🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Thomas More, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus
🌽The Veggies = My 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = “Catherine of Genoa”, By Fr. Benedict Groeschel, O.F.M. Cap. (Part 5 of 10)
🍗The Meat = Book: ”The Prayer of the Presence of God, Prayer Asks”, by Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart
🍰The Dessert = YouTube Video: “Blessed Miguel Pro”, by Deacon Al Bielawski
🥬 “Put your heart at His feet. It is the gift He loves most."By St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
🥥 ”No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of anyone of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me”. By St. Gregory of Nazianzus
🤗.Day 1️⃣6️⃣ Joy, it does come when we concentrate on Jesus, others, then on you. Joy is automatic when you give, there is no looking for it, or expecting it, it just comes bursting through the doors into one’s heart. It’s quite the opposite with selfishness, you try to get more and more and are less and less satisfied with what you have. A vicious cycle, dissatisfaction leads to more grabbing, yes more, more, more. Thank you Jesus, that you are the joy that truly satisfies, so authentic and unable to be manufactured.
🤗. Day 1️⃣7️⃣ Joy cometh, but at first it might not be evident. It is our alignment with God that is the magnet of attraction. It is not circumstantial, for there can be joy in redemptive suffering. In regards to happiness, it waxes and wanes depending on what is currently happening.
🤗 day 1️⃣8️⃣ Joy is unstoppable when it is diffused into one’s soul. The spread is wide and permeates one’s being, not so when we are speaking of happiness. Joy alone can only come from on high, what is earthy can produce happiness and it’s counterpart can be flip up in a second. A fruit grown only in the heavens by the Divine Gardener, joy is most tasty and a choice fruit that is surely a great gift.
🤗 day 1️⃣9️⃣ Joy, it can be cover over like a blanket, warming the spirits. It insulates in a very powerful way and does not easily dissipate like happiness. It’s like the perfume that continues with it’s strong scent, without the need for a touch up. If we take the mystery of what Jesus came to achieve at Bethlehem very seriously, then we shall be full of joy.
🤗 Day 2️⃣0️⃣ Joy is a Divine Flame that ignites within the the torches of wellbeing and ushers in soulful delights. Only from God, it’s true source, is joy possible or is sustained. Since it starts with God, it is completed in Him. Yes, through, with and in Him, there is the fullness of joy.
🤗 Day 2️⃣1️⃣ Joy, it is such a surprise when it springs forth and sinks down so deep within. In no way is it superficial, nor can it just rest on the surface to be easily disturbed. Happiness is often expected after orchestration or careful planning, but joy, oh it just comes. Da Lord God sendeth joy and it comes, upon arrival, here we only taste. To drink fully from the cup, it will be in eternity, where we’ll experience the full revelation of God
📖1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be hasn’t yet been revealed. We do know that when it’s revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as He is”
Adonai, who do you say dat He is?
10)
“Her Teaching- All our knowledge of the life and teaching of Saint Catherine of Genoa comes from three sources, the Vita, the Trattato (referred to here as Purgation and Purgatory), and the Dialogo, or the Dialogue Spoken by the Soul, the Body, Self-Love, the Spirit, Natural Man and the Lord God (referred to as The Spiritual Dialogue). Since not one line of any of these works is known to have been written by Catherine-rather they represent quotations of her spoken words or interpretations-it is perhaps better to call them her teachings rather than her doctrine, which word in English suggests a more ordered and purposeful attempt at a construction of a body of knowledge. Catherine’s teaching was simply her own experience of God and of the spiritual life shared sometimes by impulsive exclamation, sometimes as a sharing with close spiritual friends, and in the later years, when she had a recognizable body of disciples, as an attempt to lead others on the way.
All biographies and editions of her work are based on the Vitae Dottrina published in Genoa by Jacobo Geneti in 1551 and approved for publication by the Dominican Friar Geronimo of Genoa. This collection was solemnly approved by Pope Innocent XI in 1683. The Life is very probably the work of Don Cattaneo Marabotto, her spiritual director, and Ettore Vernazza, her closest disciple. It is mostly composed of sayings, experiences, and teachings of the saint in the form of spiritual counsel. Von Hiigel has studied the various redactions, corrections, and editions of this work in a way similar to the exegetical study of Sacred Scripture. However, some of his conclusions must be revised in light of subsequent scholarship, in particular that of Padre Umile Bonzi da Genova. This problem is dealt with at length in the section Notes on the Translation.
Purgation and Purgatory- This work is a collection of sayings and teachings on the general theme of spiritual purgation, both in this life and the next. When read in conjunction with the Dialogue, it becomes clear that it is not simply a set of statements on the fate of the saved who are not yet perfectly purified. We read on page 86, "These things that I speak about work within me in secret and with great power." The first redactor of these sayings was probably Vernazza and the first seven chapters made up the original collection. This does not imply that the work fails to reflect Catherine's explicit teaching, even though certain theological glosses were introduced before the official publication in 1551, presented by the Dominican Inquisitors of Genoa who approved the Life.
The Spiritual Dialogue- The reader of The Spiritual Dialogue will see that the author's goal is to restate, in more readable and coherent terms than the Vita, the inner history of Catherine. One may find it helpful to read The Dialogue as a miracle play in which the various figures represent different aspects of the same person. In this way, the characters will pass before the mind symbolically, much the same as William Blake's illustrations for the Book of Job, or, in a more modern vein, the characters in Herman Hesse's novels who represent different aspects of the same person. Part 1 represents Catherine's inner life up to the time of her being made director of the Pammatone Hospital. Part 2 rather explicitly lasts until she "loses her confessor." This incident seems most likely to relate to an
unusual occurrence of January 10, 1510, when she resolved to discontinue her reliance on Don Marabotto because he was too indulgent with her. She was already at this time quite physically ill and had begun to experience the intense periods of cold that occurred until her death some eight months later. Part 3 represents an interpretation of the spiritual significance of the last months of Catherine's life, as well as the unknown author's own understanding of the highest forms of mystical union to which the saint had come.
It devolves upon the individual reader to judge for himself how much of this interpretation is based on the writer's understanding of these
symptoms (which physicians ultimately considered "supernatural") and how much is a projection of the writer's own mystical insight. Certainly, the prayers and soliloquy, especially those on p. 144, suggest that the writer is developing in a rhetorical way what he or she believed was a valid interpretation of what Catherine had intuitively perceived long before.
The Characters of the Spiritual Dialogue- It is helpful for the reader of The Dialogue to keep in mind that it was written in various stages and that one must decide what each character stands for by its own words. A useful approach to the interpretation of this text is one that proceeds along psychoanalytic lines. The Body seems to resemble Freud's concept of the infantile Id, the unformed and unrepressed complex of biological drives, needs, and energies. Human Frailty would appear to be this Id but already formed and controlled by discipline and the experiences of life. The complaints of Human Frailty, almost comic in their pathetic insistence on some quarter, suggest that, unlike the Body, Human Frailty is capable of cooperating with the spiritual endeavors of the Soul. The Soul resembles the Self of contemporary psychology, including elements of the Ego and Superego. The Spirit, on the other hand, corresponds roughly to Jung's concept of the numinous or transcendent aspect of man and since it is not tempted or prone to sin, is also seen as in the state of grace. The Spirit here also seems to correspond with the being described as the "Soul" in Purgation and Purgatory.”
“When praying to God, we can only ask for God, since he is everything, and in giving himself he gives us all. In asking for himself, we ask for all. When we possess him, we can wish and ask for nothing more. Once we grasp this truth, there is no point in writing or saying anything; we are content simply to pray, and even then we would ask for nothing. The whole of the first part of the Our Father keeps us on these silent heights. That is all we see there, for God is both the source and the object of our asking. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.... What more can we ask?
📖 Matthew 6:9-10 “This is how you are to pray:cOur Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, *your will be done,”
We could even do without the words, content with the interior movement of the soul which says all in silence. Or we can think of the words and develop them. This is what so many profitable prayers do in fact, both in public and in private, according to the temperaments of different people. In so far as they remain on this essential level of God's glory, the coming of his kingdom and the fulfillment of his will, they are good. The actual words or thoughts with which we clothe them matters little. When one loves, one is conscious only of love. Now God is our Father: that is to say, he is all love. Holy Scripture is never tired of telling us that he knows perfectly well what is good for us. We cannot do better, therefore, than leave all to him.
We may nevertheless make known our needs and express our wishes to him, on this indispensable condition of our submission to his loving will. This is what our Lord would have us learn from the second part of the Pater Noster. This is what the innumerable and beautiful prayers of the Church, the collects of the Mass and the prayers of the Divine Office, teach us. For they all come from the Holy Spirit who has inspired them.
The first question to be considered is what order we should follow in our prayers. This has been decided in principle long ago. The order to follow is God's order. We must ask for all that may contribute (and in the measure in which it will contribute) to his glory, and the advancement of his kingdom. That is why the first and essential object and the one we must never lose sight of, is our eternal salvation and our union with God. This is the end of all prayer and of every movement of the soul-to praise God, to be united with him, to be transformed into his likeness for ever; to become for ever his image and his child.
This end necessitates certain means which lead to it. We cannot ask for our salvation without asking for virtues and grace. Grace is divine life in the soul, the virtues are the means through which grace is effective. Grace is given to us in the form of a seed, and we are, as it were, newly- born children. In us, as in a child just born, is the seed of all subsequent development of life, and this seed is given to us in baptism. As yet the developments have not taken place, but they are there just as the stem, the branches, the leaves and the blossoms are in the seed cast into the ground. We cannot, therefore, reasonably ask for union with God without asking also for these developments, which will go to the making of the desired union. To do otherwise would be to prevent ourselves growing in him or to want grace to remain an undeveloped seed in the depths of our soul.
📖 Eph. 4.15: "But, doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in him who is the bead, even Christ"
So far all is clear, and the object of our prayer is obvious. But there are certain things which may or may not serve to bring us closer to God: we do not know. It is the same with what we call natural evil. I have gold in my keeping. I can use it for the glory of God and the good of my soul, or the precise opposite. An illness can help to sanctify me, provided I bear it with patience and for the love of our heavenly Father, since he permits it. Or I can accept it, but in a spirit of rebellion and hating God for sending it.
In view of all this, what attitude must I adopt when I pray? I must wait quietly in a spirit of confiding trust, without wasting any time in reasoning on vain suppositions, but rest in the great reality. That great reality is this: God is good, and he is love. He wants only my happiness, and I entrust to him the care of obtaining it for me.
It is the same even with supernatural values. A very young child-what does it do? It nestles against his father's heart, happy in his love. It just stays there, content to wait. This quiet expectancy is not a passive indifference; it is an unwavering trust, which is the form desire takes. Only the desire must be there always, and it must be the real source of the repose; otherwise this repose would be mere idleness. As a rule, the Holy Spirit who inspires our prayers, tells us to make them more explicit. There are advantages in this. The thought of the supernatural happiness awaiting us, of how enviable it is, stimulates the desire, which must always be ardent yet always remaining calm. All the saints possessed ardent desires. Ardor, however, is not the same as violence. What we should keep before our minds is the wonderful power of grace and virtue; of what grace is accomplishing in our souls; of the eternal salvation which is our goal, of the glory it will give to God and the boundless happiness in store for us. To contemplate long these truths is one of the highest forms of prayer that we can have in this life, and it will pass one day easily into the vision of God in the life to come”
Video link:
https://youtu.be/bdyR--9Wu-w