Eucharistic Reflection - Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas

 

Eucharistic Reflection - The Power of the Eucharist

"The Sacrament of the Body of the Lord puts the demons to flight, defends us against the incentives to vice and to concupiscence, cleanses the soul from sin, quiets the anger of God, enlightens the understanding to know God, inflames the will and the affections with the love of God, fills the memory with spiritual sweetness, confirms the entire man in good, frees us from eternal death, multiplies the merits of a good life, leads us to our everlasting home, and reanimates the body to eternal life."

 

 St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P.

Eucharistic Reflection - The End All And Be All!

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

"The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love; It produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life."

St. Thomas Aquinas

 

Monday Musings - Advent Insights of St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. - 4th Week of Advent

This is the fourth and final week I am posting quotations excerpted from St. Thomas Aquinas – Meditations for Every Day, translated and illustrated by Rev. E.C. McEniry, O.P.  I hope that you found much fruit for your contemplation. If you missed any of the previous posts in this series, you can find them here, here. and here.
               

 John is crying in the wilderness for four reasons:

          A cry introduces a manifestation, and therefore, to show that Christ        speaks publicly through John and in him.

          A cry is sounded to those who are distant.  But the Jews were far away           from God and hence it was necessary that John should cry.

          He cries because they are deaf to the voice of God.

          He cries because he speaks with righteous indignation; for these           unbelievers have merited the anger of God.

            The Nativity is the work of the Father who sent His Son, the work of the Son, who assumed human nature, and the work of the Holy Spirit in causing the conception.       

            The Son of God became the Son of man so that He might make men sons of God.  The only begotten Son of God made many sons of God…He redeemed the slave, honored the undeserving, gave life to the dead. – St. Augustine.

            So that man might eat the Bread of Angels, the Creator of the Angels became man. - St. Augustine.

            The manna descended from heaven, so that the hungry may rejoice-St. Bernard.

            God became man, so that He might make all mankind happy in Him, and that the entire love of man might be centered in Him, and that the entire conversion of men might be towards Him… St. Augustine

            The perfect happiness of man consists in the immediate vision of God.

            In order that man might obtain perfect certitude concerning the truth of faith and receive Divine instruction in a human way, it was necessary that he be instructed by God Himself, made Man.

            God’s love for man could not be shown in a more powerful way than that He willed to be united to man in Person.  For it is a characteristic of love to unite the lover with the beloved.

            It is clear that happiness is the reward of virtue, and so it was necessary that those tending to happiness be disposed to virtue…But even in the holiest of men some defects are found, hence, it was necessary for man, so that he might be most firmly established in virtue, that he receive the doctrine and examples of virtue from God, made man.

            God showed us His goodness in communicating His Divinity, but he showed His mercy in assuming our nature.

            In truth, there are four great blessings which have come down to us from the birth of Christ:

          We find in Him the greatest purity because He is the brightness of eternal  light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness;

          In this Child, we find the greatest humility for He took the form of a slave,      was born in a stable, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and was laid in a manger;

          We find in the Christ Child the highest kind of lovableness; and

          We find in the Christ Child the greatest pleasingness.

(Source: St. Thomas Aquinas – Meditations for Every Day, translated and illustrated by Rev. E.C. McEniry, O.P.)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth October 10, 2019

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, O.P.

"As mariners are guided into port by the shining of a star, so Christians are guided to heaven by Mary." 

(From Mary: Mother of God by Chukwueloka Okolo)

St. Rose of Lima

"If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how beautiful, how noble, how precious. How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights! Without doubt they would devote all their care and concern to winning for themselves pains and afflictions. 

All men throughout the world would seek trouble, infirmities and torments, instead of good fortune, in order to attain the unfathomable treasure of grace. This is the reward and the final gain of patience. 

No one would complain about his cross or about troubles that might happen to him if he would come to know the scales on which they are weighed when they are distributed to men."

(From the Office of Readings on August 23)

Worth Revisiting - St. Thomas Aquinas - Kernels of Wisdom for Lenten Reflection

We thank Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for hosting Worth Revisiting each week. It is a privilege to share our work with them and their followers.

                

Want a simple but fruitful exercise this Lent? How about chewing on one of these short but powerfully packed kernels of wisdom from St. Thomas Aquinas each day during Lent? 

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

  

Our body must be subject to the soul.  Death, sickness and all defects of the body are due to lack of the body’s subjection to the soul.

Fasting is mandatory and essential to spiritual growth.  Fasting is useful for removal and prevention of sin, and for raising the mind to spiritual things.

Go to the foot of the cross.  Contemplate Him who suffered so much for me and Him Whom I should love.

Christ is likened to a seed that fell to the ground and died but brought good fruit-remission of sins, conversion and fruits and glory (grace and mercy).

Christ allowed Himself to be tempted: to strengthen us against temptation, to warn us that no one, no matter how holy, may think himself free from temptation; to give us an example of how to overcome temptation (quote scripture to Satan); and to fill us with confidence in His mercy.

Avoid all occasions of temptation.  When Satan tempts, turn immediately to the Holy Ghost Who is more powerful than Satan.

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - November 30, 2016

(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. Thomas Aquinas

"To say that someone is full of mercy is like saying his heart is full of woe. He experiences the miseries of another with the same force and sadness as if they were His own. He makes His best effort to remedy the problem because it has become His problem. This is the effect of mercy. Of course, God does not become saddened by thus making His own the miseries of His creatures. Yet He does work to remedy those problems, those defects, because to act in this way does correspond to His Divine nature."

(From Summa Theologiae, 1, q. 21, a.3)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - August 11, 2016

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

There is no sin or crime committed by another which I myself am not capable of committing through my weakness; and if I have not committed it, it is because God, in his mercy, has not allowed me to and has preserved me in the good.

(From Confessions)

Eucharistic Reflection - Truth Does Not Lie

(St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, NYC)

That the real Body and Blood of Christ is present in the Sacrament is something that cannot be perceived either with the senses or with the intellect, but only with faith, which is supported by the authority of God. Because of this, when commenting on the passage in Luke 22:19: "This is my body which is given up for you," St. Cyril says: "Do not cast doubt on the truth of this, but rather accept with faith the words of the Savior: because He, being the Truth, does not lie."

St. Thomas Aquinas, S. Th., III, q. 75, a.1