the interior life, ‘God’s watchmen’ and pastors passionately committed to the evangelization of the world, and not social workers or politicians

(From God or Nothing: A Conversation in Faith with Nicholas Diat)

St. John Chrysostom

"There is nothing to be dreaded in human ills except sin—not poverty, or disease, or insult, or ill treatment, or dishonor, or death, which people call the worst of evils. To those who love spiritual wisdom, these things are only the names of disasters, names that have no substance. No, the true disaster is to offend God, to do anything that displeases him." 

(From A Year with the Church Fathers: Patristic Wisdom for Daily Living by Mike Aquilina) 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - August 10, 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.

Father Jacques Phillipe

“Íf people know what they must do today and commit themselves to doing it and leave tomorrow to God’s providence, all is well. What more can anyone do? Take the step that needs taking today. Take another step tomorrow. Every day will have its own steps to take.”

(From March 20, 2017 Reflections of the Frassati Fellowship-New York City)

Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O.

“To human eyes how did Jesus differ from the thieves who were condemned and crucified with Him? If some stranger had come to Jerusalem that Friday afternoon and passed Calvary before darkness enfolded it, how could he tell that the middle cross held Innocence and the Redemption of mankind? He would have seen three naked men dying by degrees. How could he know that One was not only the Light of the World but the Life of all living? Mary had eyes of flesh and she saw the beaten, bloody body of her Son upon the nails. She saw that body taken down. She held it. She counted the wounds. She untangled the blood-matted hair. She folded the nerveless arms. She closed the gaping mouth. She straightened the lifeless legs. She knew she was holding a corpse. Yet in that corpse she adored the Christ of God and the Jesus of men. Was there ever such faith on earth?" 

(From God, A Woman and the Way)

St. Pius X

“Without interior life, we will never have the strength to persevere in sustaining all the difficulties inseparable from any apostolate, the coldness and lack of co-operation even on the part of virtuous men, the calumnies of our adversaries, and at times even the jealousy of friends and comrades in arms…Only a patient virtue, unshakably based upon the good, and at the same time smooth and tactful, is able to move these difficulties to one side and diminish their power.”

(From June 11, 1905 Encyclical to the Priests of Italy)