a face of perseverance

“The most deadly poison of our time is indifference.
And this happens although the praise of God should know no limits.
Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
St. Maximilian Kolbe

(poor Percy, not a happy camper—his home for the next 12 weeks / Julie Cook / 2019)

“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

(a moment of freedom and reprieve from the dreaded cone / Percy / Julie Cook /2019)

one day, we shall see…

“At the end of our life, we shall be judged by charity.”
St. Paul of the Cross

(Getty Image)

“How great is the sweetness which a soul experiences, when, in the time of prayer, God,
by a ray of his own light, shows to her his goodness and his mercies towards her,
and particularly the love which Jesus Christ has borne to her in his passion!
She feels her heart melting, and, as it were, dissolved through love.

But in this life we do not see God as he really is:
we see him, as it were, in the dark.

‘We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face’ (1 Cor. 13:12).
Here below God is hidden from our view; we can see him only with the eyes of faith:
how great shall be our happiness when the veil shall be raised,
and we shall be permitted to behold God face to face!
We shall then see his beauty, his greatness, his perfection, his amiableness,
and his immense love for our souls.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, p. 133
An Excerpt From
Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori

nothing more to give…

“He that sacrifices to God his property by alms-deeds,
his honor by bearing insults, or his body by mortifications,
by fasts and penitential rigours, offers to Him a part of himself and of what
belongs to him; but he that sacrifices to God his will,
by obedience, gives to Him all that he has,
and can say:
Lord, having given you my will, I have nothing more to give you.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, p. 191
AN Excerpt From
The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguiori

(city mural /Nashville / Julie Cook / 2018)

The ins and out in and out of a city…as seen in the lives of the fortunate and unfortunate.

(sign posted within a doorway near an area known for the homeless/ Julie Cook / Nashville/ 2018)

(two images of a bird with a broken wing just off the park where the homeless congrugate
in Nashville / Julie Cook / 2018)

(a very sick dove sits out amongst the throng of 4th of July revalers, over looked and
basicaly ingnored by the enormous crowd / Julie Cook / 2018)

(a couple of wild turkeys and a squirrel resting during a heatwave on the grounds of
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage / Julie Cook / 2018)

(a squirrel pays no attention to the tourists gathered by it’s side at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage/
Julie Cook / 2018)

“But there must be a real giving up of the self.
You must throw it away
“blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality:
but you must not go to Him for the sake of that.
As long as your own personality
is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all.
The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether.
Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His)
will not come as long as you are looking for it.
It will come when you are looking for Him.
Does that sound strange?
The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters.
Even in social life,
you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort
of impression you are making.
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original:
whereas if you simply try to tell the truth
(without caring twopence how often it has been told before)
you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self,
and you will find your real self.
Lose your life and you will save it.
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death
of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and
you will find eternal life.
Keep back nothing.
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.
Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred,
loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay.
But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity