"I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference,even the tiniest of our prayers to God make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to effect, and all the consequences of those effects down through the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives."
-Peter Kreeft
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
holiness
"In order to be saints, you have to seriously want to be one. Saint Thomas Aquinas assures us that holiness 'is nothing else but a resolution made, the heroic act of a soul that surrenders to God.' And he adds: 'Spontaneously we love God, we run towards him, we get close to him, we possess him.' Our willingness is important because it changes us into the image of God and likens us to him! The decision to be holy is a very dear one. Renunciation, temptations, struggles and sacrifices are what surround the soul that has opted for holiness."
"Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God."
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
"Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God."
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
Sunday, July 12, 2009
from Pope Benedict:
"Prayer knows no distance and separation: wherever we are, it makes us one heart and one mind."
Also... from an excellent book, talking about God's providence and how God gives us sufferings to ultimately reach true happiness...
"Teresa of Avila said that the most miserable earthly life, seen from the perspective of heaven, looks like one night in an inconvenient hotel."
"Prayer knows no distance and separation: wherever we are, it makes us one heart and one mind."
Also... from an excellent book, talking about God's providence and how God gives us sufferings to ultimately reach true happiness...
"Teresa of Avila said that the most miserable earthly life, seen from the perspective of heaven, looks like one night in an inconvenient hotel."
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Falling in Love
[inspired by a talk given by Fr. Steven Voss]
Falling in love.... We do whatever we can to get to know the other person. We arrange our schedules so that we can spend time with him or her. We yearn to be with that person. We may spend nearly every waking moment thinking about that certain someone. So why should it be ANY different with Jesus Christ, our Most Beloved? Look upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus - how His Love actively burns for us! How strong, how bright, how passionate it is! Oh, but how His heart must ache when we turn away from Him and reject His love with our sinfulness. But despite our sins, our shortcomings, and our flaws, He longs for us and loves us more than we could ever fathom. Take the time to fall in love with Him again and again this summer. Get to know him further through the Scriptures, spend time with Him in Eucharistic Adoration, accept His mercy and grace through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, yearn to be with Him at Mass, receive Him in the Blessed Sacrament, think about Him throughout the day through prayer and meditation, and simply offer up your daily trials and tribulations and unite them with His sufferings - as often as you can - because He falls in love with us even more, each and every time. Jesus is waiting for us.
"It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal." - Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day 2000 in Rome
Falling in love.... We do whatever we can to get to know the other person. We arrange our schedules so that we can spend time with him or her. We yearn to be with that person. We may spend nearly every waking moment thinking about that certain someone. So why should it be ANY different with Jesus Christ, our Most Beloved? Look upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus - how His Love actively burns for us! How strong, how bright, how passionate it is! Oh, but how His heart must ache when we turn away from Him and reject His love with our sinfulness. But despite our sins, our shortcomings, and our flaws, He longs for us and loves us more than we could ever fathom. Take the time to fall in love with Him again and again this summer. Get to know him further through the Scriptures, spend time with Him in Eucharistic Adoration, accept His mercy and grace through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, yearn to be with Him at Mass, receive Him in the Blessed Sacrament, think about Him throughout the day through prayer and meditation, and simply offer up your daily trials and tribulations and unite them with His sufferings - as often as you can - because He falls in love with us even more, each and every time. Jesus is waiting for us.
"It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal." - Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day 2000 in Rome
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Listening
I hope everyone is enjoying their Summer, I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts and experiences...
The following is a passage we read in Bible study from a book called The Religious Sense by Luigi Giussani
Let us say that Mark and I are walking along the city streets. Because Mark has raised a serious problem I am knocking myself out trying to explain things to him. He listens to me and I grow ever more impassioned and ever more lucid- or so it seems to me as I present my arguments. "So then, do you understand?" "Yes, yes up to this point I follow you." We have been walking along talking with our eyes fixed on the side walk. But he lifts his eyes to notice a pretty woman walking on the other side of the street. He continues to say "yes, yes", but in an increasingly mechanical manner as he fixes his eyes on the lovely figure and turns his head to watch her as she moves away. This continues until she disappears into the distance. Discontentedly he withdraws his gaze and turns back to me in the very instant I have concluded my argument. I say to him, "So then, Mark do you agree?" And he says "No, no I am not persuaded!"
This reply is not valid because he did not pay attention to my arguments. This is the offense that the majority of people commit when they face the problems of destiny, faith, religion, the Church and Christianity because, being "anxious and troubled with many other things", in these things their minds are "dead and buried". But then they claim to be able to pronounce a judgment, to have an opinion, partly because it is impossible not to have a viewpoint on these matters.
At first it seems this passage only correlates with people who disagree with the teachings of the Church but the more I think about it the more I feel this is something a lot of us do with our faith. I think it's easy to recognize if it's just an everyday conversation but if you imagine this to be a conversation with God it becomes more interesting. It's easy to think that we pay attention to what God is telling us without getting distracted. I think it's worth taking a moment to stop and think about whether we are really listening to what God is trying to tell us or if we are just saying, "yes, yes I get it", and then moving on to the next daily task. I realized lately that God is totally invested in talking to us and in explaining serious problems to us but we don't always hear him because of the abundant amount of distraction in our everyday lives. The best way I can suggest is just what Daniel has suggested, take ten minutes, at least, to just sit and pray in a quiet place and if you get distracted in prayer, here's a suggestion I found to help while praying.
"Imagine the consciousness during prayer to be like a section of a river. Thoughts and distractions are like little boats that come floating downstream. If we don't pay them any attention, they float by and are gone. If we put our attention into them, or worse, weigh them down with an emotional reaction, the little boat gets heavier and moves that much slower. The more attention and emotion we put into the little boat, the heavier it gets and the more sluggish it becomes in floating away."
The following is a passage we read in Bible study from a book called The Religious Sense by Luigi Giussani
Let us say that Mark and I are walking along the city streets. Because Mark has raised a serious problem I am knocking myself out trying to explain things to him. He listens to me and I grow ever more impassioned and ever more lucid- or so it seems to me as I present my arguments. "So then, do you understand?" "Yes, yes up to this point I follow you." We have been walking along talking with our eyes fixed on the side walk. But he lifts his eyes to notice a pretty woman walking on the other side of the street. He continues to say "yes, yes", but in an increasingly mechanical manner as he fixes his eyes on the lovely figure and turns his head to watch her as she moves away. This continues until she disappears into the distance. Discontentedly he withdraws his gaze and turns back to me in the very instant I have concluded my argument. I say to him, "So then, Mark do you agree?" And he says "No, no I am not persuaded!"
This reply is not valid because he did not pay attention to my arguments. This is the offense that the majority of people commit when they face the problems of destiny, faith, religion, the Church and Christianity because, being "anxious and troubled with many other things", in these things their minds are "dead and buried". But then they claim to be able to pronounce a judgment, to have an opinion, partly because it is impossible not to have a viewpoint on these matters.
At first it seems this passage only correlates with people who disagree with the teachings of the Church but the more I think about it the more I feel this is something a lot of us do with our faith. I think it's easy to recognize if it's just an everyday conversation but if you imagine this to be a conversation with God it becomes more interesting. It's easy to think that we pay attention to what God is telling us without getting distracted. I think it's worth taking a moment to stop and think about whether we are really listening to what God is trying to tell us or if we are just saying, "yes, yes I get it", and then moving on to the next daily task. I realized lately that God is totally invested in talking to us and in explaining serious problems to us but we don't always hear him because of the abundant amount of distraction in our everyday lives. The best way I can suggest is just what Daniel has suggested, take ten minutes, at least, to just sit and pray in a quiet place and if you get distracted in prayer, here's a suggestion I found to help while praying.
"Imagine the consciousness during prayer to be like a section of a river. Thoughts and distractions are like little boats that come floating downstream. If we don't pay them any attention, they float by and are gone. If we put our attention into them, or worse, weigh them down with an emotional reaction, the little boat gets heavier and moves that much slower. The more attention and emotion we put into the little boat, the heavier it gets and the more sluggish it becomes in floating away."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission-I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good, I shall do His work.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am. I cannot be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me-still He knows what He is about."
-Cardinal Newman
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good, I shall do His work.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am. I cannot be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me-still He knows what He is about."
-Cardinal Newman
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