Pondering Tidbits of Truth - November 21, 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.

Dan Burke and Connie Rossini  "When we have too many vocal prayers to say, our goal easily changes to getting them done instead of praying them well. They become less, rather than more, contemplative. The Holy Spirt might be moving us to linger silently on the meditation of a mystery, but we feel that we can't stop or we will never fit all our prayers in. So we find ourselves working against the Holy Spirit...We forget that the very purpose of prayer is communing with the Lord."  (From The Contemplative Rosary)    Dom Lorenzo Scupoli  "No creature ever loved Jesus Christ more ardently, nor showed more perfect submission to His will, than Mary, His mother. If then, this Savior, immolated for us sinners, gave His mother to us, an advocate and intercessor for all time, she cannot but comply with His request, and will not refuse us her assistance. Let us, then, not hesitate to implore her pity; let us have recourse to her with great confidence in all our necessities, as she is an inexhaustible source of blessing, bestowing her favors in proportion to the confidence placed in her."  (An excerpt from The Spiritual Combat and A Treatise on Peace of Soul)

Rev. D. Chisholm

“If Christians only knew the immense treasure they possessed in the Holy Eucharist, and all they could obtain by going to Holy Communion, their joy would be so great that earth would be changed for them into Heaven itself; they would go in crowds to the Holy Table every day, and with hearts overflowing with love.”

 (From The Catechism in Examples)

 

 

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Spiritual Communions

"Although actual reception of the Sacrament of the Eucharist is limited [generally] to once a day, you are nevertheless at liberty to communicate in spirit every hour. And nothing except your own negligence can prevent you from receiving the inestimable benefits to be derived from such a union with Him. It is worth noting that spiritual communion is sometimes of greater benefit to the soul and more acceptable to God than sacramental communions received with little preparation and less affection." 

(Dom Lorenzo Scupoli from The Spiritual Combat)

 

Eucharistic Reflection - What Our Lord Longs For

"After Communion strive to be deeply recollected, shutting out from your heart the multiple petty encroachments of worldly distractions. Entertain the Divine guest with such sentiments as are expressed in the following prayer:

                                                                                                                                        (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“O Sovereign Lord of heaven, what has brought Thee from celestial heights to the depths of earthly hearts?” His answer will be simply “Love.”

And you must reply: “O eternal love, what is it you ask of me?” And He will answer again: “Nothing but love. I would have no other fire within thee but charity, the ardent flames of which will conquer the impure flames of passion, and make thee pleasing in My sight.

“Long have I wished that thou wert all Mine, and I all thine. And long have I desired that surrender of thy will ever solicitous for frivolous liberty and worldly vanities; for only when thy will is attuned to Mine can the first wish be realized.

“Know, then, that I would have thee die to self, that you might live to Me; I would have thee give Me thy heart that I might make it like unto Mine, which broke on Calvary out of love for mankind. Thou knowest who I am, and yet thou knowest that in some measure, I have made thee My equal in an excess of love. When I give Myself entirely to thee, I ask nothing but thyself in return. Be Mine and I will be satisfied. Will nothing, think nothing, understand nothing, see nothing but Me and My will. Let they nothingness be lost in the depths of My infinity, and find there thy happiness, as I find repose in thee.”

(From The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli)

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 7. 2020

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.

 

Dom Lorenzo Scupoli

“…in order to attain it [Christian perfection] you must resolve on a perpetual war with yourself and begin by providing yourself with four weapons without which it is impossible to gain the victory in this spiritual combat. These four things are: distrust of one’s self, confidence in God, proper use of the faculties of body and mind, and the duty of prayer.”

(From The Spiritual Combat and a Treatise On Peace of Soul)

Paul Evdokimov

“St. Teresa of Avila used to say that to pray is to treat God like a friend. The essence of prayer is to hear not only the voice of Christ, but the voice of each person I meet, in whom Christ also addresses me. His voice comes to me in every human voice, and his face is infinitely varied. It is present in the face of the wayfarer on the road to Emmaus; it is present in the gardener speaking to Mary Magdalen; and it is present in my next-door neighbor. God becomes incarnate so that man might contemplate God’s face in every face. Perfect prayer seeks this presence of Christ and recognizes it in every human face. The unique image of Christ is the icon, but every human face is an icon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person.”

(From The Struggle With God)

St. John XXIII

“Let men make all the technical and economic progress they can, there will be no peace nor justice in the world until they return to a sense of their dignity as creatures and sons of God, who is the first and final cause of all created beings.”

(From Mater Et Magistra)

Eucharistic Reflection - Never Cease To Wonder

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

"Strive to increase from day to day your faith in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and never cease to wonder at the miraculous mystery of it, reflecting on how God manifests Himself to you in the guise of bread and wine, and becomes essentially present in you, to make you more holy, righteous and blessed."

                                      (From The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - June 12, 2014

(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.

Blessed Antone-Frederic Ozanam

"[The goal of the St. Vincent de Paul Society] was not to help the poor. This was only a means. Our object was by the practice of Charity to strengthen ourselves in the Faith and to win others for it...Personal perfection and not the eradication of poverty per se is the primary goal of the Society."

       (From Society of St. Paul)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 12 , 2013

(St. Francis Xavier Church, Hyannis, MA)

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 Chrysostom 

“At times we dedicate all our efforts not only to what is superfluous but also to what is useless or even harmful, while we abandon the study of Sacred Scripture. Many people who are completely enthused over the horse races can quickly come up with the name, pedigree, race, nation, and training of the horses; their age, which horse would win the race against some other one, and an individual horse’s potential to pass the winning-post first, when mounted by a given rider, all spring immediately to mind…If, however, we ask them the number of St. Paul’s epistles, they are incapable of an answer.”

(Homilies on certain passages from the New Testament, I,1)