Daily Spiritual Insights

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St Thomas teaches that the highest degree of love that a soul on earth can attain is an ardent desire for Heaven, to be there united to God and to possess him forever. The greatest suffering that the souls in Purgatory endure proceeds from this longing for the possession of God, and this pain is felt especially by those who in life had but a feeble desire for Heaven. Cardinal Bellarmine thinks that in Purgatory there is a place where souls endure no pains of sense, but are tortured solely by the loss of the presence of God. St Gregory, St Vincent Ferrer, St Bridget, and St Bede the Venerable cite a number of such instances where souls are tormented not on account of sins committed, but because of the absence of a desire of Heaven.

The 12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation: From the Works of St Alphonsus Liguori. 1986.
pgs 21-22
 
"Thou hast sinned, O Christian," says St John Chrysostom, "but dost thou desire forgiveness? Fear not, for God’s desire to grant it is greater than your desire to receive it.

The 12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation: From the Works of St Alphonsus Liguori. 1986.
pg 22
 
It is doubtless true that we shall have a strict account to render of all the sins we have committed, but who will be our judge? St John tells us: “Neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgement to the Son.” (John 5: 22). It is our Redeemer, then, that the judgement has been enstrusted.
The 12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation: From the Works of St Alphonsus Liguori. 1986.
pg 24
 
There may be times when temptations are so violent that sin seems unavoidable. We must be on our guard at such times not to lose courage and give up the struggle. Our only resource is to hasten to Jesus Crucified. He and He alone can sustain us.

The 12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation: From the Works of St Alphonsus Liguori. 1986.
pg 27
 
Every love, says St Augustine, possesses an active force and cannot remain idle. Consequently, love contains in its very essence the idea of benevolence, and one who loves cannot but do good to the object of his love if it is at all possible for him. “Love,” says Aristotle, “endeavors to accomplish what it considers good for the object loved.” If, therefore, God loves all men, He must also desire that all men attain eternal happiness. for this is the highest and only good of man since it is the end for which man was created.

The 12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation: From the Works of St Alphonsus Liguori. 1986.
pg 30-31
 
I love St. Alphonsus. I’m hard core Alphonsian - I follow St. Alphonsus’s opinion closely on almost every subject, which is somewhat strange.

Thanks for these posts,
Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas
 
These are very good. Thanks for the thoughts to be pondered.
 
Be of good heart then, ye children of Mary! You know that she regards as her children all who desire to be so. Courage, therefore, and confidence! How can you fear that you will ever perish when such a Mother defends and protects you? He who loves this good Mother and places himself under her protection can say with St Bonaventure: "I rejoice and am glad, for my sentence on judgment day depends on Jesus my Brother and on Mary my Mother."

The 12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation: From the Works of St Alphonsus Liguori. 1986.
pg 37
 
I might be a troll or I might be a person or I might be a baller on a roll.
 
The priests clericalize the laity and the laity beg us to be clericalized… It really is sinful complicity. And to think that baptism alone would suffice. I’m thinking of those Christian communities in Japan that remained without priests for more than two hundred years. When the missionaries returned, they found them all baptized, all validly married in the eyes of the Church, and all of their dead had had a Catholic funeral. The faith had remained intact through the gifts of grace that had gladdened the lives of these laypeople, who had received only baptism and had also lived out their apostolic mission by virtue of baptism alone. One must not be afraid of depending only on His tenderness.

Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis to be). Interview by Stefania Falasca in 30Giorni. 2007
 
"What he [Jonah] was fleeing was not so much Ninevah as the boundless love of God for those people. That was what did not fit into his plans. God has come once … “and I’ll see to the rest.” So Jonah had told himself. He wanted to do things his way, he wanted to control it all. His stubbornness confined him within his own structures of evaluation, his ready-made methods, his correct opinions. He had fenced off his soul with the barbed wire of those certainties which, instead of giving freedom with God and opening horizons of greater service to others, had ended up deafening his heart. How the isolated conscience hardens the heart! Jonah no longer knew how God was leading his people with the heart of a Father …
Our certainties can become a wall, a jail that imprisons the Holy Spirit. Someone who isolates his conscience from the journey of the people of God does not know the joy of the Holy Spirit that sustains hope. That is the risk run by the isolated conscience. Of those who from the closed world of their Tarshish complain about everything or, feeling their own identity threatened, rush into battles, only to be still more self-concerned and self-referential in the end.

30Giorni. Interview by Stefania Falasca with Cardinal Bergoglio. 2007.
 
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