🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Gregory Palamas, Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, and St. Francis of Paola
🌽The Veggies = My 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = “Traditionis Custodes: Taking a Bulldozer to an Anthill”, by Pieter Vree (Part 1 of 2)
🍗The Meat = Book: ”The Prayer of the Presence of God”, Prayer the Duty of Every Moment, by Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart
🍰The Dessert = YouTube Video: “Spiritual Warfare and Communism, Marriage and the Family Unit”, by Fr. Ripperger (Part 04 Segment 03)
📖Psalms 51:19 “My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn”
and? God heals in no more certain way than through suffering. This is why the Lord taught us in the Gospels that prayer can do great things when combined with fasting” By St. Gregory Palamas
📖 Mark 9:29 “He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer”
📀 “God will permit a great evil against the Church: heretics and tyrants will come suddenly and unexpectedly; they will break into the Church while bishops, prelates, and priests are asleep.” By Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser
💎 “Fix your minds, then, on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Inflamed with love for us, he came down from heaven to redeem us. For our sake he endured every torment of body and soul and shrank from no bodily pain. He himself gave us an example of perfect patience and love. We, then, are to be patient in adversity." By St. Francis of Paola
📖Deuteronomy 9:24-29 “You have been rebels against the LORD from the day I first knew you.Those forty days, then, and forty nights, I lay prostrate before the LORD, because he had threatened to destroy you.And I prayed to the Lord and said: O Lord GOD, do not destroy your people, the heritage you redeemed in your greatness and have brought out of Egypt with your strong hand.Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look upon the stubbornness of this people nor upon their wickedness and sin, lest the land from which you have brought us say “The LORD was not able to bring them into the land he promised them, and out of hatred for them, he brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.” They are your people and your heritage, whom you have brought out by your great power and with your outstretched arm”
It’s being impressed upon my heart how we to can make a big difference when we are serious about living the faith in spirit and truth. Expressed this recently to someone and am so glad Linda shared that quote by St. Thérèse. It’s great when we have people to partner, share spiritual jewels and pray with, it surely enriches us. If there is no one to board our fight, we fly solo. We can still do damage to the kingdom of darkness, for what we truly need is God to be with us. Remember Samson:
📖 Judges 16: 26-30 “and Samson said to the attendant who was holding his hand, “Put me where I may touch the columns that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.” The temple was full of men and women: all the lords of the Philistines were there, and from the roof about three thousand men and women looked on as Samson provided amusement. Samson cried out to the LORD and said, “Lord GOD, remember me! Strengthen me only this once that I may avenge myself on the Philistines at one blow for my two eyes.” Samson grasped the two middle columns on which the temple rested and braced himself against them, one at his right, the other at his left. Then saying, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Samson pushed hard, and the temple fell upon the lords and all the people who were in it. Those he killed by his dying were more than those he had killed during his lifetime”
It’s to not live “soft”, but to do things God’s way, that is the “right” way. Often we should be asking: Lord what do you want, what is the best course of action? We must adhere as closely as possible to what we discern from God. This union with Him and practicing the presence of God results in a gradual increase in holiness. We never should be staying the same, no status quo or decreasing. Imperative is treading the straight and narrow path in season and out of season. Spiritual sloppiness is out of order, so is picking and choosing out of order. See that manifested by those who think they have it “going on” spiritually. Try to tell them something, and highly offended will they become.
Thinking there are far to many who care to do just as they so please, like irreverently prancing before God without second thoughts about behavior, dress, posture, words, deeds, or their state of mind. Sitting upon the throne of their own hearts, calling the shots, so satisfied are they. Being in the drivers seat is the name of the game for some. How many sometimes take offense at truth when it intrudes and bursts their bubble.We are all “that person” sometimes, but let those weeds be uprooted by genuine love for God over disordered self love.
Self-knowledge is something also very necessary make genuine progress in the spiritual life. Let us pray to truly know thyself, because the day will come and these words will be distinctly pronounced:
📖Matthew 7:23 “Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers”
Let it not be to us that these words are said, for is it not evil to not do God’s holy will? Practicing the presence of God, that keeps our feet on the straight and narrow. Let us pray, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Blessed Mother, Holy St. Joseph & all you Angels and Saints, please help us sail the high seas towards the holy victory. We wish to be pleasing in body, mind, soul, and spirit.
📖 Proverbs 4: 25-27 “Let your eyes look straight ahead and your gaze be focused forward. Survey the path for your feet, and all your ways will be sure. Turn neither to right nor to left, keep your foot far from evil”
Sharing something beautiful the Lord gave me one morning. It was that my goal be daily to:
👊🏼 Make the Father proud
😁 Make Jesus happy
🤝 and Make the Holy Holy Spirit welcome and comfortable
May this a goal for each soul every day.
Info from this site:
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/traditionis-custodes-taking-a-bulldozer-to-an-anthill/
“In January 1985 President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, signed the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits federally funded nongovernmental organizations from performing or promoting abortions in foreign countries. The next Democrat elected to the office, Bill Clinton, in his first presidential act in January 1993, revoked the Mexico City Policy. The next Republican president, George W. Bush, reinstated it in January 2001. And on it went, back and forth: Obama revoked it; Trump reinstated it; and, naturally, Biden revoked it. There’s a dreary predictability to all this. Depending on whether a Democrat or a Republican holds the high office, you know whether the Mexico City Policy is in effect. It’s a policy subject to the political pendulum. It is fair to wonder, with Pope Francis’s promulgation this July of Traditionis Custodes, his motu proprio restricting the celebration of the Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass (TLM), whether we’ve reached a similar stage in ecclesial politics.
Back in July 2007, Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, promulgated Summorum Pontificum, his own motu proprio granting free access to the TLM to the “no small numbers of faithful” who favor the “extraordinary form” of the Roman rite. Summorum Pontificum empowered the laity and established official grievance procedures. Benedict decreed that in parishes “where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition,” pastors should “willingly accede to their requests” for the celebration of the TLM. If this group does not receive “satisfaction from the pastor,” they are to inform their diocesan bishop, who “is strongly requested” to satisfy them. If the bishop “cannot arrange for such a celebration,” they are to refer the matter to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. With Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis has undone all that. He has proscribed the power of the people and placed it in the palms of prelates. “It belongs to the diocesan bishop, as moderator, promoter, and guardian of the whole liturgical life of the particular Church entrusted to him, to regulate the liturgical celebrations of his diocese,” Francis writes. “Therefore, it is his exclusive competence to authorize the use of the [TLM] in his diocese, according to the guidelines of the Apostolic See.” It should be noted that the Pope pre-emptively cut off the faithful’s recourse to an office higher than that of their local ordinary: He suppressed the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei in 2019, merging it with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Benedict, early in his papacy, was often characterized as a dogmatic authoritarian. Yet, with Summorum Pontificum, he wrested control of the Mass from the bishops to allow the grassroots development of liturgical traditionalism. In so doing, Benedict proved himself to be less dictatorial, and more democratic, than his common caricature. Indications are that the numbers of those attending the TLM grew by modest amounts in many places where it was offered, though a significant groundswell of demand didn’t materialize. With Traditionis Custodes, Francis, too, has shown his true colors. He isn’t the great liberalizer many hoped he would be. Rather, Francis is a big believer in authority — his own and that of his brother bishops. “I take the firm decision to abrogate all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs that precede the present Motu proprio,” he writes in his letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes. Bishops, he says, are “to designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these [stable] groups may gather for the eucharistic celebration (not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes),” and they are “to take care not to authorize the establishment of new groups.” Traditionalism may go this far, Francis is saying, but no further. And he has deputized bishops as traditionis custodes — “guardians of tradition” — guarding against the further growth of traditionalism.
Vatican watchers have speculated for years that something like this has been in the works, at least since 2016, three years into Francis’s papacy. Heck, the NOR published an article over three years ago by W. Patrick Cunningham on this very topic (“What If Pope Francis Were to Rescind Summorum Pontificum?” March 2018). It seems to have been one of Francis’s long-term goals. Many, however, figured Francis would have the courtesy to wait until Benedict had died to undo one of the landmark acts of his predecessor’s papacy. But no. Benedict keeps hanging on. Perhaps Francis’s recent hospitalization — he was discharged ten days after having surgery for colon diverticulitis this July — instilled a sense of urgency in him. Francis is, after all, 84 years old. Benedict might outlive him! Even Francis’s strongest supporters know the clock is ticking. “Age is catching up to Francis. Barring a miracle, he will only be expected to continue as pope for five or six years,” wrote Thomas Reese, S.J. (Religion News Service, July 13). “We may look back at his hospitalization as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his papacy.” Perhaps the Pope’s thinking is: Why put off to an uncertain tomorrow what can be done today?
Fr. Reese, a Francis acolyte, makes the risible claims that the Pope “has encouraged dialogue and a more consultative style of governance…. Francis has rebranded the papacy for the 21st century with a pastoral, prophetic and inclusive voice. Dialogue? Inclusion? Only with certain types. Those outside his sheepfold — homosexuals, atheists, Protestants, Muslims, Chinese communists — the Holy Father handles with velvet gloves. Those under his care — traditionalists, in particular — he rules with an iron fist. Francis’s most famous quip, “If a person seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” doesn’t apply to them.
Francis has made big talk about pastors having “the smell of the sheep.” But he, as Universal Pastor, finds the odor of his traditionalist flock repugnant. But, really, who can blame him? Especially given traditionalists’ proclivity to disrespect the postconciliar papacy and set themselves up as superior to average Catholics who are content to worship according to the “ordinary form” of the Mass in their local parishes. Disdain for everyday Catholicism is palpable in many traditionalist milieus. It is “plain in the words and attitudes of many” traditionalists, Francis observes. There is a “close connection,” he writes, “between the choice of celebrations according to the [TLM] and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the ‘true Church.’ One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency.”
“PRAYER is the duty of every moment. 'We ought always to pray, said our Lord.
📖 Luke 18:1 “Then he told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.a He said”
And what he said, he did: therein lay his great power. Action always accompanied his words, and corresponded with them.
We must pray always in order to be on our guard
📖 Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Our life both of body and soul, our natural and supernatural life, is like a fragile flower. We live surrounded by enemies. Ever since man rejected the light that was meant to show him the way
📖 John 1:5 “the light shines in the darkness, d the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
everything has become for us an obstacle and a danger: we live in the shadow of death
📖Luke 1:79”to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow”
and
📖Ps. 106.10 “He rescued them from hostile hands”
freed them from the power of the enemy. Instead of pointing to the Creator and leading us to him, things show only themselves, with the result that we stop at them. The devil, to whom we stupidly gave them when we gave him ourselves, speaks to us through their many voices; his shadow darkens their transparence. Beyond their attractive forms we no longer seek the beauty they reflect, but merely the pleasure and satisfaction they are able to offer us.
But the enemy is not only at our door, he is even more within us. And he is at our door, because he is within us. It is we who have invited him in. In turning towards him, we have turned the whole universe away from God. This is why the world is against us. It is inimical, hostile to us, and not without reason. Through the world and by it, we have let war loose within ourselves and in everything. This is only what one would expect, but it is terrible all the same.
What a profound definition of peace is St. Augustine's! Above all, in these days, when the world is convulsed to its center (Translator's Note: These words were written during the second world War), when men and things (the latter through men) serve only to kill and destroy, how necessary it is to ponder well these words, the very sound of which is full of the calm they express: Peace is the tranquillity of order. Order means that everything is in its proper place. God made men superior to all things
📖Genesis 2:15 “The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it”
and all things turned to God as to their source, to receive from him their being moment by moment, and to thank him and bless him. That was the way God acted, and this is his order and his peace. It was this that fundamentally constituted the terrestrial Paradise, and will one day be the heavenly Paradise for those who have understood and taken up again this attitude (Genesis 3 passim).
I remember seeing once a frightened and hunted animal that had lost its way. It rushed through an open gate that led into a garden full of flowers, with what disastrous results can be imagined. This is an image, though a very imperfect one, of a soul when it allows the wild beast of the world to enter into it, ever since our first parents turned away from God and listened to the voice of the Tempter. As a consequence, we live in a country occupied by the enemy, and it is our business to drive him out of it; to turn away from him and turn back to God, and so secure our liberty. And we have to do this without any armed or organized forces; with our faculties in disorder, our strength impaired, and surrounded by enemies on all sides or by those who are indifferent to out lot.
No greater helplessness could be imagined, had we not God. And that is why prayer is so necessary, and why our Lord had to tell us so insistently to pray, and to pray always. Hence, too, his saying which can seem so overwhelming: "Without me, you can do nothing"
📖 John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing”
as well as his invitation so consoling and comforting: Come to me...
📖 Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, * and I will give you rest.
Prayer is the soul's response to that invitation. It comes; it makes known its wretchedness, it pleads for help, for light for the mind and strength for the will. It asks for grace to bring its passions under the control of its higher will, and to submit that will to God, who is order and peace. And God says to the soul: "I am and always will be a Father: I love you and await your coming ... Come!" And the soul replies: "My God, I can do no more. Do you come to me."
YouTube link:
youtu.be/-DDzw8jNYug