Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire!

 

 

 

 

"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 fil...

 

"The wood of the Cross became the vehicle for our redemption, just as the tree from which it was fashioned had occasioned the fall of our first parents. Suffering and death, which had been a consequence of sin, were to become the very means by which sin was vanquished. The Innocent Lamb was slain on the altar of the Cross, and yet from the immolation of the victim new life burst forth:  the power of evil was destroyed by the power of self-sacrificing love. The Cross, then, is something far greater and more mysterious than it first appears.  It is indeed an instrument of torture, suffering and defeat, but at the same time it expresses the complete transformation, the definitive reversal of these evils, that is what makes it the most eloquent symbol of hope that the world has ever seen.  It speaks to all who suffer – the oppressed, the sick, the poor, the outcast, the victims of violence – and offers them hope that God can transform their suffering int...

 

What is a little suffering in this life, if you are spared everlasting torments?   Think of the rich glutton, now burning in hell.   What would he not do to expiate his sins, could he return to this world?   There is no reason why you should not now do as much, if you feel that you have ever offended God.  Ven. Louis Granada, O.P 

  There is nothing – however simple –- that our lukewarmness won’t present to us as difficult and costly.   Conversely, there is nothing – however difficult and costly – that our fervor and determination won’t present to us as pleasant and agreeable.  St. John Chrysostom

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons )     Mary is never invoked in vain…Mary is the Queen of Martyrs because next to Jesus she suffered more than anyone else ever suffered. (Mary did not suffer physically. Hers were sufferings of the soul. Her heart was pierced with the sword of sorrow).   But why did she have to suffer at all? It is because God sends sufferings to those whom He loves, and the more He loves them, the greater the sufferings He sends them…I will remember all of this then when the Lord gives me some little splinter of the cross to carry.   I will not so easily complain and be unhappy.  Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S.   [Just one of 1200 soul stirring and faith building quotations you will find in Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire! ]

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons )     What is a little suffering in this life, if you are spared everlasting torments?   Think of the rich glutton, now burning in hell.   What would he not do to expiate his sins, could he return to this world?   There is no reason why you should not now do as much, if you feel that you have ever offended God.  Ven. Louis Granada, O.P.

Would that mortal men might know how wonderful is divine grace, how beautiful, how precious; what riches are hidden therein, what treasures, what joys, what delights. If they but knew, surely they would direct their energy with all care and diligence to procuring sufferings and afflictions for themselves. Instead of good fortune all men everywhere would seek out troubles, illness and suffering that they might obtain the inestimable treasure of grace. This is the final profit to be gained from patient endurance. No one would complain about the cross or about hardships coming seemingly by chance upon him, if he realized in what balance they are weighed before being distributed to men. St. Rose of Lima (Photo by Yana on Unsplash )