O, Lord of life’s harvest,
Penetrate the depths of my misery
With Thy loveliness,
So that the new life,
Rising from this soil,
Be the embodiment
Of wisdom and grace.
May my flower and fruit be
The fresh form of holiness,
Born of virginal “Fiat”,
And humility’s abandonment
In sacrificial love.
Come forth Lazarus,
Not now from earthly grave,
But born to heavenly morrow,
After this night of sorrow.
Copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
It’s time once again for Sunday Snippets. We are Catholic bloggers sharing weekly our best posts with one another. Join us to read and/or contribute. To participate, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Make sure that the post links back to here, and leave a link to your snippets post on our host, RAnn’s, site, This, That and the Other Thing.My Posts:
I wouldn’t have believed that liberal talk show host Bill Maher could actually have a segment that is worth circulating, but here it is the video as evidence. I do not know who the two liberal panelists are, but it really doesn’t matter: you could take the heads off any liberals and switch them around and it wouldn’t matter because they are all parrots for the Obama agenda.Kudos to Bill Maher for actually doing a neutral piece, and for exposing the hypocrisy of his own kind.
It is not enough for me that God has given me grace once, but He must give it always. I ask, that I may receive; and when I have received, I ask again. I am covetous of receiving God’s bounty. He is never slow in giving, nor am I ever weary of receiving. The more I drink, the more thirsty I become.
– St. JeromeIt is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot.
– St. JeromeThe law detects, grace alone conquers sin.
– Saint Augustine
Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly.
– St. Ignatius LoyolaThat the Saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in Hell.
– St. Thomas AquinasGRATITUDE
In all created things discern the providence and wisdom of God, and in all things give Him thanks.
– St. Teresa of Avila
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God.
– St. PaulLet us thank God for His priceless gift!
– St. Paul
It’s time once again for Sunday Snippets. We are Catholic bloggers sharing weekly our best posts with one another. Join us to read and/or contribute. To participate, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Make sure that the post links back to here, and leave a link to your snippets post on our host, RAnn’s, site, This, That and the Other Thing.My Posts:
From the treatise on Flight from the World by Saint Ambrose, bishop
Hold fast to God, the one true good
Where a man’s heart is, there is his treasure also. God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one. Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy. Let us reach out with our hearts to possess that good, let us exist in it and live in it, let us hold fast to it, that good which is beyond all we can know or see and is marked by perpetual peace and tranquillity, a peace which is beyond all we can know or understand.
This is the good that permeates creation. In it we all live, on it we all depend. It has nothing above it; it is divine. No one is good but God alone. What is good is therefore divine, what is divine is therefore good. Scripture says: When you open your hand all things will be filled with goodness. It is through God’s goodness that all that is truly good is given us, and in it there is no admixture of evil.
These good things are promised by Scripture to those who are faithful: The good things of the land will be your food.
We have died with Christ. We carry about in our bodies the sign of his death, so that the living Christ may also be revealed in us. The life we live is not now our ordinary life but the life of Christ: a life of sinlessness, of chastity, of simplicity and every other virtue. We have risen with Christ. Let us live in Christ, let us ascend in Christ, so that the serpent may not have the power here below to wound us in the heel.
Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show. You must take refuge in him. He is your refuge and your strength. David addresses him in these words: I fled to you for refuge, and I was not disappointed.
Since God is our refuge, God who is in heaven and above the heavens, we must take refuge from this world in that place where there is peace, where there is rest from toil, where we can celebrate the great sabbath, as Moses said: The sabbaths of the land will provide you with food. To rest in the Lord and to see his joy is like a banquet, and full of gladness and tranquillity.
Let us take refuge like deer beside the fountain of waters. Let our soul thirst, as David thirsted, for the fountain. What is that fountain? Listen to David: With you is the fountain of life. Let my soul say to this fountain: When shall I come and see you face to face? For the fountain is God himself.
Be Holy! 