"Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone,, all the time…this is what it means to be contemplative.” – St.Teresa of Calcutta

Wasting Pain



(Image source: EWTN)

The greatest tragedy in the world, Cardinal Cushing once said, was not pain, but wasting pain.  We all suffer, everyone of us, the youngest to oldest.  We suffer loneliness, cancer, the loss of a wife, a husband, a child; we suffer misunderstandings, family conflicts, ruptured friendships, cosmetic disfigurement, mental, emotional, physical incapacities.  We suffer a sense of utter powerlessness, an empty feeling of futility.  The world is awash in pain.  How tragic if that pain is wasted; that pain can be united with the suffering of Christ on the cross to achieve enormous good. 



The Cardinal knew that Christ did not make possible the salvation of the world through his teaching, his preaching, his miracles, but by his suffering and death on the cross.  When He appeared to be utterly powerless, He was radiating the greatest power unleashed in the world.  When He was crying out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”  He was filling billions of hearts yet to come with comfort, with peace.  I unite a headache, a backache, a heartache with Christ on the cross, and wondrous graces flow into the heart of a widow who has lost her only son in Nigeria, a lonely teenager contemplating suicide in San Francisco, a woman ravaged with cancer in New York.  My pain, trifling or overwhelming, has not gone wasted. 
(John Cardinal O'Connor, Servant of God)


[There are 1199 other inspiring and challenging quotations to ponder in Forgotten Truths to Set Faith Afire! - Words to Challenge, Inspire and Instruct]

A Forgotten But Consoling Truth




"It is one of the most firmly established and most consoling of the truths that have been revealed to us that [apart from sin] nothing happens to us in life, unless God wills it so."

(St. Claude de la Colombiere, S.J. – Trustful Surrender To Divine Providence)




[Want to be inspired and challenged in your Faith? Get a copy of Forgotten Truths to Set Faith Afire! Words to Challenge, Inspire and Instruct]

A Common Denominator





"The moral rot of the priesthood starts with a want of lively faith in the Divine Presence, and the sanctity of the priesthood starts there too."

(Ven. Fulton J. Sheen -  The Priest Is Not His Own)

When Tolerance Is Cowardice



[One of the 1200 timely and challenging reflections you will find in Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire! - Words to Challenge, Inspire and Instruct

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons) 
"As Catholics we have a duty to treat all people, regardless of their beliefs, with justice, charity, mercy, prudence, patience and understanding.  We’re not asked to “tolerate” them but to love them, which is a much more demanding task.  Obviously, tolerance is an important democratic working principle.  Most of the time, it’s a good and vital thing.  But tolerating lies about the nature of the human person is a sin.  Tolerating grave evil in a society is an equally grave evil.  And using “tolerance” as an excuse for not living and witnessing Jesus Christ in our private lives and in our public actions is not an act of civility.  It’s a form of cowardice."

(Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. – Religious Tolerance and the Common Good)



He Was Not Off The Mark, Was He?