Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

[ I read these words of wisdom penned by Father Paul  D. Scalia yesterday and knew immediately that they had to be shared:] "Sanctity isn't happening somewhere else. It is found in the here and now, in the duty of the moment, in being present to ourselves, to God and to others... Our salvation - yours and mine - does not happen out there, in some other place or in someone else's life. It doesn't occur in the  media or latest gossip, online or otherwise. It doesn't depend on our knowing the latest political intrigue or celebrity news. It depends on our personal and interior adherence to the Lord.  But we love to be distracted because this reality can be daunting. We fear that God is too close, too personal. Too local. So we distract ourselves by looking elsewhere, to other people, places and things. But salvation doesn't happen somewhere else. It happens locally, where we are. And we shouldn't chose to be anywhere else." (Excerpted from  The Catholic Th...

(Image Source- Josh Applegate  at Unsplash.com ) "Be a Eucharistic soul! If the center around which your thoughts and hopes turn is the Tabernacle, then my child, how abundant the fruits of sanctity and apostolate will be!" St. Josemaria Escriva from The Forge )

“No human effort, however talented or generous it may be, can transform a soul and give it the life of Christ. Only the grace and the Cross of Jesus can save and sanctify souls and make the Church grow. Multiplying human efforts, believing that methods and strategies have any efficacy in themselves, will always be a waste of time. Christ alone can give his life to souls; He gives it in the measure in which He Himself lives in us and has completely taken hold of us. So it is with the saints. Jesus lives in their whole lives, in all their actions, in all their desires. The apostolic value of an apostle is measured solely by his sanctity and by the intensity of his prayer life." (Robert Cardinal Sarah from The Day Is Now Far Spent )

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.     Catherine Doherty de Heuck, Servant of God "If you love Christ, if you enter His Heart, then you will find yourself in the loneliness of the garden, in the loneliness of all humanity. If you want to stay close to the Heart of Christ, then you have to go to where Jesus is - on the cross. Christ left the other side of His cross open for you, so that you could hang there with Him, close to His Heart, for the sake of the world, loving all sinners, making your loneliness - Christ's loneliness - a prayer for all people." (From In the Footprints of Loneliness)   Father Emile-Marie Briere "No amount of  human appreciation, understanding or love can satisfy the human heart. We are made for God, for the Infinite, for a greater love affair than we can imagine. God alone knows our name; He alone can know us completely. He alone can enter...

“What graces, virtues, and gifts holy Mass calls down! In the first place, it calls down all spiritual graces, all the goods appertaining to the soul, such as repentance for sins, and victory over temptations, whether such result from external trials, as bad companions and infernal spirits, or internal, as for instance, those arising from rebellious appetites. It calls down the aid of grace, so necessary for enabling us to rise up, to stand up on our feet, to walk forward in the ways of God. It calls down many good and holy inspirations, and many internal impulses, which dispose us to shake off tepidity, and spurs on us to work our best with greater fervor, with will more prompt, with intention more upright and pure; and these, again, bring with them an inestimable treasure, being the most effectual means for obtaining from God the grace of final perseverance, on which depends our eternal salvation, and the grace, of as much moral certainty of eternal bliss as is ever permitted here be...

(Photo©Michael Seagriff) "No one can see God without falling in love with Him, and no one can meet a saint without meeting God in him or her. That is the good news: that in a world dedicated to the will to power, there is no power greater than that of sanctity; and that in a world dedicated to the pursuit of selfish pleasure, there is no pleasure greater than that of unselfish love of God and man. No one can ignore or refute the joy of a saint.  (Peter Kreeft, Ph.D from How To Destroy Western Civilization )

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) I am going to reveal to you the secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes control your imagination and close your eyes to all the noises of the world in order to enter into yourself. Then, in the sanctuary of your baptized soul (which is the temple of the Holy Spirit) speak to that Divine Spirit, saying to Him:    O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your Will. If you do this, your life will flow along happily, serenely, and full of consolation, even in the midst of trials. Grace will be proportioned to the trial, giving you the strength to carry it and you will arrive at the Gate of Paradise, laden with merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity. ( Prayer...

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) "Imagine now that you hear these sweet words from your Savior: 'It is because you are poor that I come into you; it is because you are sick that I come to heal you; it was to give you My life and let you share My sanctity that I made Myself Sacrament; come then with confidence and give Me Your heart; that is all I desire from you'." St. Peter Julian Eymard from Holy Communion )

Sometimes the answer is right in front of our eyes: