Category Archives: Spiritual Reflections

Spiritual Reflections

the Lord ascends to Heaven

“When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven’” ( Acts 1:1-11 )

“Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.” 

Saint Augustine

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St. Therese of Lisieux says “Our Lord does not come down from heaven every day to lie in a golden ciborium. He comes to find another heaven which is infinitely dearer to him—the heaven of our souls, created in his image, the living temples of the adorable Trinity.”

St. Thomas More: “Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.”

St. Jean Vianney says “O my dear parishioners, let us endeavor to get to heaven ! There we shall see God. How happy we shall feel! If the parish is converted we shall go there in procession with the parish priest at the head We must get to heaven ! ”

the Ascension . Holy Day on Thursday

The Ascension of the Lord

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”542 The lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven, and indeed begins it. Jesus Christ, the one priest of the new and eternal Covenant, “entered, not into a sanctuary made by human hands. . . but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”543 There Christ permanently exercises his priesthood, for he “always lives to make intercession” for “those who draw near to God through him”.544 As “high priest of the good things to come” he is the center and the principal actor of the liturgy that honors the Father in heaven. CCC 662

“Since the Ascension God’s plan has entered into its fulfillment. We are already at ‘the last hour’. ‘Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real but imperfect’ ” CCC 670

Catechism of the Catholic Church

St Joseph the Worker

“Don’t worry about being effective.
Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”

“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you.
You will know. You will know when it’s right.”

“Tradition! We scarcely know the word any more. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them.” .. “Tradition” says GK Chesterton “is democracy extended through time. Tradition means giving the vote to that most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.”

Dorothy Day

St Catherine of Siena

the Saint . WEB

Born in 1347 a year before the plague would devastate the city of Siena, Catherine’s was an age of extremes. It was Tuscan beauty scarred by violence and the plague. The duality manifested itself in Catherine as well. An uneducated woman and prolific writer. A practical and mystical saint.

When the fame of her holiness spread, she became the protagonist of an intense activity of spiritual guidance for people from every walk of life: nobles and politicians, artists and ordinary people, consecrated men and women and religious, and even the Pope .

Image from Seton Shrine website