Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

[Guest]

MEANINGFUL QUOTES

FROM

Thomas Merton

 

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to
avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more significant things begin to
torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
– Thomas Merton

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates
us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all
the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.
– Thomas Merton

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
– Thomas Merton

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is
shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
– Thomas Merton

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.
– Thomas Merton

We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep
it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to
create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them
with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.
– Thomas Merton

It is both dangerous and easy to hate man as he is because he is not what he ought to be. If
we do not first respect what he is we will never suffer him to become what he ought to be:
In our impatience we do away with him altogether.
– Thomas Merton

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to
too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in
everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.
– Thomas Merton

Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.
– Thomas Merton

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: For it is perhaps your
own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his
faith.
– Thomas Merton

What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life
as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it
enables us to give to others.
– Thomas Merton

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all
these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
– Thomas Merton

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my
hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living
fully for the thing I want to live for.
– Thomas Merton

The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It
is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and
above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and
seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in
it.
– Thomas Merton

Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: You were
created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not
yet begun to live.
– Thomas Merton

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am.
That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I
accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.
– Thomas Merton

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my
existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my
true character. Love is my name.
– Thomas Merton

The least of learning is done in the classrooms.
– Thomas Merton

How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another
man’s city?
– Thomas Merton

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.
– Thomas Merton

Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when
we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who
he is, and who we are.
– Thomas Merton

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it
with another.
– Thomas Merton

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to
many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes.
– Thomas Merton

God Himself begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my other and true self.
– Thomas Merton

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What
you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and
to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
– Thomas Merton

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.
– Thomas Merton

One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own
business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to
reform other men.
– Thomas Merton

The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but
first of all by living.
– Thomas Merton

Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those
who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair
than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that
is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.
– Thomas Merton

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
– Thomas Merton

Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to
contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to
meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or
riding in a train.
– Thomas Merton

When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You
take your time, you do your work well.
– Thomas Merton

The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals,
although those things are good and useful in themselves – and perhaps very badly needed in
India: They want to know if we have any saints to send them.
– Thomas Merton

A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and
begins to live.
– Thomas Merton

Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be
apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to
what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not
on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually
struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the
reality of personal relationship that saves everything.
– Thomas Merton

If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.
– Thomas Merton

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them
to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
– Thomas Merton

Before we can become who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the
person who we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger.
– Thomas Merton

There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is
maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us.
– Thomas Merton

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.
– Thomas Merton

The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional
rubbish that clutters our minds.
– Thomas Merton

Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and
extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their
capacity.
– Thomas Merton

Any fool knows that you don’t need money to get enjoyment out of life.
– Thomas Merton

Every moment and every event of everyman’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For
just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of
spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.
– Thomas Merton

Humility is the surest sign of strength.
– Thomas Merton

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of
Christ.
– Thomas Merton

I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of
differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is needed, and violence
will not really change anything: At most it will only transfer power from one set of bull-headed
authorities to another.
– Thomas Merton

Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we
are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new.
– Thomas Merton

Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.
– Thomas Merton

We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are
not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
– Thomas Merton

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.
– Thomas Merton

Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in
your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate
tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.
– Thomas Merton

When ambition ends, happiness begins.
– Thomas Merton

Love seeks one thing only: The good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary
effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.
– Thomas Merton

Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism.
– Thomas Merton

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is
not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and
this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.
– Thomas Merton

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened.
– Thomas Merton

Hurry ruins saints as well as artists.
– Thomas Merton

By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with
me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is
charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.
– Thomas Merton

Life is this simple: We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is
shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.
– Thomas Merton

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater
heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of
conscience.
– Thomas Merton

Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.
– Thomas Merton

I stand before you tonight to represent the people who do not count: The poor, the poets,
and monks. As long as there are people who are trying to realize the divine in themselves,
there shall be hope in the world.
– Thomas Merton

We do not exist for ourselves.
– Thomas Merton

In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for “finding
himself.” If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the
meaning of his own existence.
– Thomas Merton

Love is a special way of being alive.
– Thomas Merton

[Guest]

 

 

A different perspective and attitude

........in some ways.........

 

 

---o0o---

 

Another American saint?........

.......... and an inspirational biographical text..........

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/sr-thea-bowmans-cause-for-canonization-could-open-at-us-bishops-meeting-82957

Excerpt: "Baltimore, Md., Nov 11, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Sr. Thea Bowman was the first African American woman to address the U.S. bishops' conference. Most likely, she was also the first person to get them to hold hands and sing and sway to a Negro Spiritual."

What a sight that would have been.

Sr Thea Bowman's cause for canonization could open at US bishops' meeting 2018

 

[Guest]

 

 

 

 

WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES ABOUT

HOMOSEXUALITY

H E R E

(In some ways it is what the article is stating and also what it is not stating ........yet clearly implying.  A must read in conjunction with the CCC on Sin: HERE - scroll down to THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SIN....and...THE GRAVITY OF SIN: MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN)

[Guest]

 

2 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and
begins to live.
– Thomas Merton

I think differently because I think that we should think about how to live every day of our lives..........i.e. an examination of conscience asks the question "How am I living out my ..........days, weeks etc?  How can I live as I desire to live?"

I think that I know I have found my vocation when I have stopped asking myself if it is my vocation and have a sense of Peace and Joy in The Lord transcending any problems or difficulties.  That does not mean that there is no conflict or difficulty(ies) currently or perhaps in the future.

No matter what is happening in one's life on any level, Peace and Joy in The Lord can be a constant.  Sometimes my bipolar mind (I'll blame bipolar ) is thrashing around on some difficulty or problem on some level or other and with anxiety - but then if and when I avert to The Lord, I am at Peace and Joy in Him transcending the anxiety but not necessarily eliminating it -  that The Lord is in control of my life in all things. I am just making a lot of noise.

2 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.
– Thomas Merton

I stopped at the above quote for a bit - but then realised that knowing how to doubt is one disposition, actually doubting is another.  I think that doubting implies a journey while doubt implies an arrival.  Knowing how to doubt means that I have the inner freedom to doubt if I choose to do so for some reason.

Doubt, doubting and denial and denying are all different.

Edited November 13, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

 

 

 

Apologies, no liturgy posting for today.

[Guest]

Having a bit of a rough time with bipolar over the last few days - due to stress.  I am in contact with my psychiatrist and spoke with her today.  My next appointment is Thursday 22nd November next week, she thinks I will be okay until then.  I feel much more confident since I spoke to her.  Also, I have good old Oxazepam 30mg tablets I cut in two and take 15mg which usually does the job.    My doc said not to be scared to use them.  The effect usually lasts four hours or a bit more during which there could be a loud ruckus in the street and I would remain quite calm and collected...........Oxazepam 15mg calm and collected - I could even help out if I can still calm and collected.  Oxazepam can be a real life saver for me.  I thank God for it.  I am blessed that I am trusted with it and to have it always on hand - as it is in big demand apparently on the streets.

I am still sane, doc says, just going through a struggle with bipolar but on the winning side to date.  Meaning I am in control of bipolar and it is not in control of me.  But I will be taking a break from stimulation and Phatmass is a stimulation that I love.

Depending on where I am at later in the day, I will post the normal type of posts into this thread.

Thank you for a prayer  

PS Father is coming with Holy Communion tomorrow morning.  My heart dances.

Edited November 15, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

 

SATURDAY

 

November is dedicated to The Holy Souls in Purgatory

Saturdays are dedicated to Our Lady and her Immaculate Heart

 

 

Memorial

St Elizabeth of Hungary

Year: B(II).

Psalm week: 4.

Liturgical Colour: White.

 

 

DAILY MASS ONLINE

 

 

Reflection - Saturday 17th Nov 20118

 

 

LOTH for today - left hand column

Daily Postings for the LOTH are from

THE GENERAL CALENDAR

To find your own local Liturgical Calendar, go to: http://universalis.com/1030/n-location.htm (scroll down).  If your area does not have its own Liturgical Calendar, use The General Calendar as posted into this thread daily is used.

 

 

THE ROSARY

Saturdays

Glorious Mysteries

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

The Mark of Holiness

Humility and Obedience

The Will of God

 

 

 

Saint Augustine (354-430)
Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Sermon 115, 1 ; PL 38, 655

From: Daily Gospel.org

 

"But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

What more powerful incentive to prayer could be proposed to us than the parable of the unjust judge? An unprincipled man, without fear of God or regard for other people, that judge nevertheless ended by granting the widow's petition. No kindly sentiment moved him to do so; he was rather worn down by her pestering. Now if a man can grant a request even when it is odious to him to be asked, how can we be refused by the one who urges us to ask? Having persuaded us, therefore, by a comparison of opposites that “we ought always to pray and never lose heart,” the Lord goes on to put the question: “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?”

Where there is no faith, there is no prayer. Who would pray for something he did not believe in? So when the blessed Apostle exhorts us to pray he begins by declaring: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But to show that faith is the source of prayer and the stream will not flow if its springs are dried up, he continues: “But how can people call on him in whom they do not believe?” (Rom 10:13-14). We must believe, then, in order to pray; and we must ask God that the faith enabling us to pray may not fail. Faith gives rise to prayer, and this prayer obtains an increase of faith.

[Guest]

MONDAY 19th November 2018

 

November is dedicated to The Holy Souls in Purgatory

Mondays are dedicated to
The Holy Spirit and The Holy Souls in Purgatory

 

 

Year: B(II).

Psalm week: 1.

Liturgical Colour: GREEN

 

 

DAILY MASS ONLINE

https://youtu.be/tEN6MRqhSQE

 

 

Reflection - Monday 19th Nov 20118

https://youtu.be/4Vf3xvjyIUY?list=PLpTzvCOJa7DCwTEFRKioXB2l1OX9fULB0

 

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

http://universalis.com/ (Go to Left Hand column)

Daily Postings for the LOTH are from

THE GENERAL CALENDAR

To find your own local Liturgical Calendar, go to:  http://universalis.com/1030/n-location.htm (scroll down).  If your area does not have its own Liturgical Calendar, use The General Calendar as posted into this thread daily is used. 

 

 

THE ROSARY

Mondays

Joyful Mysteries http://www.rosary-center.org/joyful.htm

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

 

VATICAN - BIOGRAPHY OF BLESSED MARIA CARIDAD BRADER

 

---O0O---

 

True repentance doesn’t mean tormenting yourself;

Padre Pio has a better idea

aleteia.org - H E R E

 

 

Make primary focus God's Love of you

http://thecatholicspirit.com/faith/focus-on-faith/ask-father-mike/letting-god-love-us-no-matter/

Excerpt: "I’m going to drop a little knowledge on you right now: God is the one who makes us holy. We do not make ourselves holy. Our prayer doesn’t make us holy. Our good works do not make us holy. God is the one who makes us holy. All of those things (prayer, work, striving) open us up to God’s grace, and all of those things are our way of cooperating with God’s work, but he is the one who makes us holy.

God cannot make us holy when we are too busy condemning ourselves and staring at ourselves to look at him and receive his love. The next time you find yourself getting down on yourself because you have messed up again, turn to the face of the father and trust that he knows how to deal with it."

[Guest]

 

WEDNESDAY

21st November 2018

 

Today is The Memorial of The Presentation 

of Our Lady

https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=43754

 

November is dedicated to The Holy Souls in Purgatory

Wednesdays are dedicated to St Joseph

 

 

Year: B(II).

Psalm week: 1.

Liturgical Colour: WHITE

 

 

DAILY MASS ONLINE

https://youtu.be/bHyJP88ZlGI

 

 

Reflection - Wednesday 21st November 2018

H E R E

 

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

http://universalis.com/ (Go to Left Hand column) 

Daily Postings for the LOTH are from

THE GENERAL CALENDAR

To find your own local Liturgical Calendar, go to:  http://universalis.com/1030/n-location.htm (scroll down).  If your area does not have its own Liturgical Calendar, use The General Calendar as posted into this thread daily is used.  

 

 

THE ROSARY

Wednesdays

http://www.rosary-center.org/glorious.htm

 

[Guest]

 

Sisters of The Good Samaritan

"Honouring the Stranger-Guest-Host Relationship"

https://www.goodsams.org.au/article/honouring-the-stranger-guest-host-relationship/

"...missiles in the fearmongers' arsenal..."

I think that hospitality is intrinsic to the Catholic Christian spirituality and way of life.  Hospitality features in the Old Testament and also in The New.  There might be conditions one needs or wants to place on this important relationship - and hence a question each person must answer for themselves.   And our decisions always have consequences.

 

Quote

 

Matthew Ch 25 - "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'

He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you,

what you did not do for one of these least ones,

you did not do for me.'

 

 

 

 

 

Ascension Catholic - 7  Suggestions for Dealing with Fear

 

 

---o0o---

 

 

Mary and the lost art of waiting

https://www.goodsams.org.au/article/mary-and-the-lost-art-of-waiting/

 

 

---0o0---

 

[Guest]

THURSDAY

22nd November 2018

 

Today is the Memorial of St Cecilia

Patroness of Musicians

She embraced virginity and suffered martyrdom

https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/st-cecilia-patron-saint-musicians/

November 22nd is the feast day of St. Cecilia, one of the most revered of the early virgin martyrs of Rome, as evidenced by her name appearing in the Roman Canon of the Mass.

 

November is dedicated to The Holy Souls in Purgatory

Thursdays are dedicated to The Blessed Sacrament



Year: B(II).

Psalm week: 1.

Liturgical Colour: RED

 

 

DAILY MASS ONLINE

https://youtu.be/RZB30mV7obo

 

Reflection -
Thursday 22nd November 2018

H E R E

 

 

LITURGY OF THE HOURS

http://universalis.com/ (Go to Left Hand column)  

Daily Postings for the LOTH are from

THE GENERAL CALENDAR

To find your own local Liturgical Calendar, go to:  http://universalis.com/1030/n-location.htm (scroll down).  If your area does not have its own Liturgical Calendar, use The General Calendar as posted into this thread daily is used.   

 

 

THE ROSARY

Thursdays - Joyful Mysteries

https://www.catholiccompany.com/content/Joyful-Mysteries-of-the-Rosary.cfm

[Guest]

 

As long as we be meddling with any part of sin, we shall never see clearly the blissful countenance of our Lord.
- Julian of Norwich