Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

 

  O Christian soul, what will be your sentiments at the hour of death with regard to this world and all its perishable goods, vain honors, false riches and cheating pleasures.   Alas! The world must then end in your regard.  It will turn upside down before your eyes, and you will begin to see the nothingness of all those things on which you had here set your heart.  How will you then despise all worldly honors and preferences when you see yourself at the brink of the grave, where the worm will make no distinction between the king and the beggar.  How little account, will you then make of the esteem of men, who then will think no more of you.  How will you undervalue your riches, which now must be left behind you, when six feet of earth and a coffin and a shroud will be all your possession.  How despicable will all worldly pleasures seem to you, which at the best  could never give you any true satisfaction, and now fly from you and dissolve ...

 

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. Mother Angelica   "Please, make a visit every so often. Just go into your church for a moment and say, “Hi, Jesus, I’m here. I don’t have much to say.” He knows that...He wants our will, our love, our faith, and our trust. Remember now, you have that, you have everything. Every day, whatever church you belong to, he waits in that tabernacle, hoping when that door opens, it’s you."   St. Peter Julian Eymard "Oh! How well the devil knows that by keeping souls away from the Eucharist he is destroying the Christian family and fostering selfishness in us. For there are only two loves: the love of God and the love of self. We must give ourselves to the one or to the other. How unhappy are they who no longer have the Eucharist! What darkness! What lawlessness of mind! What coldness of heart! Satan alone...

I enjoyed reading Father Dismas Sayre, O.P.s Theology for the Laity column in the May-June 2025 issue of LIGHT and LIFE , in which he discussed God’s Omniscience.   I highly recommend you contact the Dominican Western Province’s Rosary Center & Confraternity at rosarycenter.org   and subscribe to this publication. You can read Father’s full column here. When I read the  following excerpt Father used from the Baltimore Catechism I knew I had to share it with those who read my blog. Many have suggested that parishes should make the Baltimore Catechism the center piece of faith formation programs. Few have done so. After you read the answer to question 18 as it appears in the 4 th edition of the Baltimore Catechism , you will understand why we should be using this Catechism and how desperately we need to be shaken out of our complacency and taught the truths of our faith. Sin, as you are about to discover or rediscover, is not a private matter. May the foll...

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. David G. Bonagura, Jr. "It has become fashionable in certain circles for parents to put off their child's baptism until he or she is older and can make a personal decision. This is a colossal mistake. To deprive a child of Baptism is akin to depriving him of an education or health care. Parents would never make teeth brushing handwashing or school optional for their children. Likewise, they should never make God and His grace optional. God is essential and Baptism is the means by which human beings begin to encounter God in His fullness.” (From 100 Tough Questions for Catholics -   Common Obstacles to Faith Today. )   St. Alphonsus Liguori "St. Augustine says, that to prevent the sheep from seeking assistance by her cries, the wolf seizes her by the neck, and thus securely carries her away and devours her. The Devil acts in...

  (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) There is a vital lesson to learn from the paralytic in John's Gospel. When we fail to listen to, and answer the specific question, God places in our hearts, we may lose the opportunity to receive a great and undeserved gift. Listen here .

[ The following is an excerpt from Father Jose Gonzalez’s Catholic  Daily R eflection for October 24, 2024. It is worth pondering.]     “When God says He came to set the world afire, He is referring to His desire to purify our souls. Within our souls there are many impurities that must be removed if we want to become one with God. This purification involves a process of allowing God to bring our sins to the surface so that they are seen and can be removed. But this is only possible if we allow the blazing fire of God's purifying love to consume us! Oftentimes…we are content with simply being mediocre in our faith journey. [But] God wants us to become so purified from our sin, that He is able to become one with us… God wants so much more from you. He wants to transform you and use you in ways beyond your imagination.” So let me ask you: Will you let Him?   ...

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 John Catoir   "The more you trust God, the happier you will be...The great spiritual masters tell us that the path to both happiness and holiness is found in fidelity to the duty of the present moment. If you take care of the little things, the big things will take care of themselves. Be faithful to the duty of the present moment. Do it for the Lord, and be at peace."  (An excerpt from Uplifting Thoughts for Every Day ) St. Peter Julian Eymard   “What displeases God most on earth and in us is sin. You must give this truth your attentive consideration. The just and the saints themselves are not exempt from sin. And we, have we not at least venial sins on our conscience? The just and the saints themselves are not exempt from sin. Have we never had to weep for mortal sins?...

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. Scott Hahn "There are many ways of looking at confession, and all of them are valid. You can look at it as a courtroom with a divine judge. You can look at it as an accounting of debts. I think it's most helpful to look at it as healing - as health care. Confession does for our souls what doctors, dieticians, physical therapists, and pharmacists do for our bodies. Think about all we do to keep our bodies in working order. We go for regular checkups with a primary-care physician, a dentist, an eye doctor. And no one has to remind us to brush our teeth, take a shower, and pop the pills for whatever ails us. All this is good for us, and it's good for everyone around us, too. No one wants to work beside us if we decide to stop showering. Well, if we spend so much effort on the care of our bodies, shouldn't we be spending more time on ou...

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 Donald H. Calloway, MIC "Many saints have claimed to see angels during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and during Eucharistic adoration. The angels are God's servants and do His holy will. They pass unnoticed before our eyes, yet, when we attend Holy Mass or Eucharistic adoration, we are surrounded by armies of holy angels. They have no self-interest; their one desire is to serve and worship God. Like soldiers on a battlefield, they fight for God and constantly await their marching orders. It should be the same for you." (From 30 Day Eucharistic Revival – A Retreat with St. Peter Julian Eymard )   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 ...

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 Philippe   “The fact that we can’t save ourselves is something we acknowledge in words, but in fact we find it very hard to accept. We’d all like to be saved by our own efforts…to shine in other people’s eyes, even on the spiritual level. Worldly people want to be highly regarded because they have luxurious cars, expensive watches, designer clothes, professional prestige, and go around with beautiful people. As good Christians, we may want to stand out for our virtues, charisms, experience, and sound judgement. Then we consider that we are on the right path. But in fact we’re in danger of ending up with exactly the same mindset as the worldly people described above. Very often, without realizing it, we have a worldly outlook on the spiritual life: self-fulfillment, self-affirmation, expansion of the ego, etc. And spiritual prid...

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. Ven. Fulton J. Sheen “So long as mercy is available for all who despair of their own confusion and conflicts and inner incompleteness, it follows that sin is never the worst thing that can happen to man. The worst thing is the refusal to recognize his sins. For if we are sinners, there is a Savior. If there is a Savior, there is a Cross. If there is a Cross, there is a way of appropriating it to our own lives and our lives to it. When that is done, despair is driven out and we will have the 'peace which the world cannot give’.” (From the Fulton Sheen Institute - March 17,   2024)   St. M. Faustina Kowalska “[Let] the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy...Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me! To such souls, I grant even more graces than they...

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. Jesus to Saint Catherine of Siena “I require that you should love  Me with the same love with which I love you. This indeed you cannot do, because I love you without being loved. All the love you have for Me you owe to Me, so that it is not of grace that you love Me, but because you ought to do so, while I love you of grace, and not because I owe you My love. Therefore to Me, in person, you cannot repay the love which I require of you, and I have placed you in the midst of your fellows, that you may do to them that which you cannot do to Me,  that is to say, that you may love your neighbor of free grace, without expecting any return from him, and what you do to him, I count as done to Me, which My Truth showed forth when He said to Paul, My persecutor - 'Saul, Saul why persecute you Me?' This He said, judging that Paul persecuted Him in His...

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 affec...

 

Today we Dominicans joyfully remember our beloved sister, St. Catherine of Siena.    [I am re-publishing this post since the words of this fearless servant of God are as relevant today as they were when she wrote them more than 800 years ago.] (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) What a treasure St. Catherine of Siena is! One does not become a Doctor of the Church by being fearful to express, teach and live God's Truth in its entirety.  How ill-advised we are to discount, ignore or try to nuance the wisdom God has shared over the centuries through such faithful servants as she.  Less likely would we be to commit this error if our primary concern was the salvation of souls. No wonder those who wish to only tickle our ears and destroy our consciences ignore these great spiritual writers, abandoning God's Truth for a less demanding and counterfeit one. The following words  Jesus shared with St. Catherine in the 14th century are clear and unam...

 

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, Servant of God “I had worked with Catherine for many years in our gift shop and handicraft department. One day, Catherine stopped to dictate an article for our paper Restoration , probably concerning our needs for craft materials and gift shop items. It was a fairly extensive article, but she dictated it aloud, without pausing. I was somewhat astonished that she could do this and I asked, “B, how can you create that way? Don’t you have to be in the mood to write? Don’t you need time to think about what you want to say and just how to say it? Catherine looked at me, as she often did, with a look that betrayed a combination of disappointment and despair in her spirit. 'Sweetheart, don’t you understand? This is God’s work. I simply say a prayer to do it well. I know He will give me the grace to do so, so I proceed ...