Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 22, 2025

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 a similar manner with the sheep of Jesus Christ. After having induced them to yield to sin, he seizes them by the throat, that they may not confess their guilt; and thus he securely brings them to Hell. For those who have sinned grievously, there is no means of salvation but the confession of their sins."

(From The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori)

 

Carol Puschaver

“How very quickly I can grow impatient, annoyed; even angry and resentful, o dear Saint Michael! Even right after Church! One has only to steer a full shopping cart into the express lane ahead of me, talk during a movie or hurt someone I love. I feel so ashamed - and discouraged. How very tempted I am to shy away from others and avoid life's challenges altogether!

But that is not the way of the authentic Christ- centered life I want to lead. And so, dearest Archangel St. Michael, please help me to my feet, as many times as I may fall, please help get me back up. Pray for me that I may become more patient and tolerant as I would want others to be with me. Help me to see God in my neighbor and to be an ambassador of His love and mercy to all I meet this day.

Thank you. AMEN.

(From Lovingly Do I Call to You - Prayers to Saint Michael the Archangel. Used with permission.)

  

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - April 24, 2025

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. Peter Kreeft, Ph.D.  "The object of faith is not feelings but truth, and the subject and agent of faith is will, not feelings. The will is like the ocean, and the feelings are like the waves. The ocean is always reliably there even though the waves are high one day and low the next."

 (From his book Calvinist to Catholic)

St. Catherine of Siena   "I've appointed the Devil to tempt and to trouble My creatures in this life [St. Catherine of Siena reports that Our Lord said to her]. I've done this, not so that My creatures will be overcome, but so that they may overcome, proving their virtue and receiving from Me the glory of victory. And no one should fear any battle or temptation of the Devil that may come to him, because I've made My creatures strong, and I've given them strength of will, fortified in the Blood of My Son.  Neither the Devil nor any other creature can control this free will, because it's yours, given to you by Me. By your own choice, then, you hold it or let it go if you please. It's a weapon, and if you place it in the hands of the Devil, it right away becomes a knife that he'll use to stab and kill you. On the other hand, if you don't place this knife that is your will into the hands of the Devil—that is, if you don't consent to his temptations and harassments—you will never be injured by the guilt of sin in any temptation. Instead, you'll actually be strengthened by the temptation, as long as you open the eyes of your mind to see My love, and to understand why I allowed you to be tempted: so you could develop virtue by having it proved. My love permits these temptations, for the Devil is weak. He can do nothing by himself unless I allow him. So I let him tempt you because I love you, not because I hate you. I want you to conquer, not to be conquered, and to come to a perfect knowledge of yourself and of Me."   (An excerpt from Manual for Spiritual Warfare)   Patrick Madrid "Like an hourglass with a certain number of grains of sand within it, God has appointed your life to last only a certain number of days, and you have absolutely no idea how many there are. ... In God’s presence, consider: I have no idea when my life will end. All I know is that death will come for me eventually. Am I doing anything to prepare for the real possibility that God may call me, sooner rather than later? If he called me into eternity today, would I be ready?" (An excerpt from A Year with the Bible)

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - October 17, 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.

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 our souls? After all, our bodies will pass away soon enough, but our souls will live on forever." 

(From Signs of Life)

 

Pope Benedict XVI 

At the heart of all temptations… is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building on our own foundation; refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion – that is the temptation that threatens us in many varied forms… We are dealing here with the vast question as to how we can and cannot know God, how we are related to God and how we can lose him. The arrogance that would make God an object and impose our laboratory conditions upon him is incapable of finding him. For it already implies that we deny God as God by placing ourselves above him, by discarding the whole dimension of love, of interior listening; by no longer acknowledging as real anything but what we can experimentally test and grasp. To think like that is to make oneself God. And to do that is to abase not only God, but the world and oneself, too.

(From Jesus of Nazareth)

Father Jose Gonzalez

The first step to a blessed life is hearing the Word of God. To “hear” implies that we do much more than become familiar with the Gospels. Hearing means we are not only aware of all that our Lord has revealed, it also means that we have truly internalized it, understanding all that our Lord requires of us.

Have you heard our Lord? It’s important to understand that the Gospel is alive. In other words, becoming familiar with the Word of God is not the same as reading some ancient book of lessons. Rather, hearing the Word of God means we hear a Person: the Son of God, speaking to us and guiding us each step of our lives. God’s Word is something that must speak to us every moment of every day, inspiring us to do this and avoid that. It is accomplished through a lifelong habit of prayerful communion with our Lord through which we are attentive to His voice always.

Hearing the very Person of the Son of God, the Word made flesh, necessarily implies that we also observe all that He speaks to us. In fact, failure to follow His continuous and gentle command to love will result in us being unable to clearly hear Him at all. We will become confused and will easily become directed by the many other voices in our world, unable to discern the glorious path chosen for us by our Lord.

 (From Daily Reflection for October 11, 2024)

 

 

 

 

Worth Revisiting - Battered Tents

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Eucharistic Reflection - Battered Tents 

(Originally posted on June 19, 2018)

"Some years ago, on my annual retreat, I found myself under terrible temptations and discouragement. Every temptation you can think of, I had that night. On my way to Mass the next morning, I felt very battered and discouraged because of the attacks and temptations of the preceding night.

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

As I walked up to Communion, I made an act of faith. I said, 'Jesus, I know I am receiving You, but I feel so discouraged, so downhearted, and so unworthy to receive You.'

This was the way I felt as I received Communion. As I received the Sacred Host and turned to go back to my place, I received a clear image of a tent. I remember looking at the tent and thinking, 'Well, that poor tent is really battered.' I remember examining it and saying, 'It must have gone through a terrible storm.'

As I got to my pew and knelt down, I saw a man coming to go into the tent. I saw myself in the image and I was telling the man, 'Oh, you can't go in there, it's a mess. It's all battered. There are big holes in it.'

The man looked at me and smiled and said, "What do you mean? I live here.'

At that moment, I realized that I was the battered tent, that I had been battered with the temptations to sin and discouragement and all those things that had harassed me during the night. Now, Jesus was showing me that, battered and all, He still made His home in me - and that He had just come to me again under the appearance of the Sacred Host."

(From Miracles Do Happen by Sister Breige McKenna, OCS)

Eucharistic Reflection - Battered Tents

"Some years ago, on my annual retreat, I found myself under terrible temptations and discouragement. Every temptation you can think of, I had that night. On my way to Mass the next morning, I felt very battered and discouraged because of the attacks and temptations of the preceding night.

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

As I walked up to Communion, I made an act of faith. I said, 'Jesus, I know I am receiving You, but I feel so discouraged, so downhearted, and so unworthy to receive You.'

This was the way I felt as I received Communion. As I received the Sacred Host and turned to go back to my place, I received a clear image of a tent. I remember looking at the tent and thinking, 'Well, that poor tent is really battered.' I remember examining it and saying, 'It must have gone through a terrible storm.'

Monday Musings - See How Easy It Is To Share Truth - Simply and Clearly