Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 29, 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.

Caryll Houselander

"You see, God's will for you is to serve Him, in His way, as He chooses, now. It is only a want of humility to think of extreme vocations, like being a nun or a nurse, while you try to bypass your present obvious vocation, which is to restore your will to God's, so that you may become what He wants you to be, and may be able to use the faculties He has given  to you for His service."

(From The Letters of Caryll Houselander)

St. Paul of the Cross

"Build an oratory within yourself, and there have Jesus on the altar of your heart. Speak to Him often while you are doing your work. Speak to Him of His holy love, of His holy sufferings and of the sorrow of most holy Mary."

(From Flower of the Passion -Thoughts of St. Paul of the Cross)

St. Francis de Sales

"It is horrible irreverence to Him who with so much love and sweetness invites us to perfection, to say, 'I don't want to be holy, or perfect, or to have a greater share in Your friendship, or to follow the counsels You give me to advance in it."

(From Finding God's Will For You)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - January 18, 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. John of the Cross

"What more do you want, O soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfactions, fullness, and kingdom - your Beloved Whom you desire and seek? Be joyful and gladdened in your interior recollection with Him, for you have Him so close to you. Desire Him there, adore Him there. Do not go in pursuit of Him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and wearied thereby, and you shall not find Him, nor enjoy Him more securely, nor sooner, nor more intimately by seeking Him within you."

(From The Spiritual Canticle)

Mother Julienne Morrell, O.P.

“Human praises are indeed to be shunned on account of the great harm they produce. They are nothing else, in the words of St. Bernard, but a hollow whistle, a little wind in the ears, blinding and inflating the heart, fanning the flames of envy, causing delusions and pride with regard to self. They are poison to humility.”

(Commentary from A Treatise on the Spiritual Life by St. Vincent Ferrer, O.P.)

Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. 

"We moderns shrink from pain; we shun all that can afflict body or mind. We have forgotten that we were saved by the Body's agony and the Mind's torture. We have forgotten that the problem of evil was solved by ropes, whips, and thorns, nails that were pounded through the flesh of God and by three hours of anguish such as no other human has or ever will know. We have forgotten that pain has a sacred purpose; that all suffering can be and should be sublimated into Sacrifice - His Sacrifice. We have forgotten that we are Christians — members of a Body whose Head is thorn-crowned! We have forgotten that since there is sin, there must be suffering that will atone."

(From God, A Woman, and the Way)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 29, 2022

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.

 

 

 

Brother Finbar Kantor, O.P.

"Saint Barnabas urges us in the midst of ‘evil days’ to look first to that problem which is most intimate to us—the salvation of our eternal soul. Before worrying about political policy or ecclesial bickering, the state of our soul should be our first concern. What is my relationship like with God? With my family? With my neighbors? (Mt 22:37-40) These are the things that should really matter to us because they affect our salvation. If we get this hierarchy wrong and seek to gain the world rather than our salvation, we risk a terrible loss (Mt 8:36-38)."

(From Dominicana - The Things That Matter) 

 

Venerable Louis of Granada, O.P.

"When you feel the promptings of this shameful disorder [gluttony] subdue them by the following considerations: Call to mind  that it was a sin of gluttony which brought death into the world, and that it is the first and most important passion to be conquered, for upon the subjugation of this vice depends your victory over all others."

(From The Sinner's Guide)

 

St. John of the Cross

"Endeavor to be inclined always: not to the easiest, but to the most difficult; not to the most delightful, but to the most  distasteful; not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant; not to what means rest for you, but to hard work; not to consoling, but to the unconsoling; not to the most, but to the least; not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised; not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing. Do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst, and for Christ, desire to enter into complete nakedness, emptiness, and poverty in everything in the world." 

(From The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 15, 2022

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.       Frank Sheed “A really frightening test of how much value we attach to [Christ] lies in how we feel about friends who never seem to give Him a thought. Do we feel it as unbearable that they should not have the gifts of light and nourishment that He has given us? If not, we should ask ourselves how much those same gifts do actually mean to ourselves. If there were a famine and people lacked bread, we should work hard to relieve it. But if they lack the Bread of Life and it causes not the faintest stirring in us even of care much less of desire to aid their destitution–we have to ask ourselves what that tells us about ourselves. How much does their starvation matter to us? Do we even think of it as starvation?”

(From The Hidden Manna by James T. O’Connor)

 

 St. John of the Cross

"Never give up prayer, and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what love your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction.”

(From “Counsels to a Religious” in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington D.C.: ICS, 2017) 729.)

 

Father Bonaventure Perquin, O.P.

“Our cross is usually given to us in ­installments, weighing differently at different times. It is made up of small cells, little fatigues and worries and things that go wrong. We cannot see the proper shape yet, partly because we are too close; in our self-pity we see each little bit magnified and distorted, and anyhow our loving Father will not let us see it as a whole yet; we would think it too big and heavy, and so lose courage. But we can carry our little crosses, little parts of the cross, and trust that in doing so we are growing like our Master, that one day we shall resemble him: glorified as he is in heaven, with his cross and his wounds glorified too.”

(From Magnificat – The Editorial of the Month - September 2022 issue)