🍇 “When we begin to refashion things in our image rather than in God’s, we ourselves become displaced and disjointed. Strangely enough, by asserting only our humanity, we lose what makes us essentially and beautifully human”. By Romano Guardini
🥡”The hearts of those who seek the Lord will rejoice' (Ps. 105:3). To seek the Lord is to prostrate yourself with your whole mind and with great fervour before God and to expel every worldly thought with the knowledge and love of God that spring from pure and unremitting prayer." By St.Theoleptos
🎈Msgr. Chris
🎈Well thank you God that he ended up as someone’s brother and not sis
🎈To us his priesthood is such a gift
🎈He certainly serves in a way to enrich and uplift
🎈Born and chosen by God for the right vocation
🎈Amen, alleluia, that calls for a real celebration
🎈Started out in the courtroom as a lawyer
🎈But proving to be much more superior on the battlefield as a spiritual warrior
🎈What a big difference is seen between a shepherd and a hired hand
🎈Rough going when it’s a hired hand, expect not be upright when it’s time to land
🎈So very, very, grateful for not having to skip a beat
🎈 Because of this priest, we were able to continue spiritually standing on our feet
🎈To not be deprived of the sweetest God given treat
🎈Nothing as important than to celebrate the Holy Liturgy and be able to prayerfully meet
🎈Otherwise there would have been a great cower
🎈A very dark cloud hanging over every hour
🎈Instead God would empower
🎈Through Msgr. there was the priceless experience of God as our refuge and strong tower
🎈Our spiritual lives, so well does he serve
🎈 Handling like a champ the balls that come sailing out of nowhere with a curve
🎈Common sense prevailing
🎈 Executing plans with care so unfailing
🎈Eucharistic Adoration and the most precious Sacraments at one’s disposal
🎈 Truly, truly, extremely thankful
🎈What graces we receive through Msgr. Nalty
🎈Trusted leadership that can be expected to be aligned in spirit and truth with the Gospel and not faulty
🎈In regards to God’s people, to nourish their faith
🎈None of your accomplishments will ever be as great
🎈For from on high came the ability and gifts that were meted out to you
🎈But it’s from your own free will filled with a loving heart, that you choose to serve in ways that’s faithful and true
🎈A wish, priest of God, for a blessed, blessed happy birthday
🎈Acknowledged in a simple poetic way
tmm/TruGIG
™️
(All quotes are taken from God is Love (1964 edition) unless marked with an '*' in which case they are taken from From the Sacred Heart to the Trinity)
Info from this site:
http://www.stteresamargaret.org/quotes.html
"St. Teresa Margaret can almost be named "the saint of the hidden life," so thoroughly did she absorb its meaning and mystery. The life of Jesus and Mary at Nazareth is indeed the model par excellence for all religious, but this silent and self-effacing saint penetrated deeply into it, and gave its application such wide horizons that she can really be said to have proposed something essentially original. It is a commonplace to use the life at Nazareth as a type of the Hidden Life, because the enclosed religious is completely withdrawn from the world. But in this sense Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were not "hidden," at least not from their neighbors and the inhabitants of Nazareth and its environs. Probably, like small country towns the world over, everybody knew and discussed the least event around the village well, and anything that happened in Joseph's house would be common knowledge, as with everybody else.
But where one can claim that their hiddenness was absolute was that while all their exterior activities were watched, and every visitor noted, so well was their interior life concealed from all eyes, that they passed for the most ordinary and unremarkable among a community that was in itself insignificant. The revelation of miraculous powers in Jesus was received with shocked disbelief. They had known him since childhood and could vouch for his likeableness, kindness, generosity, no doubt - but not sanctity, let alone divinity! This was Teresa Margaret's method of practicing the "hidden life." Everyone in the community saw all she did, talked with her, worked with her, and were warm in their praise of her goodness and charity. But the real depths of her interior life were completely hidden and were one day to prove a revelation and surprise to these intimate daily companions. She passed every minute under their very noses, so to speak, but managed to remain unnoticed, keeping her soul's secret for God alone."
🙏“Lord,I shall be yours, whatever the cost, despite all repugnance.”
🙏"She who is silent everywhere finds peace. She who desires peace must see, suffer and be silent"
🙏"Rather than continually dwelling on her misery and worthlessness, she merely let all thought of self fall away before the infinite majesty of God; and truly the most profitable and genuine way of despising self is to forget oneself altogether. However, self-knowledge unlike self-love does not depress with the sight of one’s imperfections. “I can do all things in Him who gives me strength,” she repeated with St. Paul, refusing to be downcast. God could and would supply all she lacked, and Father Ildefonse testified: “The effect of self-knowledge did not discourage her, but rather forced her to throw herself on the goodness and mercy of God. She said to me once, ‘From myself, nothing; from God, everything ... the smaller and weaker I am in myself, the richer and stronger I shall be in Him ... He shall be the more glorious in His mercy as I am more despicable in my sins and nothingness.’”
🙏 I am resolved to give complete obedience in everything without exception, not only to my superiors, but also to my equals and inferiors, so as to learn from you, my God, who made yourself obedient in far more difficult circumstances than those in which I find myself.”
🔎 “Habitual examination of conscience”
✔️“I propose to have no other purpose in all my activities, either interior or exterior, than the motive of love alone, by constantly asking myself: ‘Now what am I doing in this action? Do I love God?’ If I should notice any obstacle to pure love, I shall take myself in hand and recall that I must seek to return my love for His love.”
✔️“Since nature resists good, even though the spirit may be willing, I resolve to enter upon a continual warfare against self. The arms with which I shall do battle are prayer, the presence of God, silence; yet I am aware how little I am able to use these weapons. Nevertheless I shall arm myself with complete confidence in you, patience, humility and conformity with your divine will ... but who shall help me to fight a continual battle against enemies such as those which make war on me? You, my God, have declared yourself my captain; you have raised the standard of the Cross, saying: ‘Take up the cross and follow in my footsteps.’ To correspond with this invitation, I promise to resist your love no longer; rather, I will follow you to Calvary without hesitation.”
One may leave home, family, friends, renounce social position and material possessions, detach oneself from every created thing, but unless he dispossesses himself of his own will, the sacrifice is worthless … [and Teresa Margaret] developed what one biographer described as “the art of never doing her own will.” ... She had a strong character and a warm, ardent nature, and she seemed to sense that the conflict between her own rebellious temperament and her desire for sanctity would be resolved by the perfection of her submission. Pages 85-86
“At the foot of the Cross,” wrote Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D., “suffering becomes more a proof of love than a punishment. Teresa Margaret became a saint not through multiplying penitential exercise, but by having effected an uninterrupted adhesion of her will to the crucified Redeemer.” Page 135
Lest the fact that sympathy might provide some consolation - for it is well-known that a trial shared loses much of its cutting edge - she endeavored to conceal from those around her any pain or sorrow she endured, or the discomfort of fatigue, the weather, minor indispositions, or the small misunderstandings and inevitable frictions of community life. She continued to practice the incessant mortification of consistently presenting a smiling and serene exterior no matter how harassed she might be by interior sufferings or trials. Page 136
The grace of Deus caritas est One Sunday after Pentecost, on the 28th of June, 1767, when Sister Teresa Margaret was officiating in choir, she read out the little chapter at Terce: “Deus caritas est.” She had heard these words repeatedly, Sunday after Sunday, for the past three years, but now it seemed as though she understood them for the first time - or rather, her understanding of them was raised to an entirely different plane. The verse struck her with the force of a revelation: “God is love; he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.”
This dwelling had been the goal of all her striving, seeking as she did to imitate the interior life and hidden operations of Christ. From that day onwards the necessity of proving her love by deeds became so compelling a force that it was obvious to her sisters that some special grace had been given her. “Nobody comes to the Father except through Jesus,” she said. “To come to God who is everything and consequently all good, no fatigue must seem to us too great; we must not be put off either by the difficulties we meet on the way, but accept bitterness and welcome every kind of cross with eagerness. By these means, which are precisely those of Jesus Christ, it is not difficult to come to the true God, to live in charity, to walk in love.” Despite her customary reticence and assiduity in concealing any graces or spiritual favors, the fact that something out of the ordinary had taken place on that Sunday morning was apparent to all. For days the young nun seemed quite out of herself, and the sudden illumination that the words had sent flooding into her soul is difficult to explain, because of the seeming triviality of the incident and her own habitual silence about such things. It marked the beginning of a new stage in her spiritual life, as Father Ildefonse was quick to observe. From this time, he noticed that the quiet, self-possessed and reserved sister appeared to withdraw even more into herself, becoming engrossed in a silent, determined, and conscious awareness of the presence within her, and her endeavors to attain to perfect union with Him. However, this withdrawal was a purely spiritual matter, and there was no suggestion of cutting herself adrift from the community, for she continued to give herself wholeheartedly to all, in her services as infirmarian, in companionship and sympathy at recreation, and in never avoiding her share of work on the grounds of seeking more solitude.
Speaking to Father Ildefonse one day, she tried to express to him something of the significance those words God is love now held for her, but she became almost incoherent in her emotion. “Just as the soul in the state of grace (which is charity) is in God, God is in her. Just as the soul lives the life of God, so does God in a certain way live IN her. And so it is that between them there is but a single life, a single love ... God alone! The difference is that God has all by essence, whereas the creature has it only by participation and grace.” And, adds Father Ildefonse, “Note that these words came from a simple child who had never studied and knew no theology apart from what her instinct taught her.” page 128. Father Ildephonse reflecting on her death remarked “she could not have lived very much longer so great was the strength of the love of God in her”. Page 73*
Info from this site:
www.catholiceducation.org/en/education/catholic-contributions/fides-et-ratio-faith-and-reason.html
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart the desire to know the truth — in a word, to know himself — so that by knowing and loving God, men and women can come to the fullness of the truth about themselves". With these words Pope John Paul II begins the encyclical, Fides et Ratio. Some 12 years in the making, it is the first encyclical on the relationship between faith and reason since Pope Leo XIII issued Aeterni Patris in 1879. Shortly after the encyclical was published, John Paul provided his own summary of some of its key elements in an address to a group of U.S. bishops who were visiting Rome. He said that he "wished to defend the capacity of human reason to know the truth. This confidence in reason is an integral part of the Catholic intellectual tradition, but it needs reaffirming today in the face of widespread and doctrinaire doubt about our ability to answer the fundamental questions: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?"
A lack of confidence in one's ability to know the truth has serious consequences for man's behavior in daily life. Without objective truth, man is left adrift. Given human weakness and the strength of man's passions, this inevitably leads to tragedy. As the Pope said to the U.S. bishops, "The violent history of this century is due in no small part to the closure of reason to the existence of ultimate and objective truth. The result has been a pervasive skepticism and relativism, which have not led to a more 'mature' humanity but to much despair and irrationality". Truth is known through a combination of faith and reason. The absence of either one will diminish man's ability to know himself, the world and God. Human reason seeks the truth, but the ultimate truth about the meaning of life cannot be found by reason alone. The Pope first explains the proper roles of faith and reason on man's path to truth. He then explains how they compliment and support one another with complete compatibility.
Faith- The Church received the ultimate truth about human life as a gift of love from God the Father in the revelation of Jesus Christ."God so loved the world that he sent his only Son…"
📖John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life”
Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life
📖John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”
The true meaning of life, therefore, is a person: Jesus Christ. The truth communicated by Christ is the absolutely valid source of the meaning of human life. The ultimate answers to man's questions about pain, suffering of the innocent, and death are found in Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection. All human creatures, not just philosophers, have the right to receive the truth about their existence and destiny. By the revelation of Jesus Christ, God has made the truth accessible to every man and woman. Jesus Christ is not only the revelation of God to man, he is also the revelation of man to himself. In the mystery of the Incarnate Word, man can understand himself. Christ "reveals man to himself and makes clear his supreme calling, which is to share in the divine mystery of the life of the Trinity". Man shares in this mystery on earth through grace and in heaven by direct contemplation of God.
Faith is man's obedient response to God's revelation. By faith man accepts the truth of Christ's revelation which is guaranteed by God. Because an act of faith involves freely entrusting oneself to God and freely assenting to His revelation, it has a moral dimension. Preceded by the gift of grace and assisted by the Holy Spirit, it is an act of both the mind and the will. "Men and women can accomplish no more important act in their lives than the act of faith; it is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth and chooses to live in that truth”.
Reason- Man can know that God exists by reflecting on creation. As we read in the Book of Wisdom, "From the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator". Reason lays the foundation for faith and makes revelation "credible." Reason is thus the common ground between believers and unbelievers.
📖Wisdom 13:5 “For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen”
📖Romans 1:20 “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse”
"If human beings fail to recognize God as the creator of all, it is not because they lack the means to, but because their free will and their sinfulness place an impediment in the way". Man's intellectual capacity, his ability to reason and to think in abstract terms, is a great gift. Man can acquire true knowledge about himself, God and the world. Man is born with a desire to know the truth about himself. It is essential the he find the truth because only by choosing true values by which to live can he be true to his nature and find happiness. No one can avoid the need to address life's ultimate questions. In fact man can be defined as "the one who seeks the truth".
Man must depend to a great extent on others as source of knowledge. He is unable to factually verify even a small part of his knowledge himself. Therefore, he must trust in the veracity of those who teach him. "This means that the human being – the one who seeks the truth – is also the one who lives by belief". Belief involves interpersonal relationships because it brings into play not only the capacity to know but also the capacity to entrust oneself to others. "Knowledge through belief, grounded as it is on trust between persons, is linked to the truth: in the act of believing men and women entrust themselves to the truth which the other declares to them". Martyrs are particularly trustworthy witnesses to the truth about human existence.
YouTube link:
youtu.be/hKHNt4McyRc