Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 30, 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. Catherine of Genoa  

"The greatest suffering of the souls in purgatory, it seems to me, is the awareness that something in them displeases God, that they have deliberately gone against His great goodness. I can also see that the divine essence is so pure and light-filled—much more than we can imagine—that the soul that has but the slightest imperfection would rather throw itself into a thousand hells than appear thus before the divine presence."  

(From Treatise on Purgatory)

 

Dr. Kathleen Cuddihy, O.P.

“Our Lord is here in all His Divinity and Humility in the Holy Eucharist, waiting for us to come.  To come, to spend time with Him in Adoration, to receive Him into our bodies during Mass, to unite with Him.  Our ever loving, merciful Father is present with us, we can look upon Him, speak to Him.  God our Father is waiting to hear our joys and sorrows, triumphs and failings.  Waiting.  Waiting for our attention in the busyness of life, to pause, to worship, to adore, to praise our merciful God who loves us, provides for us and bestows abundant graces upon us so that we have eternal life with Him.  Can we pause?  Can we listen for the voice of God in the quietness?  Can we give the gift of our attention to God? He is waiting.” 

(From Godhead Here in Hiding  Whom I Do Adore – Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration) 

 

Father Donald Haggerty "The idea that contemplation could be at one’s personal disposal and available on demand is an obvious misconception. The only proper expectation is that the soul’s yearning to love God has come from God and cannot be fruitless."

(From The Contemplative Hunger)

 

 

Monday Musings - Eucharistic Revival

 

It should come as no surprise that the efforts of the Lay Dominicans of St. Joseph Province to help  promote Eucharistic Adoration are bearing fruit. Here is one Adoration Chapel where two copies of  their book, Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration, have found a home. The reflections in this book are stirring souls and touching hearts.

Have you gotten your copy yet? Is there one in your Adoration Chapel? 

Why not?

May Father' Bruno's observations  encourage you to do so:

“Hidden within these pages, the reader discovers the God who has chosen to dwell within the Tabernacle of the human heart. Each reflection is its own monstrance, bearing the shape of its unique human author, while manifesting our heavenly Father's Spirit of Truth. Here you will find thoughts and events that are ordinary and surprising, instructive and lyrical, worthy of both cross and crown. The common life of the early Dominicans was called ‘the holy preaching.’ The sons and daughters of St. Dominic who have contributed to this volume continue in that apostolic witness to the divine mercy of our Eucharistic faith.”

(Fr. Bruno M. Shah, OP Assistant Professor at Providence College, and Religious Assistant to Our Lady of Divine Providence/St. Thomas Aquinas Fraternity in Providence, RI) 

Monday Musings - Listen to Father Ignatius John Schweitzer, OP - Contribute to Eucharistic Revival - Share This Book, Share Your Faith

Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration is not just a book. It can be a vital tool to help foster Eucharistic Revival. Listen to Father Ignatius John Schweitzer, OP, Priest Promoter of the Lay Dominicans, Province of St. Joseph. 

Please share his challenge with everyone you know:

You can purchase copies of Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration  at Amazon.com

Eucharistic Reflection - Toward A More Intimate Relationship

“While no one suggests that Christ is more present in the exposed sacrament than in the tabernacle, this physical visibility can be a powerful aid in learning to be attentive to the Lord in prayer . . .exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is an extension of the Mass. It prolongs the Mass. . . (and is) a means to drawing the adorer into a deeper life of prayer, a more intimate relationship with Christ.” 

(Father Gabriel O’Donnell, O.P.)

Eucharistic Reflection - The Greatest Honor

“The last sign and proof of love is to desire the presence of the beloved and to suffer great anguish at his absence. This will be seen by anyone who reads the lengths to which the mother of Tobias went during the absence of her son and what Jacob did for the sight of Joseph, for at an advanced age, he departed with all his family for the land of Egypt to see his son before death. 

Our Divine Lover instituted the Sacrament in which He is really and truly present so that as long as this Sacrament is in the world, He will be among us. This is the greatest honor, the greatest consolation, and the greatest remedy that Christ could have granted us. Now we can call on Him in our sufferings, go to Him in our needs, and speak face to face with Him.”

(Venerable Louis of Granada, O.P. From Summa of the Christian Life)

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)

                                       

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 15, 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. Anthony Mary Claret

"...the most important point on which depends your whole welfare in the spiritual life...one must tread in the footsteps which Jesus Christ left before us, and keeping Him faithful company, patiently bear the desolation and affliction in one's spirit, pain and hardships in one's body, outrages, injuries, ill-will and persecution from whatever source they come."

(From The Golden Key to Heaven)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 18, 2017

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

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.

Juan Donoso Cortes

"Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight, and if the world is going from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers."

(From The Soul of the Apostolate)

Keep Your Focus Where It Belongs

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - March 10, 2016

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

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 Georges Chevrot

"You are often mistaken when you say, 'I brought my children up wrongly', or ' I did not know how to do good to those around me.' What happens is that you have not achieved the result you were hoping for, that you do not yet see the fruit you would have wished for, because the harvest is not yet ripe. What does matter is that you have sown the seed, that you have given God to souls. When God wants, those souls will return to him. You may not be there to see it, but there will be others who will gather in what have sown."

(From The Well of Life)

That More of Our Priests Would Heed This Fine Sheperd's Voice

I have frequently expressed my fondness and admiration for Servant of God Fulton J. Sheen. Not surprisingly, I apppreciated the article Father Kevin Gabriel Gillen, O.P. posted on the website for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, entitled Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Master Preacher, Master of the Airwaves. You will too.

Let me share the following excerpt from Father's article. In doing so, I ask everyone reading this entry today to pray that all of our priests will follow the good Archbishop's example and advice - knowing in my heart that if they did so their priesthood, our Church and our world would be so much different than they presently are:

What exerted the greatest influence in the life of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and has become his trademark is the Holy Hour. Sheen entitles one of the chapters in his autobiography, “The Hour That Makes My Day.” On the day of his ordination, Sheen resolved to spend one hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament every day of his life, and this he did faithfully. This nourishment served as the very root of his prayer life and vocation. He made a point to recommend it at all times, especially on retreats and even to Protestants.

First, the Holy Hour is not a devotion; it is a sharing in the work of redemption. Our Lord asked: “Could you not watch one hour with Me?”

I keep up the Holy Hour…to grow more and more into His Likeness…. Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain…. The purpose of the Holy Hour is to encourage deep personal encounter with Christ. The holy and glorious God is constantly inviting us to come to Him, to hold converse with Him, to ask for such things as we need and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him.

I have found that it takes some time to catch fire in prayer. This has been on of the advantages of the daily Hour. It is not so brief as to prevent the soul from collecting itself and shaking off the multitudinous distractions of the world. Sitting before the Presence is like a body exposing itself before the sun to absorb its rays. Silence in the Hour is a tête-à-tête with the Lord. In those moments, one does not so much pour out written prayers, but listening takes its place. We do not say: “Listen Lord, for Thy servant speaks,” but “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.”

It is impossible for me to explain how helpful the Holy Hour has been in preserving my vocation…. Being tethered to a tabernacle, one’s rope for finding other pastures is not so long. That dim tabernacle lamp, however pale and faint, had some mysterious luminosity to darken the brightness of “bright lights.” The Holy Hour became like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the World. Even when it seemed so unprofitable and lacking in spiritual intimacy, I still had the sensation of being at least like a dog at the master’s door, ready in case he called me.

(Photo credit: Fulton Sheen.com)

Imagine

Imagine what we, our families, our priests, our Church, our communities and our world would be like if the Eucharist was, in fact, the source, center and summit of our daily lives.

The following two men have something significant to share with all of us, be we lay men and women, priests or religious, about the value of Eucharistic Adoration. May our spiritual journey and desire for holiness be enriched by reading and reflecting on what they have said.

Father James M. Sullivan, O.P. – “Adoration is not just one more thing to do, like going to the store, the doctor, etc.  It is an encounter with Christ.  His love changes and orders our life.”

Fulton Sheen, Servant of God – “The priest should think of the practice of the daily Holy Hour, as something to continue for his whole life…the daily Holy Hour gives us wisdom…The mind of the priest who lives close to the tabernacle door gains a special illumination.  The priest's mind and heart are best guided when they seek the Eucharistic Lord at dawn…Daily exigencies demand a daily Holy Hour…Vitamins cannot be stored up.  Spiritual energy has to be renewed; today's strength must come from the Lord today.  Thus the monotony of life is broken, and there comes to the priest new power for each day's apostolate.  The Holy Hour each day also destroys in the priest forebodings and worries about the future.  Kneeling before the Eucharistic Lord, he receives the rations for each day's march, worrying not at all about tomorrow...The Holy Hour should be a daily event because our crosses are daily, not weekly…These daily crosses will sour us, sear our souls and make us bitter, unless we turn them into crucifixes; and how can that be done except by seeing them as coming from the Lord?  That we can do only if we are with Him.  The Holy Hour may be a sacrifice, but the Lord does not make the week the unit of sacrifice.  He tells us our cross is daily.”

Yes, let us imagine…

Of Hell and Other Things

Upon further reflection and prayer, I prefer this version to that post which I previously posted.  

After recently reading the familiar Gospel story about Lazarus and the rich man, I saw the following internet headline: “Pastor who does not believe in hell fired!”  God’s timing is impeccable, isn’t it?

My immediate thought after reading this headline was: “and this pastor was caught off guard by his dismissal?”  The sad reality is that it is not just this specific minister, but so many other Christians, including many Catholics (even some of their priests), who have abandoned the fundamental truth that there are eternal consequences to a life lived in unrepentant and unconfessed sin (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sections 1033-1041). 

“Our God is far too merciful,” these dissidents argue, “than to banish anyone to an eternity in hell.” What Scripture and what Catechism do they read?

How have we arrived at this state of confusion on such a crucial article of faith? When was the last time you heard a sermon on sin, death, hell, and the last judgment?  Chances are not too recently. Been encouraged to go to confession regularly? How many funerals have you attended where the decedent’s arrival in heaven has been happily and definitely announced?  - far too many, probably.

The only way you can subscribe to a theory of universal salvation is to assume that  God, His Church and the many individuals He has used over the centuries to teach and guide us never really meant what He or they said. You would have to conclude, for example, that the story of Lazarus and the poor man (Luke 16:19-31), the description of the Last Judgment (Matthew 26:31-46), and the Catechism references set forth above were never intended to be taken seriously. Maybe that is why verses 41-46 of Chapter 25 in Matthew are so often excluded when that Gospel is proclaimed in our Churches.

Of course, St. Augustine didn’t really mean it when he said: “God made you without yourself; God redeemed you without yourself; but God will not save you without yourself.”

I am equally as certain that St. Bernard was faking it when with tears he said that “there was hardly one ship out of ten lost on the sea, but on the ocean of life there is hardly one soul saved out of ten.”

What was Ven. Louis Granada, O.P. thinking when he opined that “Men have eyes as keen as those of an eagle in discerning the things of this world, but they are as blind as beetles to the things of eternity?”

Finally, I suspect that the late Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. must have been hitting “the sauce” before he was foolish enough to write the following: “I am sure many lost souls in hell right now would cry out to preachers and writers if they could: Oh, why did you not tell us more about the horrors of hell? Why did you not strike such fear into our hearts by your realistic description of hell that we would have made greater efforts to avoid it?...Why did you spare our feelings in a matter of such eternal moment? Oh, why did you not make hell a thousand times hotter than you did, then perhaps we would not be here today? ”

Where is the zeal for the salvation of souls?

God made us to be with Him eternally. He gives us all the graces we will need to join Him there. We can believe what He teaches, respond to His graces, humble ourselves by confessing and seeking forgiveness for our sins and enjoy eternity in His Presence, or we can reject what He teaches and offers us here on earth and discover to our eternal regret that God never lies. The choice seems so obvious, doesn’t it?

St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that no one “is in hell who did not have, time after time, the chance of taking heaven in his grasp”.  Father Leo Rudloff, O.S.B. reinforces the Angelic Doctor, when he stresses “that hell is not a blind destiny into which the sinner plunges unawares, but is his self-chosen and fully deserved portion.”

We are entitled to the truth. Our priests and bishops must not hesitate to teach that truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may make them or us.

Oh, how our priests and bishops need our prayerful support and encouragement!