Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

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 . God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena "For no other reason ought the soul leave off prayer [other than for obedience or for charity's sake]. During the time ordained for prayer, the devil likes to arrive in the soul, causing much more conflict and trouble than when the soul is not occupied in prayer. This he does in order that holy prayer may become tedious to the soul." (From The Dialogue )

What shall we say of the Eucharistic abasement of our Lord Jesus Christ? To remain with us, Jesus Christ exposes Himself to ingratitude and insult. Nothing disheartens Him. Let us contemplate this good Savior whom we ill-treat as we would no one else and Who nevertheless  persists in remaining with us. (St. Peter Julian Eymard from The Real Presence )

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) Today  is the memorial for St. Rose of Lima - one of three Dominican Saints who walked the streets of Lima, Peru in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. St. Martin de Porres and St. John Macias are the other two. Neither of them were priests but both were what we would call today Dominican cooperator brothers.  St. Rose and St. Martin knew each other. She died before St. John Macias entered the Order. He never met the Rose of Lima. Martin and John, however, spent much time in each other's company. How blessed a city Lima was at that time - to have in its midst such three simple, humble, and holy souls. As I mentioned in a 2013 post, St. Rose treasured the great spiritual value of sacrificial suffering and invited us to do likewise. If you are interested to learn why, you can read about it here. Today, I wanted to share another marvelous trait this Saint displayed during her lifetime which I discovered while reading Cultivatin...

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Thank you once again, 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 you and your followers . The Presence of God (Originally posted on October 28, 2012) "It cannot be over stressed that the presence of God in the soul by grace is a real and substantial presence. God is present in the tabernacle of the heart as really and truly and substantially as He is present in the tabernacle of the altar, although in a different manner. Christ's Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament is a priceless gift, a pledge and prelude of that glorious presence of the Incarnate Word which will be ours eternally in Heaven. But the external pres­ence is meant to lead us to and be fused with the presence of the Word of God within our souls. So it will be in Heaven. The Son of God will be present outside us in the reality of the human nature He has assumed,...

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) "Silence in front of the Blessed Sacrament is one of the hardest yet most spiritually rewarding moments in a Catholic's spiritual development. Like a potter to the clay, allowing God to work in you and being comfortable not speaking, not interrupting, but allowing one's soul to conform to the will of God. That sounds easy, but it's really hard." (Shaun Kenny from "Silence In A Cluttered Age" published in the July 24, 2019 issue of The Wanderer )

The internet is filled with countless laments over the Pew Research Center’s recent findings that only 26 per cent of Catholics under the age of 40 believe that Jesus is really, truly an d substantially present in the Eucharist. This is not news.  This loss of belief in our Lord’s physical Presence among us is long-standing. In fact, one of the primary reasons I began blogging in 2010 was to address this pressing concern by seeking to promote belief in, reverence for, and awe and amazement of the Holy Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration.  Unfortunately, far too many of our Bishops and priests, whose duty it is to assure our Lord the reverence He deserves and to save souls, have been reluctant to do so. I have written much on this subject. If you are interested you can read a sample of my prior posts here and here .