Eucharistic Reflection - My Lord and My God!

"O marvelous Sacrament! How can I find words to praise You! You are the life of the soul, the medicament healing our wounds, our comforter when we are overburdened, the memorial of Jesus Christ, the proof of His love, the most precious precept of His testament, our companion in the pilgrimage of life, the joy sustaining us in our exile, the burning coal kindling the fire of divine love, the instrument of grace, the pledge of eternal bliss and the treasure of Christians," 

Ven. Louis of Granada, O.P.

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - May 12, 2022

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.

 

 

Venerable Louis of Granada, O.P.

“Covetousness is an inordinate desire for riches…When you are assailed by this vice arm yourself with the following considerations: Remember that our Lord and Savior, at His coming into this world, disdained to possess riches which are the object of your desires. On the contrary, He so loved poverty that He chose for His mother not a rich and powerful queen, but a poor and humble Virgin. He willed to be born not in a palace, but in a bleak stable, the manger of which, covered with a little straw, was His only couch.

During His life upon earth, He never ceased to manifest His love with poverty and His contempt for riches. For His Apostles he chose not the princes of great houses, but poor and ignorant fisherman. What greater presumption can there be than that of a base worm coveting riches, when the Creator of the universe became so poor for love of him!”

(From The Sinner’s Guide)

 

Venerable Bruno Lanteri

“As you walk out the door toward the car, as you sit down to begin your study, as you walk across the parking lot to the church, as you put on the apron…simply lift your spiritual gaze to Jesus, clothing yourself in His spirit and uniting yourself to His will. This adds no time to the activity, but it changes everything.”

(From Overcoming Spiritual Discouragement – The Wisdom and Spiritual Power of Venerable Bruno Lanteri)

 

Dan Burke

"When in desolation don't change commitments made while in consolation…

Why is that? Well, when we are in consolation, the voice of the good spirit - how we can hear and understand these positive inspirations - is very clear. Said another way, in consolation the voice or inspiration of good spirit is louder and clearer. So, in consolation, it is more likely that we will make good decisions as we seek to respond to God's leading

In contrast, when we are in desolation the voice or inspiration of the good spirit is hard to hear and understand. This is something similar to what happens when we were hiking in the woods and fog sets in and we are visually separated from a companion. We can call out and they can call back but their voice is so faint that we can't hear them clearly enough to figure out where they are and where we need to go to find them. We must wait until the fog lifts and we can better interpret the terrain and better decipher how we should proceed to clarity. At that point, we shout out to our lost friend, ‘Don't move! the sun is coming up. Let's wait until the fog lifts'.”

(From Spiritual Warfare and the Discernment of Spirits)

Monday Musings - No Better Time

 

Pondering Tidbits Of Truth - April 7, 2022

 

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 best reason for praying to saints in Heaven is that they, unlike friends on earth, never pray for anything outside God’s will, which is always the best thing for us; and since their prayers are thus more conformed to God’s will than ours are, they are (1) wiser than ours, (2) more powerful than ours, and (3) always effective, since they are one with God’s will, which is omnipotent.

(From Practical Theology)

 

Venerable Louis Granada, O.P.

“You must suffer. You cannot escape it, for it is a law your nature. Can you resist the almighty power of God when He is pleased to send you afflictions? Knowing these truths and knowing that your sins deserve more than you can bear, why will you struggle against your trials? Why not bear them patiently and thus atone for your sins and merit many graces? Is it not madness to try to escape them, and thereby lose the blessings that they can give, receiving instead a weight of impatience and misery which only adds to the load you must carry? Stand prepared, then, for tribulations, for what can you expect from a corrupt world, from a frail flesh, from the envy of devils, and from the malice of men, but contradictions and persecutions?

Act, therefore, as a prudent man, and arm yourself against such attacks, proceeding with as much caution as if you were in an enemy's country, and you will thus gain two important advantages: First, the trials against which you are forearmed will be easier to bear, ‘for a blow which we have anticipated.’ says Seneca, “falls less heavily.’…

Secondly, by anticipating in the spirit of resignation the afflictions which God may send you, you offer a sacrifice like that of Abraham, about to immolate his son. Nothing, in fact, is more pleasing to God, nothing is more meritorious for us, than the resignation with which we prepare ourselves to accept all the trials that may come upon us, either from the hand of God or the wickedness of men.”

 (From The Sinner’s Guide)

 G.K. Chesterton

 “A man’s soul is as full of voices as a forest; there are ten thousand tongues there like all the tongues of the trees: fancies, follies, memories, madnesses, mysterious fears, and more mysterious hopes. All sanity in life consists in coming to the conclusion that some of those voices have authority and others do not.”

(From The Essential Chesterton An Anthology of the Thought of G. K. Chesterton)