🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. John of the Cross
🌽The Veggies = My 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = “Catherine of Genoa”, By Fr. Benedict Groeschel, O.F.M. Cap. (Part 1 of 10)
🍗The Meat = Book: ”The Prayer of the Presence of God, Different Forms of True Prayer”, by Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart
🍰The Dessert = YouTube Video: “To Be At Peace With God”, by Fr. Jacques Philippe (Part 4of 8)
🧻 “Love ought to show itself in deeds more than words.” By St. Ignatius of Loyola
💢 “There is much to fathom in Christ, for he is like an abundant mine with many recesses of treasures, so that however deep individuals go, they never reach the bottom, but rather in every recess find new veins with new richness everywhere.” By St. John of the Cross
“By talking and irreverence in churches, we show disrespect to Almighty God in His own house”
Something from St. John Chrysostom was sent to me by Kate, so very welcomed was that:
"When you are before the altar where Christ reposes, you ought no longer to think that you are amongst men; but believe that there are troops of angels and archangels standing by you, and trembling with respect before the sovereign Master of Heaven and earth. Therefore, when you are in church, be there in silence, fear, and veneration."
How much selfish comfort reigns in hearts, to know better is to do better, but when hearts are chained and imprisoned, the freedom to choose rightly vanishes. Ok, let me return to the subject at hand, the St. Benedict Joseph Labre text mess:
“To love God you need three hearts in one—a heart of fire for Him, a heart of flesh for your neighbor, and a heart of bronze for yourself”
My pondering on the three hearts in one led to this:
❣️ Having a heart of fire for God means to me that our love is strong enough to burn for Him resulting in a complete surrender. What develops from this is a purification, producing a heart that is clean and we possess the right spirit within us.
📖 Psalms 51:12 “A clean heart create for me, God; renew within me a steadfast spirit”
God’s fire removes all the imperfections so that we shine and become perfect as He is perfect, becoming most valuable treasures indeed.
📖1 Peter 1:16 “for it is written, “Be holy because I [am] holy.”
❣️ A heart of flesh for neighbor points to the transformation of a stony heart, it becomes a “has been” for us. We’ll see in a new way, as a fresh new perspective will dominate and overrule the disordered. We can now pity the other, have mercy and forgive, rather than angrily condemn.
📖 Ezekiel 11:19 “And I will give them another heart and a new spirit I will put within them. From their bodies I will remove the hearts of stone, and give them hearts of flesh”
❣️ Centering on a heart of bronze for oneself means that we are in the race, not sidelined but also valuable. Humility is acknowledging the truth, not cheapening what God is mightily and powerfully doing in our lives. We in humility, not because of worthlessness, put the “other” first. We imitate Jesus
📖 Philippians 2:5-8 “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself”
Thoughts of the military came to mind, and also the Olympics. In contrast, the bronze medal in the Olympics goes to the third place winner. So as it stands for in “JOY”, it’s Jesus, others, and yourself, we come in third place. Now let’s consider the military, how they award the Bronze medal for heroic achievement and service. But learned from reading that Bronze Stars are only somewhat common, but those with V devices are more rare. Only one in forty Bronze Stars are awarded with a V-device, it’s for those who did well under fire at extreme personal risk. So we see both sides of the coin for a bronze heart. To put God and neighbor before oneself, it will result in experiencing the victory
Blessed be, another miracle, as a few joined me in pondering. The overflow really is enriching. First to respond was Christy, thanks my dear.
🌑 Christy: “Think of God first, neighbor second and self Third.???”
This was something delicious from her, short and sweet. Yes, yes, yes, most valuable and good is Gold, for God is the gold. Silver being the runner up, it’s the place for thy neighbor where he is well positioned to receive our love, the same love with which we love ourselves.
📖 Mark 12:31 “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Bronze is third and valuable, we come marching in remembering that the last shall be first, when and where it counts most, that is in the heavenlies.
Let’s fill the doc’s prescription and take her advice. Your medicine is sweet and efficacious, much thanks.
🌑 Dr. Deregal: I think that the heart of bronze relates to 1 Chr 18:10,
📖 1 Chronicles 18:10 “he sent his son Hadoram to wish King David well and to congratulate him on having waged a victorious war against Hadadezer; for Hadadezer had been at war with Tou. He also brought gold, silver and bronze articles of every sort”
1 Chr 22:16,
📖1 Chronicles 22:16 without number, skilled with gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Set to work, therefore, and the LORD be with you!”
Dan 5:4,
📖 Daniel 5:4 “wine from them, they praised their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone”
Dan 5:23,
📖 Daniel 5:23 “you have rebelled against the Lord of heaven. You had the vessels of his temple brought before you, so that you and your nobles, your consorts and your concubines, might drink wine from them; and you praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, that neither see nor hear nor have intelligence. But the God in whose hand is your very breath and the whole course of your life, you did not glorify”
Ex 35:5
📖 Exodus 35:5 “Receive from among you contributions for the LORD. Everyone, as his heart prompts him, shall bring, as a contribution to the LORD, gold, silver, and bronze;”
and Ex 35:32
📖 Exodus 35:32 in the production of embroidery, in making things of gold, silver, or bronze,
In that Gold is noted first, silver second and bronze third. So we should put our service to God first, others second and ourselves afterward. Also, in Isaiah 60:17
📖 Isaiah 60:17 “Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of iron I will bring silver;Instead of wood, bronze;instead of stones, iron.I will appoint peace your governor, and justice your ruler”
and Rev 9:20
📖 Revelation 9:20 “The rest of the human race, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, to give up the worship of demons and idols made from gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk”
these scriptures speak of the hierarchy of metals. One feature of bronze is that it gets a patena from exposure and maybe the heart of bronze is covered by the blood of Jesus and gets a "coating". And the oxidation is like having the possibility of being affected by exposure to the world's elements and losing some luster, but even so the heart of bronze keeps its shape.
Another thought is that the heart of fire refers to being ablaze in love for God and the dross is burned away. The heart of flesh for others relates to compassion for others and not being hardened toward them. And the heart of bronze toward ourselves relates to being malleable- having a heart that can be molded, shaped by God.
Praise God, a trio of responses, and we have a guy in the mix, thank you Richard. Here is what he has to say
🌑From Richard: “Sharing this info came from the internet. It was stated that in the Bible, bronze was a symbol of strength and support. It was the strongest metal for a long time in the ancient world. Maybe the quote means to be strong in the practice of your faith, and on fire for God and compassionate towards your neighbor”
In conclusion, for sure we have three great ponderings which shows the Body of Christ rocks!!!
(Part 1 of 10)
“The study of the life and works of the fifteenth century mystic St. Catherine of Genoa leads directly to many of the more significant issues of our day. Caterinetta Fieschi Adorna (1447-1510) in her sixty three years embodied not one but many aspects of Christian life that to people of our times have seemed either conflicting or mutually exclusive. She was a married lay woman, a mystic, a humanitarian, daily immersed in the physical care of the sick and destitute, as well as a tireless contemplative. Motivated and, at times, entirely directed by inner spiritual experience, she was a loyal and dedicated member of the visible Church, subject to its authority even in the most scandalous moment of its history. Her influence is as varied as her life. As will be seen, she sparked the movement toward reform in its Catholic and Protestant expression. Throughout the last five centuries she has been an inspiration to the most diverse Christians: to the gentle St. Francis de Sales and the hard-driving Saint Robert Bellarmine; to Fenelon and his adversary Bossuet; to Cardinal Newman, who took inspiration from her for the dreams of Gerontius; and to his severe critic, Cardinal Manning, who wrote the preface to the translation of her Treatise on Purgatory.
A Roman Catholic saint, she is the inspiration to a host of American Protestant leaders in the nineteenth century, as well as to such important American converts as Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulists, and Mrs. George Ripley, wife of the transcendendalist founder of Brook Farm and translator of her life. She attracted the attention of von Hugel, a Catholic to the last, and of George Tyrell, who left the Church. The present preoccupation with charismatic gifts and direct experience of the numinous aspects of psychic life, with life after death, the ultimate destiny of man, are all related to the message of Catherine. At the same time such issues as the care of the poor, the reform and renewal of the Church and of social institutions, the Christian use of capital and privilege, the rights and position of women, all these and more receive impetus and inspiration from the life and doctrine of a rich noblewoman who to the end of her days made herself an effective servant of the poor.
Her Life from Birth to Her Move into the Hospital, Catherine was born in autumn 1447 into the powerful Guelph family of the Fieschi and was baptized in the Genovese Cathedral of San Lorenzo, her parish church. She was the youngest of five children of the former Viceroy of Naples, Giacomo Fieschi, and Francesca di Negro, who belonged to another aristocratic Genovese family. It was predictable that she would be either a contemplative nun like her older sister or one of the married gentle women who governed the social life of this rich and prosperous port. It is a characteristic of this complex and varied personality that she became neither but combined in her life the most mutually exclusive aspects of those two predictable vocations. She became a married contemplative whose life outstripped in austerity any rigors of the convent.
Although of noble family and the descendant of Roberto Fieschi, brother of Pope Innocent IV, she was refused her request to enter the Augustinian convent Santa Maria Delle Grazie when she was thirteen because of her age. That great disappointment was compounded by the death of her father in 1461 and the decision of her oldest brother, Giacomo, to marry her to the aristocrat Giuliano Adorno (a member of a family at bitter enmity with her own), for strictly financial and political motives. Why did Catherine submit to this arrangement, since at the age of thirteen she already had "a gift of prayer" and deported herself with "prudence and zeal"? We do not know. Whatever her motives, she and Guiliano were married in San Lorenzo on January 14, 1463, by her uncle, Bishop Napoleone Fieschi. There followed for Catherine ten years of loneliness, neglect, and neurotic melancholy. Although described as a singularly beautiful woman, she withdrew from the social life of her class for the first five years of her marriage. This reaction may have been in part caused by her husband's behavior; not only was he wasting his fortune, but he was dissolute and unfaithful to the point of having a mistress and child.
After five years of withdrawal, Catherine responded to the urging of her family to become somewhat involved in the social life of Genoa. At the end of this period of moderate involvement, from Christmas 1472 onwards, she was again plunged into total depression. On March 22, 1473, on the occasion of her Lenten confession, which was reduced to a mere request for a blessing because of her psychological state, she experienced such a sudden and overwhelming love of God and so penetrating an experience of contrition for her sins that she almost collapsed. In her heart she said, "No more world for me! No more sin." She remained at home in seclusion for several days, absorbed in a profound awareness of her own wretchedness and of God's mercy. During this time she experienced a vision of Christ carrying the cross, which moved her to even greater contrition and a passing urge to make a public confession of her sins.
This remarkable experience, recorded by Ettore Vernazza in the Life, is one of the classic descriptions of an adult conversion in the psychology of religious experience. Von Hiigel sums up the conclusion of many students of mysticism when he writes, "If the tests of reality in such things are their persistence and large and rich spiritual applicability and fruitfulness, then something profoundly real and important took place in the soul of that sad and weary woman.” His no less distinguished student, Evelyn Underhill, points out that "it is certain that for St. Catherine, as for St. Francis, an utterly new life did, literally, begin at this point. The center of interest was shifted and the field of consciousness was remade.” Catherine's life indeed underwent several radical changes at this time. She entered into an extended period of personal penance and mortification, and of profound prayerful recollections that lasted for about fourteen months. This period should not be confused with an episode of pathological withdrawal, because at this very time she needed to busy herself with walking through the slums of Genoa tending to the poor. During these years, she also had to deal with her husband's bankruptcy, its economic consequences, and her husband's conversion.
For the citizens of Genoa, bankruptcy was the ultimate disgrace; but rather than seeing in it a cause for embarrassed withdrawal, Catherine transformed it into a means of complete involvement in the life of her city. Giuliano had by now squandered so much of his fortune that he had to rent the palace in which they lived and sell other properties. Although we have no details, he became at this time a humble and sincere convert. He would spend the rest of his days working along with his wife among the sick poor. A Franciscan Tertiary, he agreed to live in a continent marriage. They moved into a humble house near the great Pammatone Hospital with its vast wards of sick poor, the focus of their energies for the rest of their lives. Von Hugel sensibly suggests that at this time Catherine became aware of the existence of Giuliano's former mistress and their child, Thobia. There is in her will incontrovertible evidence of Catherine's constant solicitude for the welfare of this child and her mother who, it appears, eventually entered some kind of religious community or third order. Catherine's acceptance of this child and her forgiveness of her husband goes as much against the attitudes of her culture as does her response to Giuliano's bankruptcy.
After 1474, the Life indicates that there was a gradual change in Catherine's life. She became more open, freer and less driven in her personality and in her work. There is a notable decline in the guilt motive of her penitential practices and a suggestion that she does these acts from some inner compulsion she thinks is the Will of God. She no longer had adamant certitude with respect to God's Will. Now she conceded that an inspiration or an infirmity might or might not be directly a divine
inspiration. Years later, in her final illness, she accepted the possibility that her physical sufferings were not supernatural, that she should follow her physician's advice. At times she clung to natural causes as an explanation even when most of the physicians themselves stated that her symptoms were of "supernatural" origin.”
(Next week tune in to part 2 of 10)
“There is only one essential prayer-it is the movement drawing the soul upwards towards God, and the relationship which follows. As soon as the soul turns from the dark valley to the heights where there is light and gladness, it prays. It meets him who has never been absent and who is always turned toward the soul, his hands full of blessings, his heart overflowing with eternal love, and the relationship which is love and life begins. This relationship can assume very different forms, which vary according to persons, times, needs, with the varying circumstances of everyday life.
There are times when we find comfort in the thought of God's greatness in general, or in some particular perfection of his. For instance, we invoke his love, his mercy, his goodness, his holiness and his truth. These perfections serve to raise us to the contemplation of those vast horizons where the God who is becomes ever greater in our eyes. We do well. God has only himself. He cannot resist such praise. We were made for that: to praise him eternally. Hearing on our lips this exiles' song of the Fatherland, he knows that we want him more than any created thing, and that we belong to him completely. The Scriptures are full of this prayer. "O my God, hear me" cries David, "for thou are all goodness and mercy." Ps. 68.17: Hear me, O Lord, for thy mercy is kind)
📖Psalms 69:17 Answer me, LORD, in your generous love;in your great mercy turn to me.
And Daniel: "O Lord, hear (and) he appeased: hearken and do. Delay not for thy own sake."
📖 Daniel 9:19 “Lord, hear! Lord, pardon! Lord, be attentive and act without delay, for your own sake, my God, because your name is invoked upon your city and your people!”
Often we turn to someone dear to the divine Majesty. Obviously our Lord's sacred humanity occupies the very first place, far above everyone and everything. In this respect the Litanies of the saints are wonderful. We first invoke God himself, then Jesus, his Mother, the great saints of our immense and loving family in Heaven. Then we recall the difficulties of the way and the dangers which threaten us and finally, gathering it all up in an immense and powerful finale, we recall the main details of all that our Redeemer has done for us in giving himself to us. We end on a note of supplication, on our own behalf and for others, for the souls in Purgatory as well as for those who are still on earth: We beseech thee, O Lord... The diversity of our requests also imparts to our prayer an infinite variety of shades. We can ask for the absolute Good which is God himself, and for the eventual possession of this supreme good. We can ask for the means that lead us to him. Among these means, some are directly and essentially directed to that end, others less so. Our prayer varies according to these objects.
There is the prayer which consists solely of praise and adoration; another restricts itself to thanksgiving. But all are essential prayer, for they raise us up to God. And although in some cases we may not make our request explicitly, it is none the less hidden under the words, and even in the intention. Those who praise the divine greatness, those who thank him for favors received, know (although they may not advert to it explicitly) that at his feet we are always souls in need, and that his goodness cannot fail to be moved at the sight of our indigence. Often we collect together in one formula all the different kinds of prayer. In a word or two, we adore or thank, we ask for pardon and help, and approach the Father in the steps of the Son, in the arms of Mary, in union with all the company of heaven. I cannot think of anything that could be dearer to the God of Love or make a greater appeal to his love.
In the Gospels there are many forms of prayer ideal for all circumstances. The most beautiful, needless to say, is our Lady's "They have no wine"
📖 John 2:3 “When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
The request itself is lost in the perfect act of trust. Mary is so sure of being heard. She feels that it would wound her son's tenderness by asking directly for the wine. Jesus' love for her, his unfailing thoughtfulness for others, leave no doubt in her mind as to the answer. She speaks, and then waits, as all mothers do. And she invites us to do the same: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye."
📖 John 2:5 His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.”
And so do those two beloved of Jesus whom the Gospel calls Martha and Mary, at the bedside of Lazarus their brother. They know that Jesus loves them, and so they ask for nothing. They simply say: "Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick."
📖 John 11:3 “So the sisters sent word to him, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”
There is no actual request, no word of their grief. They say, in effect: `You love ... and someone is suffering'. In that home, so united, the brother's sickness is their sickness, and they have not the slightest doubt that their common grief will find an echo in the heart of their Friend.”