🌹Monday's with Blessed Mary🌹= St. John of Damascus
🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Maximos the Confessor, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and Douglas D. Dewey
🍆The Veggies = my 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = Article: "Deus Caritas Est 34-35", by Pope Benedict XVI,
🌭The Meat = “How To Get More Out Of Holy Communion”, by Fr. Randal Kasel (part 5)
🍧The Dessert = YouTube video: "Apologetics 101", by Deacon Harold Burke Sivers
🍕"Three streams flow ceaselessly from Jesus' divine heart. The first is a stream of mercy for sinners, giving them a spirit of contrition and repentance. The second is a
stream of charity, which brings help to all in need, especially to those who seek perfection and need help overcoming difficulties. The third is a stream of love and
light, which flows into those with whom our Lord wants to share his knowledge and commandments so that they, each in their own way, may devote themselves wholly to promoting his glory." By St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
🍬 "God builds communities through holy people, or at least through people working at being holy. Be one of them." By Douglas D. Dewey
Fr. Many Cihlar: "The fact that we're not surrounded by any restrictions in regard to prayer and that God has given us da consciousness and ability as well as da privilege, of approaching Him in Holy Communion and of attuning ourselves with Him at any hour of da day or any moment in our lives, is in itself a divine gift or concession that the Mystics valued above all things. Therefore, prayer was approached with thankfulness in every sense, and the first expression uttered by the lips was words of appreciation and thanks."
After digesting this quote another time around, the following Scripture passage is coming out swinging:
“That's what these people come here to do, sleep in the chair? They should stay home, why come here for that?”
She was under the impression that the chapel was for praying and not for talking and sleeping. So proud of her, couldn't help but praise her evaluation. She implied that if she was coming here, it would be to pray. In a million years would never have expected her to notice what was going on. Maybe familiarity contributes to us being oblivious to what we should be most attentive to in the spiritual life, in order to correct our complacent selves. If this doesn't in any way apply to you, then praise the Lord and please pray for us who are at times victims that could be found guilty on judgment day.
Another time, when trying to brow beat her, she said to me:
God and I get along just fine, I am thanking Him all day long, and I get on my knees some of the times to thank Him. Wow, like a lightening strike, speechless. The last shall be first and the first last. Started thinking about how the perfect prayer is to say thanks. Recalling her comments about the manner in which people attend chapel, made me really consider another scripture:
Luke 12:58-59 "Make every effort to reconcile with your adversary while you are on your way to the magistrate. Otherwise, he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and the officer may throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the very last penny.” |
😂A warning to those
😂To whom anything goes
😂On one hand reaching for the highs but on another holding to the lows
😂Appearing to God not like friends but foes
😂Sorry to say, what will result will be a whole lot of woes
"Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others [thus] becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.
"This proper way of serving others also leads to humility. The one who serves does not consider himself superior to the one served, however miserable his situation at the moment may be. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the Cross—and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid.
"Those who are in a position to help others will realize that in doing so they themselves receive help; being able to help others is no merit or achievement of their own. This duty is a grace. The more we do for others, the more we understand and can appropriate the words of Christ: 'We are useless servants'
2 Corinthians 5:14 "2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died". |
(Part 5)
Info from this site:
www.holytrinitygoodhue.org/single-post/2016/10/16/How-to-Get-More-Out-of-Holy-Communion
"I continue with the instruction from St. Peter Julian Eymard from his book: How to Get More Out of Holy Communion. The goal of this series is to help every Catholic to be continually renewed in the love of Jesus truly present in the Holy Eucharist each time the soul receives Him in this Sacrament of His Love. One of the insightful and encouraging guidelines given us by St. Peter is that Holy Communion drives sadness from our souls. St. Peter writes: “We are tormented by a great sadness. It is fixed in the depths of our heart and will not be dislodged there-from. There is no joy for us on the face of the earth that is not fleeting and that does not end in tears; there is none and can be none. This sorrow comes to us as an integral part of our heritage from Adam, through whose sin we are exiles from our native land and from our Father’s house. We feel this sadness most deeply when we are quite alone. It even frightens us at times. It is there within us, and whence it comes, we know not.
People without faith grow discouraged, fall into despair, and prefer death to such a life. That is a terrible sin and a sign of reprobation.What remedy, then, shall we Christians employ against this innate sadness? The practice of virtue and striving for Christian perfection? These are not enough… Prayer itself can, to be sure, somewhat relieve our sadness, but cannot give joy that is unalloyed or of long endurance. Then what is the true remedy? The absolute remedy, the ever-new and ever-effective remedy that sadness cannot withstand, is Communion. Our Lord has made Himself the Eucharist and enters into us to give direct combat to our sadness. And I state as a principle that no soul that truly desires and hungers to receive Jesus will remain sorrowful in Communion. Afterward, sadness may return, because it is inherent in our exiled state. And the more speedily we fall back on ourselves and cease to dwell in the thought of our Lord’s goodness, the more quickly it will return, but never at the moment our Lord enters into us.
Let us, instead, enjoy without fear the goodness of God; let us eagerly receive the happiness that is offered us and be ready to give with generosity to our Lord whatever He is please to ask of us in return.”Another encouraging teaching St. Peter teaches us is that in Holy Communion Our Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts. St. Peter wonderfully writes: “We Christians are all princes of Jesus Christ; we are of the blood royal. Our Lord confides the formation of our youth to His ministers, who tell us of God, explaining His nature and His attributes. They show Him to us, promise Him to us, but they cannot make us feel Him or comprehend His goodness. So Jesus Christ Himself comes on the day of our First Holy Communion to make us feel the hidden and inmost meaning of all the instructions we have received. What words and books were powerless to accomplish, Jesus Himself comes to do: to reveal Himself to the soul. This is assuredly the triumph of the Eucharist – that it molds the spiritual man, forms Jesus Christ within us.
Our interior education will always be incomplete, unless it is the work of our Lord Himself… So give yourself to Jesus! Let Him dwell in you, and you will bear much fruit, according to the promise He himself makes you: “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.”