Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

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. But first a heartfelt prayer for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving ! Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. "So long as God, who is all good, wills a thing, we are fools if we do not say Fiat – and thus will it with Him. The lone exception is sin." (From God, A Woman and The Way )  

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. Gregory the Great There are some who wish to be humble, but without being despised, who wish to be happy with their lot, but without being needy, who wish to be chaste without mortifying the body, to be patient without suffering. They want both to acquire virtues and to avoid the sacrifices those virtues involve; they are like soldiers who flee the battlefield an try to win the war from the comfort of the city.” (From Moralia ) St. Maria Faustina Kowalska “I will thank the Lord Jesus for every humiliation and will pray specially for the person who has given me the chance to be humiliated. I will immolate myself for the benefit of souls. I will not count the cost of any sacrifice, I will cast myself beneath the feet of the sisters, like a carpet on which they can not only tread, but also wipe their feet. My place is...

“ “I desire to unite Myself to human souls; My great delight is to unite Myself with souls.  Know, my daughter, that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay attention to Me; they leave Me to myself and busy themselves with other things.  Oh, how sad I am that souls do not recognize Love!  They treat me as a dead object.” (Jesus to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska )          

When we read or hear the Scriptural reminder of the eternal consequences for our failing to visit the imprisoned (Matthew 25: 31-46) more often than not the image that first comes to mind is of those locked behind bars in the far too numerous Federal and State prisons and local jails that saturate the landscape of this nation – some 2,266,800 adults in 2010 according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. More than 2 million! Many of them are Catholic and none of them are there voluntarily! Admittedly, Jesus is not calling every Catholic to be His representative and ambassador to our forgotten convicted brothers and sisters. Certainly though more are being invited to this needed ministry than are responding. Is God calling you? Is fear holding you back? But there is one prisoner you need not fear. One that each and everyone who professes to be Catholic, without exception, is being called to visit. He has been imprisoned and been ignored for more than two thousand yea...