cry of the soul

Suffering should be treated not as a twitch or a muscular contraction,
but as the cry of a soul, to whom another brother,
the doctor, runs with the ardent love of charity.
St. Giuseppe Moscati
from the book St. Giuseppe Moscati:
Doctor of the Poor by Antonio Tripodoro, SJ

(Gleann Cholm Cille, Co.Donegal, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

“There was much in the Magdalen that she had never used,
perhaps never dreamed of, until she came to our Lord.
He revealed to her the secret of true self-development,
which is another word for sanctity.
And she found under His guidance that everything in her had henceforth to be used,
and used in a fuller and richer way than she had ever imagined possible.
It was in no narrow school of self-limitation,
in no morbid school of false asceticism,
that this poor sinner was educated in the principles of sanctity,
but in the large and merciful school of Him who has been
ever since the hope of the hopeless,
the friend of publicans and sinners;
who knows full well that what men need is not to crush and kill their powers,
but to find their true use and to use them;
that holiness is not the emptying of life,
but the filling; that despair has wrapped its dark cloud
around many a soul because it found itself in possession of powers
that it abused and could not destroy and did not know how to use.
Christ taught them the great and inspiriting doctrine
‘I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.’”
Fr. Basil W. Maturin, p. 40

bloom more beautifully

“Be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in
this world by God for the salvation of the soul.
So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently.”
St. Francis of Assisi

(Julie Cook / 2019)

“Strong passions are the precious raw material of sanctity.
Individuals who have carried their sinning to extremes should not despair or say,
‘I am too great a sinner to change,’or
‘God would not want me.’ God will take anyone who is willing to love,
not with an occasional gesture, but with a ‘passionless passion,
‘a ‘wild tranquility’.
A sinner, unrepentant, cannot love God,
any more than someone on dry land can swim;
but as soon as a person takes his errant energies to God and asks
for their redirection, he will become happy, as he was never happy before.
It is not the wrong things one has already done that keep one from God;
it is present persistence in that wrong.
Someone who turns back to God, as the Magdalene and Paul,
welcomes the discipline that will enable him to change his former tendencies.
Mortification is good, but only when it is done out of love of God….
Mortifications of the right sort perfect our human nature;
the gardener cuts the green shoots from the root of the bush,
not to kill the rose, but to make it bloom more beautifully.”
Venerable Fulton Sheen, p. 185

Loving Grace flips you upside right

Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement,
and death will be part of your journey,
but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors.
No evil can resist grace forever.
Brennan Mannin

(my favorite place on earth—the old Methodist Church in Cades Cove/
The Great Smokey Mts National Park / Julie Cook / 2021)

Have you ever felt that switch flip?

You know the one…

The switch which flips you from upside down to right side up?

As in all of a sudden, there is some sort of vast difference
between now and then.

Something new is now residing in your soul while the old has been
blessedly removed.
As an unseen presence now lifts you ever upward.

One day you’re one way…and then suddenly, the very next day,
you’re something else entirely.

You’re simply not the same person today as you were yesterday.
And thank God you’re not.

It is that odd juxtaposition of a before and an after sort of flip of the switch.

A profound difference begins to resonate within your inner core.
As in…there was first angst and emptiness…and then next there
grew a blessed peace and a sense of being sweetly content.

A huge difference happening all within a single 1 minute.

Marvelously, actually miraculously, you feel a peace that had been
nonexistent just one minute prior.
This new comforting sense of peace that, had been so elusive for such a long time–
longer than you could recall, now wraps you in a soothing embrace.

And so now you actually find yourself finally being able to exhale.
Being able to exhale the heaviness of forever,
while then breathing in a fresh new air of life.

The body goes weak.
The soul has been broken.
And now…we are the better for it…
as I think we call that loving Grace…

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul,
the golden link which binds us to duty and truth,
the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life,
and is prophetic of eternal good.
Petrarch

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom
to distinguish the one from the other.
Reinhold Niebuhr

Rest for the weary

The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
Isaiah 35:7

(Dried thistle along the banks of the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

(***since the Mayor and Sheriff are here for the Trick or treat weekend…
I opted to seek out a post from 2015—from the wisdom found on the road in Ireland–
thank you always Paul!!)

I was weary…
dry and brittle of body, heart and soul…
Yet you Oh Lord have heard me in my distress.
You have seen to my weariness…
to the dryness and brittle spirit which as clung to me like an ashen paste.
You have refreshed and soothed a parched and thirsty heart

(the wild Atlantic somewhere along the Dingle Peninsula / County Kerry, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

You have attended to a wounded soul…
My offering to you is a simple thankfulness that reaches to the depths of the sea,
and the width of an endless sky…

(somewhere along the road in County Donegal, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

“And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
Isaiah 58:11

faith, truth and loving God

“God writes his name on the soul of every man.”
Venerable Fulton Sheen

(Cades Cove / Julie Cook / 2015)

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises
to the contemplation of truth;
and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word,
to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God,
men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
Pope St. John Paul II

submission of the soul, “when God requires action, sanctity is to be found in activity”

The beauty of the images moves me to contemplation,
as a meadow delights the eyes and subtly infuses the soul
with the glory of God.
St. John Damascene

(Gulf fritillary/ Julie Cook / 2021)

Gulf fritillary / Julie Cook / 2021)

(Gulf fritillary / Julie Cook / 2021)

Submission of the soul.

For many of us, the notion of submission comes with great difficulty.
Submission is equated with the notion of weakness.
A giving up and giving in.

And yet we cling viciously to the visage of ego…that false image we hold high
and large against the humility of heart…a tenuous balance is struck.

We let that false visage block oh so many possibilities.
Hitting wall after wall, we wonder how much longer will we struggle.
So much heartache ensues because of that false visage of hubris.

Self inflicted wounds.

God is not one to be quiet when He knows what is required.

It may take years before we finally let go and submit…but when we do,
blessings will flow like a burst dam of water.

May those healing waters flow…

“The will of God gives to all things a supernatural and divine value
for the soul submitting to it.
The duties it imposes, and those it contains,
with all the matters over which it is diffused,
become holy and perfect, because, being unlimited in power,
everything it touches shares its divine character. …
The entire virtue of all that is called holy is in its approximation
to this order established by God; therefore nothing should be rejected,
nothing sought after, but everything accepted that is ordained
and nothing attempted contrary to the will of God. …
When God requires action, sanctity is to be found in activity.”
Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, p. 15
An excerpt from
Abandonment to Divine Providence

Good reminders…

“The closer one approaches to God,
the simpler one becomes.”
St. Teresa of Avila

(a walk around a mountain lake / Julie Cook / 2021)

“Prayer is the duty of every moment.
We ought always to pray, said our Lord.
And what He said, He did; therein lay His great power.
Action accompanied His words and corresponded with them.
We must pray always in order to be on our guard.
Our life, both of body and soul, our natural and supernatural life,
is like a fragile flower.
We live surrounded by enemies.
Ever since man rejected the Light that was meant to show him the way,
everything has become for us an obstacle and a danger;
we live in the shadow of death.”
Dom Augustin Guillerand, p. 9
An Excerpt From
The Prayer of the Presence of God

(orange jewelweed / Julie Cook / 2021)

“If, then, we wish to persevere and to be saved—for no one can be
saved without perseverance—we must pray continually.
Our perseverance depends, not on one grace,
but on a thousand helps which we hope to obtain from
God during our whole lives,
that we may be preserved in his grace.
Now, to this chain of graces a chain of prayers on our
part must correspond: without these prayers,
God ordinarily does not grant his graces.
If we neglect to pray, and thus break the chain of prayers,
the chain of graces shall also be broken, and we shall lose the
grace of perseverance.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, p. 201
An Excerpt From
The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori

what the soul bears

“A soul which does not practice the exercise of prayer is very like
a paralyzed body which, though possessing feet and hands,
makes no use of them.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori

(bait fish minnow became a bigger fish’s snack / Julie Cook / 2021)

“If the soul will analyze the desire it has of happiness,
and the idea of happiness that presents itself to it,
it will find that the object of this idea and of this desire
is only and can only be God.
This is the impression that the soul bears in the depths of its nature;
this is what reason will teach it if it will only reflect a little,
and this is what neither prejudice nor passion can ever entirely efface.”
Fr. Jean Nicholas Grou, p. 4
An Excerpt From
The Spiritual Life

headlines, headaches and heartache

Yesterday’s headlines consisted of stories about a former president partying
like it was 1999…with about 500 of his closest friends.
This all on the posh isle of Martha’s Vineyard…
It was reported to be a most “epic” party by several of the rappers who
were in attendance.
Rumor has it that even Madame Speaker was there to shake a tail feather.

Forget the frenzied called for masks and mandates…Forget our dear old godfather Dr. Fauci.

What’s  500 partiers and 200 staff members when one turns 60?
By gosh, there was a party to be had!
You can’t  really shake what your mama gave you if you’re all masked up…

Another story, on the opposite side of the country, involved a family oriented
prayer event down near the waterfront in Portland, Oregon.
If any city needed some prayer right about now…it would be Portland.
A city still under siege by lawlessness.

Disturbingly this event literally came under fire by our country’s lovely
anarchists and antifascists.

When does Christian worship call for anarchy’s knee jerk reaction??
Well, obviously now.

Not even the children nor toddlers attending were spared from the violence
as the antagonizing groups clad in black took to throwing rocks and spraying
colored gas and flash bombs into the family oriented crowd gathered.

Where were the police you ask.

Standing back and watching…don’t you remember, we want to defund them.

Meanwhile back on the east coast, the police of Martha’s Vineyard called the
ensuing traffic nightmare following the end of said presidential birthday party
a s%$t show of a mess.
Well naturally those elite partiers wanted the police to help sort out
any and all traffic woes, never mind about protecting innocent folks elsewhere…

All the while, the news is still rife with the cries of good ol squad
member Ms Cori Bush.
Ms Bush, along with her personal security detail, simply will not rest until
all the police are defunded.

What is the irony of a congresswoman crying for defunding the police
while she surrounds herself with her very own private police force…
forget the “little” people…we’ll be ok.
But wait…who’s paying for her security entourage???
Why do I think it’s you and me, said taxpayers.

Then there was the sad story of the passing of longtime college football
coach and Florida State University legend, Bobby Bowden.

Bobby Bowden, who retired in 2009 had coached at the college level for 55 years.
And like any coach, he was both loved and hated.

Loved if you were a Seminole, hated if you were a Gator or ‘Cane.
Yet I would imagine respected by most.

Bobby Bowden, who alongside his wife Ann of 51 years, raised 6 children.
3 of which went on to their own coaching careers.

I once heard Coach Bowden tell a story about a family vacation they took when
their kids were all little.

They had stopped for gas and for something to eat.
It was probably sometime in the early 1960’s.
These were pre cell phone and stranger danger days.

The family loaded back into the station wagon
and hit the road again.

It wasn’t until about 30 minutes down the road when the family realized
that not all heads had been counted.
One was missing.

Naturally they turned the car around and went back and found their wayward
child patiently waiting.

That kind of stuff just happened when you had 6 kids, Coach Bowden chuckled.

Coach Bowden was once quoted as saying
“The heck with political correctness. I’ve never believed in it.”

I appreciate folks like Coach Bowden…they are old school, like me.

So heres to old school…
while we forget the woke, the elites, the daft, the tone deaf,
the hateful, the arrogant…

Time to remember the desires of the soul…

“The human soul, by its very nature,
is endowed with the faculty of knowing God and the capacity for loving Him.
The intelligence of the soul, transporting itself above all that
is created and finite, has power to raise itself even to the
contemplation of that Being who alone is uncreated and infinite,
who is the source of all good and all perfection;
it is able to form of Him an idea that is clear and accurate and indelible.
The will of the soul is made to love this sovereign Good,
which the understanding presents to it.
The desires of the soul,
which no created object can ever satisfy and which reach far beyond
the limits of this life, tend necessarily toward a Good that
is supreme, eternal, and infinite, and which alone can content
the soul and make it happy.”
Fr. Jean Nicholas Grou, p. 3-4
An Excerpt From
The Spiritual Life

The Spirit of God rather than your own…

“Do not be anxious: go straight on, forgetful of self,
letting the spirit of God act instead of your own.”
St. Julie Billiart

(magnolia /Julie Cook / 2021)

(soon to be sunflower/ Julie Cook / 2021)

“As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to
remain children in intelligence: on the contrary.
He told us to be not only ‘as harmless as doves’,
but also ‘as wise as serpents’.
He wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head.
He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate,
and teachable, as good children are;
but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job,
and in first-class fighting trim.”
C.S. Lewis, p. 77
An Excerpt From
Mere Christianity