Eucharistic Reflection - What Shall I Answer?

"What shall I answer if I have not responded to the love of Jesus – and not given Him the whole love of my heart – and not spent myself for Him Who loved me unto death, even unto the death of the Cross? What shall I answer when I find out that throughout my life, every hour of the day and night, Jesus was for me imprisoned in the tabernacle, pleading for me with the Father – wishing for me to visit Him, to unite Himself to me, and to be my faithful, my own God?"

(Meditation on the Passion - A Mistress of Novices of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Just one of the 250 soul-searching quotations you will find in Stirring Slumbering Souls

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 7, 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.

St. John Chrysostom

"Necessity obliges us to pray for ourselves. Fraternal charity obliges us to pray for others. God finds the prayer motivated by charity to be more meritorious than the prayer motivated by necessity."

(From St. Bernard's Sermon on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

A Mistress of Novices for the Intsitute of the Blessed Virgin Mary

"...There is no health  of soul nor hope of eternal life but in the Cross. The more the flesh is brought down by affliction, the more is the spirit strengthened by interior grace. We are not exhorted to pray for the Cross, but we may and ought to pray for a love of the Cross. The price of great graces is humiliation - The Royal Way of the Cross. Humiliations are precious drops from the chalice of our Lord's Blood.

When our Lord  loves anyone, He presses him to His Heart as a tender friend would do; but round Jesus' Heart there is a crown of thorns, and the more He presses us to His Heart, the more these thorns enter into ours. How many - even Religious - there are who only seek the shadow of the Cross, how many who lean against it, how few who climb up and are fastened to it!"

(From Meditation on the Passion)

St. Basil

"The vendor does not become sad that he has to barter the goods he has at fairs to acquire the merchandise he wants; but you become sad at exchanging the chance of eternal life for a handful of dust."

(From Catena Aurea, Vol. VI, 313)

Monday Musings - How Few There Really Are

We often forget that Jesus told His disciples: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Mt. 16:24). The next time we try to run away from this command, let us recall the following reflection:

"...There is no health of soul nor hope of eternal life but in the Cross. The more the flesh is brought down by affliction, the more is the spirit strengthened by interior grace. We are not exhorted to pray for the Cross, but we may and ought to pray for a love of the Cross. The price of great graces is humiliation - The Royal Way of the Cross. Humiliations are precious drops from the chalice of our Lord's Blood.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

When our Lord  loves anyone, He presses him to His Heart as a tender friend would do; but round Jesus' Heart there is a crown of thorns, and the more He presses us to His Heart, the more these thorns enter into ours. How many - even Religious - there are who only seek the shadow of the Cross, how many who lean against it, how few who climb up and are fastened to it!"

(From Meditation on The Passion)