Monday Musings - May We Hear and Heed!

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

…the work of Perpetual Adoration is superior to all other religious practices. IT IS THE WORK OF WORKS – THE SOURCE OF ALL WORKS. 

St. Pope Pius X

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - January 25, 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. Pius X

"...men are only instruments which God makes use of for the salvation of souls We have to make sure those instruments are in a good state of repair so that God can use them."

(From Encyclical - Haerent animo)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - August 10, 2017

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 Phillipe

“Íf people know what they must do today and commit themselves to doing it and leave tomorrow to God’s providence, all is well. What more can anyone do? Take the step that needs taking today. Take another step tomorrow. Every day will have its own steps to take.”

(From March 20, 2017 Reflections of the Frassati Fellowship-New York City)

Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O.

“To human eyes how did Jesus differ from the thieves who were condemned and crucified with Him? If some stranger had come to Jerusalem that Friday afternoon and passed Calvary before darkness enfolded it, how could he tell that the middle cross held Innocence and the Redemption of mankind? He would have seen three naked men dying by degrees. How could he know that One was not only the Light of the World but the Life of all living? Mary had eyes of flesh and she saw the beaten, bloody body of her Son upon the nails. She saw that body taken down. She held it. She counted the wounds. She untangled the blood-matted hair. She folded the nerveless arms. She closed the gaping mouth. She straightened the lifeless legs. She knew she was holding a corpse. Yet in that corpse she adored the Christ of God and the Jesus of men. Was there ever such faith on earth?" 

(From God, A Woman and the Way)

St. Pius X

“Without interior life, we will never have the strength to persevere in sustaining all the difficulties inseparable from any apostolate, the coldness and lack of co-operation even on the part of virtuous men, the calumnies of our adversaries, and at times even the jealousy of friends and comrades in arms…Only a patient virtue, unshakably based upon the good, and at the same time smooth and tactful, is able to move these difficulties to one side and diminish their power.”

(From June 11, 1905 Encyclical to the Priests of Italy)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth-November 20, 2014

(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.

 

St. Pius X

"When vice runs wild, when persecution hangs heavy, when error is so cunning that it threatens her destruction by snatching many children from her bosom (and plunges them into the whirlpool of sin and impiety) - then, more than ever, the Church is strengthened from above. Whether the wicked will it or not, God makes even error aid in the triumph of Truth whose guardian and defender is the Church. He puts corruption in the service of sanctity, whose mother and nurse is the Church. Out of persecution He brings a more wondrous 'freedom from our enemies.' For these reasons, when worldly men think they see the Church buffeted and almost capsized in the raging storm, then she really comes forth fairer, stronger, purer, and brighter with the luster of distinguished virtues."

(From Encyclical Editae Saepe)

Winning and Sanctifying Souls

We deceive ourselves and others if we believe the words we post and publish (no matter how insightful and inspiring we may consider them to be) are more important than the manner in which we live our daily lives.

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - July 17, 2014

(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.

Bishop Guiseppe Sarto (St. Pope Pius X)

"A priest's life is a continual warfare against evil, which cannot fail to raise up powerful enemies. In order that they may not prevail against us, let us be united in charity amongst ourselves; thus we shall be invincible and strong as a rock." 

  (Letter to Pastors)

Jesus to St. Catherine of Siena

"Having perfect love toward neighbor depends essentially on having perfect love for Me. The same measure of perfection or imperfection that the soul puts into its love for Me is found also in the love it bears to creatures."

(The Dialogue)

St. Pius X 

"We must fight the capital crime of our day, which is the substitution of man for God; we must illumine with the Ten Commandments, with the evangelical counsels, and with the institutions of the Church all the problems that the Church and the Gospel have so clearly and triumphantly resolved; in education, in family life, in private ownership, in rights and duties, we must restore Christian equilibrium among the difficult conditions of society; we must pacify the earth and inherit heaven. This is the mission I must carry out among you, restoring all things to the reign of God, of Jesus Christ, and His Vicar on earth the Pope."

(From Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (Feeding The Lord's Flock) 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - August 29, 2013

(Photography©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.

 

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

 

"We who, by the grace of God, are Catholics, must not squander the best years of our lives as so many unhappy young people do, who worry about enjoying the good things in life, things that do not in fact bring any good, but rather the fruit of immorality in today's world. We must prepare ourselves to be ready and able to handle the struggles we will have to endure to fulfill our goals, and, in so doing, to give our country happier and morally healthier days in the near future. But in order for this to happen we need the following: constant prayer to obtain God's grace, without which all our efforts are in vain; organization and discipline to be ready for action at the right moment; and finally, we need to sacrifice our own passions, indeed our very selves, because without this sacrifice we will never achieve goal.

(From Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati: An Ordinary Christian)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth



(Abbey at Genesee, Piffard, NY)



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. Thomas Aquinas

 

“If you are looking for an example of patience, behold there on the cross the most excellent example of patience. For great patience is shown in two ways. Either when anyone endures great pain with resignation or when anyone endures that which he was able to avoid and did not avoid.”

(From The Aquinas Catechism: A Simple Explanation)

 

Pius X

“Most of the evils which beset the Church and most of the problems with which the Catholic Church is plagued, are not due to bad will. No, they are mainly due to ignorance of Christ’s revealed truth.”  

(From Acerbo Nimis, 1)

 

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

 “…Christ affirms that when a man marries a woman, he marries both her body and her soul; he marries the whole person. If he gets tired of the body, he may not thrust her body away for another, since he is still responsible for her soul.” 

(From The Life of Christ)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth

 

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.

Pope Francis

Paul is a nuisance; he is a man, who with his preaching, his work, his attitude, irritates others, because testifying to Jesus Christ and the proclamation of Jesus Christ makes us uncomfortable, it threatens our comfort zones – even Christian comfort zones, right? It irritates us. The Lord always wants us to move forward, forward, forward – not to take refuge in a quiet life, or in cozy structures, no? And Paul, in preaching of the Lord, was a nuisance. But he had deep within him that most Christian of attitudes: Apostolic zeal.” 

(Homily – May 16, 2013)

 

St. Thomas Aquinas

“Man needs to know two things: the glory of God and the punishment of Hell. For through being drawn by His glory and terrified by His punishments, men are careful on their own account and refrain from sin.” 

(The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom edited by Father John A. Hardon, S.J.)

 

St. Pius X

"Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants.”

(Notre Charge Apostolique)

Holy Thursday and Our Priests

According to St. Pius X, our sanctity depends in large measure on the holiness of our priests. This Holy Thursday then is an appropriate time to reflect on our priests, the imperative that the Eucharist be the source, center and summit of their and our lives, and our duty as laity to treasure, encourage and support them.

We begin by recalling how eloquently St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor of our Church, wrote of what it is to be a priest:

 “We must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others; we must be instructed to be able to instruct, become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring Him close to others, be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently…I know God’s greatness and man’s weakness but also his potential.  The priest is the defender of Truth, who stands with angels, gives glory with archangels, causes sacrifices to rise to the altar on high, shares Christ’s priesthood, refashions creation, restores it in God’s image, recreates it for the world on high and, even greater, is divinized and divinizes.” 

In 1962 the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen advised his fellow priests that they “become significant to their fellow men not by being ‘a regular guy’ but by being ‘another Christ’.”  He foresaw the failings of his brother priests, as “a want of lively faith in the Divine Presence.” He was just as astute to recognize “the sanctity of the priesthood starts there too.” He warned prophetically that “every worldly priest hinders the growth of the Church; every saintly priest promotes it.” He prayed that God would make each of His priests “alter Christus”. That too should be our prayer.

The perspectives of St. Gregory and St. Pius X and the observations of Archbishop Sheen remain as valid and essential for us and our priests today as when they first shared them.  Zeal for the salvation of souls cannot be replaced with a misguided emphasis on community organizing and social justice issues. The Fathers of Vatican Council II made this clear when they wrote in Gaudium et Spes that “Christ did not bequeath to the Church a mission in the political, economic or social order: the purpose he assigned to it was a religious one.” The physical well-being of people (a notable goal and obligation for all) must of necessity be secondary to their eternal salvation. 

No one expresses this vital truth more clearly than St. John Chrysostom:

“Zeal for the salvation of souls is of so great a merit before God, that to give up all our goods to the poor, or to spend our whole life in the exercises of all sorts of austerities cannot equal the merit of it. There is no service more agreeable to God than this one. To employ one's life in this blessed labor is more pleasing to the Divine Majesty than to suffer martyrdom. Would you not feel happy if you could spend large sums of money in corporal works of mercy? But know that he who labors for the salvation of souls does far more; nay, the zeal of souls is of far greater merit before God…than the working of miracles.”

Our priests are under enormous pastoral and administrative burdens and are, have been and will continue to be viciously and relentlessly subjected to spiritual attack by the Evil One who knows full well that without priests there will be no Eucharist.  We can not allow that to happen.

They, like each of us, are human and prone to sin.  Sadly, some of our priests have grievously sinned and exposed a foul stench within their midst. Fortunately, the majority of our priests have not succumbed to such filth. But our priests can faithfully fulfill their role as “another Christ” only with the grace of God – abundant grace flowing to all priests for whom the Eucharist is the source, center and summit of their priestly lives, who treasure offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass daily, who spend time before the Blessed Sacrament each day, and who have developed a deep and trusting relationship with and devotion to our Blessed Mother.

They need our prayers, our support and encouragement.  Never a day should pass by without each of us getting on our knees, thanking God for the faithful priests he has sent and will be sending to help us on our path to personal sanctification and eternal salvation and asking Him to provide them with all they need to be faithful to their vocation and successful against the attacks of the Evil One. Regularly lift these heroic men up in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, fast on their behalf, offer a Novena to St. John Vianney and a daily rosary for their sanctification, regularly go to confession to them, and let them know that you appreciate them even when the Truth they share may cause you to take a closer look at yourself, your relationship with God and your fidelity to the teachings of His Church. 

If we do all that, in God’s perfect timing, each of us will be able to say about all our priests, the same thing one lawyer reportedly said when, after returning from seeing St. John Vianney in Ars, someone asked him what he had seen there:  “I saw God in a man.”

It's past time to treasure our priests

(Adapted from an article written in 2009 during the Year for the Priests)