🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. John of Kronstadt, St. Maximos the Confessor, and Soren Kierkegaard
🌽The Veggies = My 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = “Catherine of Genoa”, By Fr. Benedict Groeschel, O.F.M. Cap. (Part 4 of 10)
🍗The Meat = Book: ”The Prayer of the Presence of God”, Answers to Prayer , by Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart
🍰The Dessert = Audio Presentation: “Talk #5 on Volume 12: ”Luisa’s Piccarreta November 2, 1917 diary entry”, by Frances Hogan
🍿 “It was in his power 'to be united to the Lord and become one spirit with God...' (I Cor. 6:15). But Adam was deceived and chose to cut himself off voluntarily from God's happy end for him, preferring by his own free choice to be drawn down to the earth (cf. Gen. 2:17) than to become God by grace." By St. Maximos the Confessor
🍝 Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd. His work is to be involved with all people, if possible, but always individually, speaking with each and every person on the sidewalk and on the streets - in order to split apart. He avoids the crowd, especially when it is treated as authoritative in matters of the truth or when its applause, or hissing, or balloting are regarded as judges. He avoids the crowd with its herd mentality more than a decent young girl avoids the bars on the harbor. Those who speak to the crowd, coveting its approval, those who deferentially bow and scrape before it must be regarded as being worse than prostitutes. They are instruments of untruth." By Soren Kierkegaard
Peace, peace, peace, the valuable, valuable, valuable gift. The goal is to try to keep it on simmer deep down in the soul, but at times it’s like a vanishing vapor. With the Prince of Peace in residence, how can there not be peace? Ok, that means for me to make more room for the Prince of Peace, then more of Jesus will mean less disturbance of the spirit and an untroubled heart flourishing. Thus says the Lord Jesus in the book of John, chapter 14 and verse 27:
📖 John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid”.
Day 9️⃣
🕊Peace, peace, please come and befriend me.
🕊A gift that’s really really needed, one so heavenly
🕊Come and calm the inner raging sea
🕊Your presence can truly set me free
🕊It’s but to surrender all into the hands of thee
🕊Knowing the outcome belongs to God Almighty
🕊That puts a chokehold on worry
🕊Obliterating any anxiety
🕊 Paving the way for joy and glee
🕊Yes, let it be
🕊 Making God’s will a priority
🕊 Ushers in the victory
Day 🔟
Peace, what an oasis in everyday life. The search is over when the compass is Christ. Coming to know we are not just out on a limb, but grafted into the vine, peace will be yours and it will be mine.
Day 1️⃣1️⃣
Peace, what a delightful fruit. A sweet treat indeed, but it’s so, so, much more. It’s like a vital spiritual nutrient. We can’t live very well without it. Let us savor the sweetness and juiciness which peace brings to our lives when we live and let live, but most of all when God abides in us and we abide in Him.
⭐️🌟🌟Sharing a “Lagniappe” meditation for feast of the Immaculate Conception. For the first time it was possible to spotlight the greatness of God overshadowing Our Blessed Lady. Celebrating the feast, it was manifested to me how God marvelously prepares us all to fulfill our mission most perfectly. Yes, perfectly, a great mission required Blessed Mary to be immaculately conceived. For us, whatever we were born to do, decided upon before the foundations of the world, we would be given all that would be needed to accomplish the mission. The hinderance is on us, because we stand at times in the way of God’s plans, throwing up roadblocks knowingly or unknowingly. It was not so for Our Blessed Mother, because she was of this mindset: “ Be it done unto me according to thy Word”. For me (us) it is going along at times “my way” cognizant or not of being ruled by pride instead of humility to God’s way. May we position ourselves to receive the supreme graces that will help what is tarnished become as brand new. May the hiccup be behind us, as we follow God’s lead so that we can perfectly fulfill our mission at death’s hour and God Himself can celebrate the victory.
Day 1️⃣2️⃣
Peace, such a precious gift given to us. What can be said of peace is that it eludes all who live by pride. For pride is like sword that destroys peace. It slices and dices as much as we would have it. Humbly taking refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, this:
🗯Frees one from the snares
🗯Allowing allows for rest as upon the Lord we cast all cares
Day 1️⃣3️⃣
Peace, what a comfortable robe we can slip on and wind down. A conscience effort is needed, it’s up to us to choose our mindset. All those who are interested in the “better part” will not be denied. Grace will assist us in embracing the gift of peace and not letting go under any circumstances, because God is always in total control.
Day 1️⃣4️⃣
The key that will open the door to peace, is aligning ourselves with the will of God. It’s the green light, and we can hit the accelerator. The more out of sync we are with God, for sure it’s the less peace we will have. The puzzle piece needed in our lives is peace, then we can operate effectively and efficiently, bearing fruit for all of eternity
“During the last year of the fifteenth century, many changes came into Catherine's life. Her great fasts came to an end with the Easter of that year. Now she accepted a spiritual director and confessor in the person of her successor as director of the Pammatone, Don Cattaneo Marabotto. This gentle and devoted man would be her guide and spiritual associate for the remaining eleven years of her life and would provide much of the material for her Life. It would seem that this period of almost ten years before her painful illness is what von Hiigel calls an "Indian Summer." With a bit more leisure to pray and with the catalyst of spiritual disciples like Ettore and Don Cattaneo, Catherine spoke about her interior life. The driven force of her inner conflicts had been dissipated, and defensive behavior such as the great fasts was no longer necessary to preserve balance. She could relate to disciples and even to a spiritual director.
The Life contains he following beautiful account of such an inter change. Catherine wished to express some of the great love her heart felt for God but could not do so accurately and so she uttered this mysterious example. "If of that love my heart feels one drop were to fall into Hell, Hell itself would altogether turn into Eternal life." Ettore then interpreted this for her approval. She said that the love that united her with God by participation in His goodness was so complete a union that it was the direct opposite of sin, which is rebellion from God. Since this rebellion is the essence of hell and love is the essence of eternal life of the soul, hell would be transformed. Catherine entirely approved of this theological restatement of her intuition but significantly demurred from fulfilling Ettore's request that she pray for her disciples to receive some drop of His love. Her response suggests the perfect abandonment to Divine Will that was the essence of her practical spirituality. "I see this tremendous love to be so full of condescension for these my sons that for them I can ask for nothing of it, and can only present them before His sight." This mode of thinking or doctrine is a further development of her complete acceptance of the divine will expressed in one of her utterances. "We should not wish for anything but what comes to us from moment to moment exercising ourselves nonetheless for good." These statements epitomized her teaching as she be came older and indicate the providential quality of the presence of her two biographers, Vernazza and Marabotto, who were there when her very personal spiritual life could be shared.
During this period of mellowing, several more humanitarian spects of Catherine's character began to appear, for example, her love of nature and concern for the welfare of animals is mentioned for the first time. She enjoyed walking in the garden and spoke of the being all creatures share as a gift from God. In her carefully drawn and generous will, she was particularly responsive to foundlings and orphans, the needs of her servants and those of Thobia, Giuliano's illegitimate daughter. Although no definite physical illness other than her experience with the plague is ever recorded, it is clear now that her physical constitution began to decline in the last three or four years of her life. She spoke of a desire to die when it would be God's will. In 1509, she began to experience as it were flashs or fires of Divine Love. She apparently spoke of these to her biographers, so there are several descriptions in the Life that color all of the writings done later. They refer to her being lost in God, having found her true self in union with life, and to the totally unique world view of the soul in union with God.
These experiences, along with Catherine's conversion, were the most important in her life. The more intense mystical experiences were not substantively different from earlier ones, but as von Hiigel points out were "as much a gift of herself by herself to God . . . yet her very power and wish and determination to give herself were rendered possible and became actual through that pure prevenient, accompanying and subsequent gift of God." In December of 1509, Catherine's health began to decline severely. She experienced great cold and interior desolation. During the following months various physicians, including the recently returned court physician of King Henry VII of England, Giovanni Boerio, alternated between treating her as any other and wondering whether her illness was of a supernatural origin. She herself obeyed doctor's orders and never insisted that her illness was supernatural. In late August, she received Extreme Unction and on the twenty-fifth asked that the windows be opened so she could see the sky. As night came on, she had many candles lit and chanted the "Veni Creator Spiritus" as best she could. After many physical sufferings, she died at dawn on Sunday, September 15,1510, surrounded by her friends and disciples.
Catherine was buried with some pomp next to one of the walls of the hospital chapel. When the place was damaged because of a water conduit under the wall, the grave was opened eighteen months later and the body was discovered to be perfectly intact without any kind of lesions although the grave cloths were destroyed by dampness.39 Great crowds flocked to see the spectacle for eight days. After this, the body was placed in the church in a marble sepulchre. The body of Catherine, still very much intact, bears a resemblance to ancient portraits of her. It may be seen in a crystal casket in the Hospital Chapel today. There is no doubt that the preservation of the body very much contributed to the popular cult of Catherine. By popular acclaim, she was called "Blessed" before the Bull of Urban VIII on the canonization of saints restricted this title to those formally declared to be so by the Holy See. Catherine Fieschi Adorna was canonized by Pope Clement XII on May 18, 1733, along with Vincent de Paul, John Francis Regis, and Juliana
Falconieri.”
“Answers to Prayer. This is a difficult subject to write about, because it is so vast. And yet I must say something about it, because it reflects God's glory so much. History is full of the answers to prayer. All the saints of the Old and New Testaments were great supplicants. Their lives were a continuous colloquy with God. He entered into everything, and they sought his assistance in all their needs. And God, they said repeatedly, always heard them. The movement of their souls toward him, whether to ask for grace or to thank him for it; whether to beg for the forgiveness of their sins or to praise the greatness of this best of Fathers, so real to them and so solicitous for their good - this is invariably the theme running through the Scriptures, or at least the predominant one.
The Psalms are full of the same idea. It runs through them like an incredibly rich and abundant sap, the sap of true life, simple yet strong, and expressive of all that is deepest in us. It is a theme we can repeat endlessly and, like all love's expressions, it never tires. It would seem to possess eternal youth and freshness and, ever new, grows with repetition ever greater and more splendid. At times, it seems to us as though God departs from the order he has established, when he hears the voices of his friends begging him to do so. This order is beautiful indeed. The divine perfections are reflected in lines we can barely discern, but which we are never tired of admiring. Dearly would I love to follow up this thought, but I would not know where to stop! Let the following suffice. ... Springs gush forth from rocks in the desert
📖 Numbers 20:11 “Then, raising his hand, Moses struck the rock twice* with his staff, and water came out in abundance, and the community and their livestock drank”
the waters of the sea of rivers divide to allow a vast concourse of people to pass over
📖 Exodus 14:21 “ Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind all night long and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split”
📖 Hebrews 11:29 “By faith they crossed the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted it they were drowned”
and 📖 Joshua 3:16 “the waters flowing from upstream halted, standing up in a single heap for a very great distance indeed, from Adam, a city in the direction of Zarethan; those flowing downstream toward the Salt Sea of the Arabah disappeared entirely.* Thus the people crossed over opposite Jericho”
The walls of cities fall down
📖 Joshua 6:20 “As the horns blew, the people began to shout. When they heard the sound of the horn, they raised a tremendous shout. The wall collapsed, and the people attacked the city straight ahead and took it”
📖and Hebrews 11:30 “By faith the walls of Jericho fell after being encircled for seven days”
enemies are put to flight
📖 Leviticus 26:8 “Five of you will put a hundred of your foes to flight, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, till your enemies fall before your sword”
and manna descends daily from heaven
📖 Exodus 16:15 “On seeing it, the Israelites asked one another, “What is this?” for they did not know what it was. But Moses told them, “It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat”
The sick are healed, the lame walk
📖 Matthew 8:16 “When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick”
and the dead are raised to life
📖 Luke 8:54-55 “But he took her by the hand and called to her, “Child, arise!” Her breath returned and she immediately arose. He then directed that she should be given something to eat”
Hardened sinners are touched by grace, while the minds of men are elevated so that they perceive beyond them perspectives of light by which they almost seem to enter into the very truth of God. Wills are strengthened, and at once take control of passions till then unleashed. Divine Love comes so near to souls that he seems almost to consume them, and to transform them into his own likeness
📖 Deuteronomy 4:24 “For the LORD, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God”
Such and even more wonderful things which can only be revealed to my dazed sight by the light from beyond - this is what prayer can do. This is what it has done and is continually doing. In face of all this, I can only remain silent. When discussing these things it is easy enough to find words and phrases in which to express the movement of the mind when concerned with the things of God. But when it is a question of making known God's action to the world, above all to the world of souls, mere human language is altogether inadequate to describe the reality. We must either give up the attempt or return to the unfailing simplicity of what the Holy Spirit tells us in the sacred Scriptures.”
Audio link: https://irpcdn.multiscreensite.com/e4978818/files/uploaded/Copy%20of%20Vol%2012%20-%20No%205.MP3