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Inordinate desire “to know” brings spiritual bondage

By Mary Bonneville on July 13, 2011

Cease from an inor­di­nate desire of know­ing, for therein is found much dis­trac­tion and deceit. The learned are well pleased to seem so to oth­ers, and to be accounted wise. There be many things which to know doth lit­tle or noth­ing profit the soul: and he is unwise, who is intent upon any­things save those which avail for his sal­va­tion. Many words do not sat­isfy the soul; but a good life com­forteth the mind, and a pure con­science giveth great con­fi­dence towards God.

~ Thomas á Kempis

St. Therese of Lisieux was formed into the beau­ti­ful saint she is in part by the writ­ings of Thomas á Kem­pis’ Imi­ta­tion of Christ.  The joy and sim­plic­ity in her life was appar­ent to all by heed­ing his advice. She was free from the inor­di­nate desire to know, and free to love. After all, what is there to know, except that we belong to Christ and He is pleased when we lay down our pride, and offer the sac­ri­fice of our wills daily to him for the sake of love.

 

 

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Little sister of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

By Mary Bonneville on July 12, 2011

“Some­times, when I read spir­i­tual trea­tises in which per­fec­tion is shown with a thou­sand obsta­cles, sur­rounded by a crowd of illu­sions, my poor lit­tle mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is break­ing my head and dry­ing up my heart, and I take up Holy Scrip­ture. Then all seems lumi­nous to me; a sin­gle word uncov­ers for my soul infi­nite hori­zons; per­fec­tion seems sim­ple; I see that it is enough to rec­og­nize one’s noth­ing­ness and to aban­don one­self, like a child, into God’s arms. Leav­ing to great souls, to great minds, the beau­ti­ful books I can­not under­stand, I rejoice to be lit­tle because ‘only chil­dren, and those who are like them, will be admit­ted to the heav­enly banquet.’ ”

~St. Therese of Lisieux

 

 

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Choose a kingdom, and live fully in it

By Mary Bonneville on June 13, 2011

No earthly plea­sures, no king­doms of this world can ben­e­fit me in any way. I pre­fer death in Christ Jesus to power over the far­thest lim­its of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. Do not talk about Jesus Christ as long as you love this world.

~St Ignatius of Antioch

 

When I am before the Blessed Sacra­ment I feel such a lively faith that I can’t describe it. Christ in the Eucharist is almost tan­gi­ble to me…when it is time for me to leave, I have to tear myself away from His sacred presence.

~St. Anthony of Claret

It seems con­sis­tent with scrip­tures and the teach­ings of the Church, that it’s only when you stop lov­ing the world that you can you fully and truly love God (1 Jn. 2:15). You can then share in the sen­ti­ment of St. Anthony of the inabil­ity to tear your­self away from His Sacred Pres­ence, and also with the angst of St. Ignatius in speak­ing of peo­ple who talk about Jesus while lov­ing the world.

Con­tinue read­ing “Choose a king­dom, and live fully in it”

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Protestants who don’t believe Scripture

By Douglas Bonneville on May 16, 2011

“…We were still con­vinced that once all the bib­li­cal evi­dence was com­piled it would be irre­sistibly per­sua­sive and all our friends and pas­tors would see the truth.

But the evi­dence was met with a yawn. Those who dis­agreed with us didn’t refute the scrip­tural evi­dence – they just ignored it. We were astounded! We even­tu­ally real­ized that most peo­ple didn’t really prac­tice sola scrip­tura after all; they clung to the Protes­tant tra­di­tions begun by Luther and Calvin, some­times in spite of Scrip­ture. After ten years of attempt­ing to show how the Bible did not sup­port Eter­nal Secu­rity, being called heretics, hear­ing through the grapevine about peo­ple who resented and sus­pected us, we became dis­cour­aged and disillusioned.”

Read the whole story about how Pam For­rester con­verted to Catholi­cism from Evan­gel­i­cal Chris­tian­ity. Her and her hus­band, through an intense period of seri­ous Bib­li­cal study con­cluded that the doc­trine of Eter­nal Secu­rity is not taught in Scrip­ture, but is rather a sim­ple tra­di­tion believed, in spite of the lack of Bib­li­cal evi­dence, by unin­formed Chris­tians. This study pref­aced their even­tual con­ver­sion to Catholicism.

Con­tinue read­ing “Protes­tants who don’t believe Scripture”

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A prayer for greater union with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist

By Mary Bonneville on February 12, 2011

Stay with me, Lord

Stay with me, Lord, for it is nec­es­sary to have You present so that I do not for­get You.You know how eas­ily I aban­don You.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength,that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and with­out You, I am with­out fervor.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and with­out You, I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and fol­low You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much, and always be in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faith­ful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of con­so­la­tion for You, a nest of love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is get­ting late and the day is com­ing to a close, and life passes; death, judg­ment, eter­nity approaches. It is nec­es­sary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is get­ting late and death approaches,
I fear the dark­ness, the temp­ta­tions, the dry­ness, the cross, the sor­rows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all it’s dan­gers. I need You. Let me rec­og­nize You as Your dis­ci­ples did at the break­ing of the bread, so that the Eucharis­tic Com­mu­nion be the Light which dis­perses the dark­ness, the force which sus­tains me, the unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by com­mu­nion, at least by grace and love.

Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine con­so­la­tion, because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your Pres­ence, oh yes, I ask this of You!

Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and con­tinue to love You per­fectly dur­ing all eter­nity. Amen

~Prayer of St. Pio of Pietrel­cina after Holy Communion

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Prayer of peace, St. Francis de sales

By Mary Bonneville on February 1, 2011

Do not look for­ward in fear to the changes in life; rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise, God, whose very own you are, will lead you safely through all things; and when you can­not stand it, God will carry you in His arms. Do not fear what may hap­pen tomor­row; the same under­stand­ing Father who cares for you today will take care of you then and every day. He will either shield you from suf­fer­ing or will give you unfail­ing strength to bear it. Be at peace, and put aside all anx­ious thoughts and imag­i­na­tions.

~Prayer by Saint Fran­cis de sales

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What is Purgatory to a Protestant?

By Douglas Bonneville on January 13, 2011

Protes­tants don’t believe in Pur­ga­tory largely because they reject a false rep­re­sen­ta­tion of it from bad sources, and also incor­rectly believe Pur­ga­tory is not in the Bible. That of course is not true, but is also not the point of this post. More on that at the end, but for now let’s look at Purgatory.

Con­tinue read­ing “What is Pur­ga­tory to a Protestant?”

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Don’t clap at Mass

By Douglas Bonneville on January 10, 2011

“Wher­ever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achieve­ment it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally dis­ap­peared and been replaced by a kind of reli­gious entertainment.”

~ Pope Bene­dict XVI

God save us from both reli­gious enter­tain­ment and bad reli­gious enter­tain­ment, the later of which has pro­lif­er­ated like the goofy prod­ucts in dubi­ous infomer­cials or the sale bins of dis­count stores: junk you don’t need at prices too cheap to reflect a prod­uct of any value whatsoever.

There is no bet­ter gar­den for the soul to grow in than the Mass com­pli­mented with true sacred music. Save your applause for the music hall!

See more…

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When is surrender a repugnant option?

By Douglas Bonneville on December 8, 2010

Sur­ren­der is repug­nant for some­one that has deter­mined, through their own fac­ul­ties, that the value of their free­dom is the most valu­able asset they have. When free­dom is most valu­able, one can’t con­ceive of giv­ing it up. In a sense, it would be like ceas­ing to exist. Sur­ren­der implies trans­for­ma­tion of a kind that is com­pletely out of the con­trol of the one sur­ren­der­ing. Fear of sur­ren­der also implies a lack of trust in the one sur­ren­der­ing to. It fur­ther­more sug­gests, at the same time, a cer­tain kind of con­fi­dence about one­self: that one knows what is best among the options.

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Maintain your faith in dark times

By Mary Bonneville on December 6, 2010

“My God, my God, why have you aban­doned me? Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish? My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief…

…Yet you drew me forth from the womb, made me safe at my mother’s breast…”

~Psalm 22:2–3, 10

Jesus cried out and felt totally aban­doned on the cross. God allowed him to suf­fer in his human­ness far more than us with the weight of the world’s sin on his back. We have all had “dark nights” and felt aban­doned by God, often at times when it seems we needed Him the most. The Psalmist recalls how­ever, that just as we had no con­trol or under­stand­ing at our birth, God ten­derly drew us through dark and trou­bled waters to safety and He will do the same dur­ing the dif­fi­cult sea­sons in this life as well as our pas­sage into the next. He will draw us with the same ten­der love as He always has; the same love that He poured out on His son. The chal­lenge is to main­tain our faith and con­tinue to pro­claim God’s deliv­er­ance regard­less of the dark and some­times utterly con­fus­ing tun­nels of this life. This is how Jesus lived; he con­tin­ued to trust in his father who led him out of the womb and into the safety of his mother’s arms again, and again, and again.

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“Writing…is hard because you are giv­ing your­self away, but if you love; you want to give your­self. You write as you are impelled to write, about man and his prob­lems, his rela­tion to God and his fellows…The sus­tained effort of writ­ing, of putting [words down while] there are human beings [with] sick­ness, hunger, sorrow…I feel that I have done noth­ing well, but I did something.”

~Dorothy Day