Readings from Fr. John Furniss

[Brigid]

You love your parents, but you are not loving them every moment; for example, when you are asleep you are not thinking of them, so you are not loving them. Through all the great eternity, which never had a beginning, God never stopped loving and thinking about you for one single moment, just the same as if he had nobody else to think about and love except you; so God's love for you is "above all understanding." Eph. iii. 19. If God loves you, be sure that he will take care of you.

I must repeat this everyday. God will take care of you.

I need to do this too!

[martin]

1. Almighty God loves to have pity on his poor creatures, and his tender mercies are over all his works. Ps. cxliv. 9. So the Son of God took a body and soul and a heart like ours. Then he let all the pains and sorrows of every one of his poor creatures come into his own heart, that he might know them, and feel how hard it is to bear them. Never was there any heart so full of sorrows and miseries as the heart of Jesus Christ. He took into his heart all the pains, labors, and fatigues and wearinesses, and disgusts, and anxieties, and heart-breakings, of every afflicted creature that shall have lived from the days of Adam till the end of the world, and he made them all his own. Every sigh of distress, every groan of misery that has been, or shall be, went into the heart of Jesus Christ. "So he bore our infirmities, and carried our sorrows." -- Isais liii.

If we believed this with all our heart, how could we ever complain?
And it is all so true.

      There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
       He is despised and rejected by men,
      A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
      And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
      He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

      Surely He has borne our griefs
      And carried our sorrows;
      Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
      Smitten by God, and afflicted.
      Yet He was pierced through for our faults,
      crushed for our sins;
      On Him lies the punishment that brings us peace,
      And through His wounds we are healed.
     
      Isaiah 53: 2-5

[Patricia]

There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

Now we desire Him because there is no one or nothing as desirable as Him! Where else would we go if not to the Lord? 

[Shin]

6. Learn from this lion to be grateful to him who takes away sickness from you. Remember that it is God who sends you sickness, and it is his hand alone which takes it away again. Do not say then: "Oh, it was the medicine which cured me, or the doctor who cured me;" for it is God who makes the doctor and the medicine cure you. Say rather: "My God, I thank you, because I was sick, and you have healed me. 'Thou who redeemest my life from destruction, and healest all my diseases.' - Ps. cii. Blessed be your name, O great God."

7. See now what God has done for your soul.

Let us go into the chapel, where you hear mass on Sundays. Look, there is the font where you were christened. The priest at this moment is baptizing a baby. He pours a little water on its head. Into those few drops of water God puts his almighty power, to wash from the soul of the baby the dark stain of original sin and to make its soul bright and as beautiful as the spirit of an angel. "God hath loved us, and washed us from our sins." Apoc. i.

8. Look at those rails where you knelt when the bishop gave you the sacrament of Confirmation. The bishop annointed your forehead with a drop of oil, and into that little drop of oil God put the power and virtue of the Holy Ghost, to make your soul strong with the strength of the Holy Ghost. So that, after your confirmation, if anybody had come to you and said: "Little child, if you do not deny the faith of Jesus, you shall be killed," the Holy Ghost would have put into your heart this answer: "I will not deny the faith of Jesus. I am ready to die for the faith of Jesus." Then indeed "you were made partakers of the Holy Ghost." Heb. vi.

9. There is the confessional. The priest sits there holding in his hands the almighty power of Jesus Christ -- and for what? You may have committed a mortal sin -- then your soul is in chains, and these infernal chains were made by the devils in Hell, and they go round and round your poor soul as the ivy goes round a tree. You go to that confessional with sorrow in your heart, and the absolving words of the priest, as if they were the very breath of Jesus Christ, which "he breathed on the apostles" (John xx.), strike those chains, and they are broken in pieces; your soul is set free, free as an angel of God.

10. See that sparkling light which always hangs before the altar, in front of the tabernacle; it tells you that the flesh and blood of Jesus is always in the tabernacle, to fed your poor hungry soul: "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." John vi. God has scattered the stars in the skies, in every country, an in every kingdom, God has left the body and blood of his Son Jesus to feed those dear souls which he loves so much.

11. In every part of the world God has also placed bishops and priests, and blessed and consecrated them, that they might help you to save your soul. In Heaven he has created countless millions of bright angels to watch over your soul, and keep you in all your ways, lest any evil should come near you. Psalm xc.

12. He spoke to the blessed Virgin Mary, his mother, about you, and said to her: "Mary, my dear mother, look at that little child; I love it very much; I want you to be its mother: be very kind to it, and take care of it, as you took care of me when I was a little child."

13. Many other things God made for your soul -- crosses, that you might remember that Jesus was crucified for you; beads, that you might speak to your dear mother, Mary; holy water, to send away the Devil from your soul, medals, that you might be blessed in the hour of your death; and scapulars, that, by the prayers of Mary, your soul might come soon out of Purgatory. You have seen a great shower of rain falling from the clouds. The large drops came down quickly one after another, and covered the earth with water. So quickly, and without stopping for a moment, the blessings of the providence of God are always, night and day, coming down on your body and your soul. So "all things are yours." 1 Cor. iii.

14. But if God loves his creatures and takes so much care of them, why do we see so many poor people without bread to eat, without clothes to put on, without a house to shelter them? Others are blind, or deaf, or lame; others without their senses -- they are idiots and lunatics. remember "nothing on Earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground." Job v. My dear child, be sure that whatever God does is always for the best. We do not always know why he does these things; but we shall know at the end of the world, when he will tell us why he did every thing. John xiii. 7.; but even now we can often see that these misfortunes are really the greatest blessings.

15. The Patriarch Jacob had twelve sons; one of them, called Joseph, who was a good boy, told his father of some very wicked thing which his brothers had done. They were very angry because Joseph had done his duty in telling of them, and determined to take revenge. One day when they were minding the sheep in the country, Joseph came to see them. When they saw Joseph coming, they said to one another, "Let us kill him." While they were thinking of killing him, some merchants happened to pass by: so they thought they would sell their brother Joseph to the merchants. When Joseph found that his brothers were going to sell him, he cried and sobbed and asked them to have pity on him, and not to sell him; but they had no pity for their poor brother. So they sold him to the merchants for twenty pieces of silver.

The merchants went on their journey, and carried poor Joseph far away into the land of Egypt. What a misfortune, a little child would say, for Joseph to be sold, to leave his father and brothers, and never to hope to see them again, to be carried away into a strange country where he knew nobody. But it is the providence of God that the greatest blessings come int he shape of the greatest misfortunes. Some years had passed, and a frightful famine was come on the land where Joseph's father and brothers were living. They heard that corn was sold in Egypt, so they took sacks and went there to buy it. When they came into Egypt, they went to the house of the ruler, because all the corn belonged to him, and, behold they found that the ruler was their own brother Joseph, whom they had sold! Joseph wept through joy to see his brothers again, he gave them plenty of corn and told them not to be afraid for having sold him, for it had been God's will that he should be sold to go into Egypt to provide corn for them in the famine. So Joseph's misfortune saved himself and his father and brothers from dying of hunger in the famine. Thus it is the providence of God that the greatest blessings should come in the shape of the greatest misfortunes.

[Shin]

You have seen a great shower of rain falling from the clouds. The large drops came down quickly one after another, and covered the earth with water. So quickly, and without stopping for a moment, the blessings of the providence of God are always, night and day, coming down on your body and your soul. So "all things are yours." 1 Cor. iii.

So "all things are yours."

Truly makes for thought.

[Patricia]

Many other things God made for your soul -- crosses, that you might remember that Jesus was crucified for you; beads, that you might speak to your dear mother, Mary; holy water, to send away the Devil from your soul, medals, that you might be blessed in the hour of your death; and scapulars, that, by the prayers of Mary, your soul might come soon out of Purgatory.

He has provided us with many weapons for spiritual combat.  How sad if we did not use them gratefully for our soul's safety.

[martin]

6. Learn from this lion to be grateful to him who takes away sickness from you. Remember that it is God who sends you sickness, and it is his hand alone which takes it away again. Do not say then: "Oh, it was the medicine which cured me, or the doctor who cured me;" for it is God who makes the doctor and the medicine cure you. Say rather: "My God, I thank you, because I was sick, and you have healed me. 'Thou who redeemest my life from destruction, and healest all my diseases.' - Ps. cii. Blessed be your name, O great God."

Thanks and praise be to God from whom all good things come. 

[Shin]

16. One day there was great crying in the town of Bethlehem. Many hundred of poor babies had been killed. A cruel king, called Herod, wanted to kill the Infant Jesus, but he did not know which of the babies was the Infant Jesus. So he commanded the soldiers to kill all the babies. Then there was a great weeping and lamentation in Bethlehem. The mothers would not be consoled, because their babies had been killed. But in the misfortune which Providence sends there is a blessing. Those mothers were very sorrowful when they saw their babies dead, for they knew not that death was a blessing for those babies. Because they died for the sake of the Infant Jesus, they are happy forever with Jesus in Heaven.

17. St. Francis of Sales was in a town called Ancona. He wanted to sail across the sea to Venice. Seeing a boat he went to the captain and paid the price of a place in the boat. Then he went on board and sat down, waiting for the boat to set off. While he was sitting there, a person came and told him that he could not have a place, because all the boat had been hired by some one else. Francis begged that he might be allowed to stay, because he would take up very little room, and he was in a great hurry to go. However, he was not listened to, so he was obliged to take his things and go out of the boat. He thought it a great misfortune that he had lost such an opportunity of going on his journey. He stood for a while on the land, watching the boat as it set off. A favorable wind filled the sails, and carried the boat quickly over the water. The sun was bright, and the weather calm; but when the boat was far out at sea, the weather began to change. Dark clouds covered the sky, and thunders roared, and the lightnings flashed around the boat, which was tossed about by the fierce winds. For a while the sailors struggled against the storm, but the waves of the sea dashed over them, and, at last St. Francis saw the boat sink down into the sea, and everybody in the boat was drowned. St. Francis then saw that the loss of his place was a great blessing, and he learnt ever afterwards to believe that the losses and sufferings which Providence sent him were for his greater good.

18. Learn, then this great lesson: as in the bitter medicine which the doctor sends, there is health, so in the misfortunes which Providence sends you, there are blessings. The greatest blessings come in the shape of the greatest misfortunes. Therefore, in losses, in sickness, in pain, in hunger, when somebody is cruel to you, when your parents or your friends die, in the hour of your own death, do nto say "what a pity this is, what a misfortune," but say, "I believe that God has sent this loss or suffering to me, and I am sure that in some way or other it will be for my greater good. I do not see now how it will be out for my greater good, but that, in the end it will turn out for my greater advantage, I am quite certain." All things work together unto good for the just. Rom. viii.

19. You must always wish for God's will to be done. First. -- God is almighty, and he rules the world and every thing that is in it. So that from the days of creation, till the lat day of the world, every thing, even the least little thing, will have been only because it was the will of God that it should be. "Good things and evil, life and death, riches and poverty, come from God." Eccus. xi. What we call accidents, are accidents only to us, but not to God. A man once sent two servants by different roads, wishing them to meet one another. When they met they thought it was accidental, but it was not an accident to the man who sent them. So all the accidents which happen to you come because God sends them. One thing, however, God does not wish, and that is, sin, which is in the heart of the sinner. "God hates sin." Ps. liv. But if you suffer any thing from the sin of another, God wishes you to have that suffering: for example, if you lose something because it is stolen, God wishes you to have that loss. "Shall there by evil in the city which the Lord hath not done?" Amos. iii.

Secondly. -- Every thing which happens to you is sent by God, because he sees that it is just the very best thing for you at that moment. "All things work together unto the good for the just." Rom. viii. "No evil shall come to them." Ps. xc.

20. Now, the greatest of all virtues is to be content with whatever happens to you, because it is the will of God; and to have in your heart the spirit of that prayer, "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." Matt. vi. A man threw a stone at a dog. The dog did not look at the man, but ran at the stone, and barked at it, and bit it. Do not then be like the dog, and get vexed at the pain you suffer, instead of remembering that God sent it. If you take a stick into your hand, the stick never says, "I will not be in your hand." If you lay the stick on the ground, it never says, "I will not be laid on the ground." Little child, learn to be like the stick, and to be where Almighty God puts you. So if you have to live with people who are cross to you, be content, because it is the will of God. A bricklayer was making some bricks. He took some soft clay, and turned it about in his hand up and down, first on one side and then on the other. The clay was very quiet, and let the man do as he liked with it. In like manner, my child, let God do as he pleases with you. "Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God." Ps. cxlii.

[Shin]

Secondly. -- Every thing which happens to you is sent by God, because he sees that it is just the very best thing for you at that moment. "All things work together unto the good for the just." Rom. viii. "No evil shall come to them." Ps. xc.

The Lord is laying the bricks that build our souls up.

[Therese]

What excellent reading from Fr. Furniss!

[Shin]

But if you suffer any thing from the sin of another, God wishes you to have that suffering: for example, if you lose something because it is stolen, God wishes you to have that loss. "Shall there by evil in the city which the Lord hath not done?" Amos. iii.

A friend I know was burglarized of all his possessions.

Later on, he talked about the relief of it all -- his life had improved spiritually in a large way.

I think there are many, many, many people for whom this happening would be to the benefit more than the detriment. There's so much antagonism against poverty today..

[martin]

I think there are many, many, many people for whom this happening would be to the benefit more than the detriment. Cheesy There's so much antagonism against poverty today..

There seems to be two ways to achieve the virtue of poverty.
Either we become poor voluntarily or the Lord will take control and do it for us. 

[Shin]

I think there are many, many, many people for whom this happening would be to the benefit more than the detriment. Cheesy There's so much antagonism against poverty today..

There seems to be two ways to achieve the virtue of poverty.
Either we become poor voluntarily or the Lord will take control and do it for us. 

When I think about people voluntarily living spartan simple lives, it's really a beautiful thought.

Makes me think of country cottages in Ireland.

[martin]

When I think about people voluntarily living spartan simple lives, it's really a beautiful thought.

Makes me think of country cottages in Ireland. Cheesy

There's a little place in Donegal that I've been to quite a few times.
It's run by a family who turned their property and land into a visitor centre. It's all reconstructed to show what life was like during the famine times. They call it the "Famine Village."
One of the things that really hit home was when the tour guide said. "If you have a roof over your head at night and you can go to a cupboard in your home and find some food, then you are privileged, because you are one of the top 18 percent of the worlds wealthiest people. The other 82 percent can't do this.

Puts thing into perspective. 

[Therese]

Also when our health is taken away this is God's will and the best thing for our soul (or He wouldn't permit it).

I'm reading St. Teresa of Avila's book about her life and she says that though we think we can serve God better with good health it is best for us to have whatever health God desires for us.  St. Ignatius of Loyola even says we shouldn't pray for health.  Whatever God gives us is what is best for us.  Now when people ask me to pray for a healing I ask God to heal them in accordance with His will, and only in accordance with His will because I only want what God wants for them because He knows what is best for their souls.

A saint once asked God for a healing for herself and so she was healed.  Then she prayed that if it is best for her soul that she be sick that her illness return.  God then gave her the sickness back.  He knew what was best for her and it was illness.

[Shin]

Also when our health is taken away this is God's will and the best thing for our soul (or He wouldn't permit it).

I'm reading St. Teresa of Avila's book about her life and she says that though we think we can serve God better with good health it is best for us to have whatever health God desires for us.  St. Ignatius of Loyola even says we shouldn't pray for health.  Whatever God gives us is what is best for us.  Now when people ask me to pray for a healing I ask God to heal them in accordance with His will, and only in accordance with His will because I only want what God wants for them because He knows what is best for their souls.

A saint once asked God for a healing for herself and so she was healed.  Then she prayed that if it is best for her soul that she be sick that her illness return.  God then gave her the sickness back.  He knew what was best for her and it was illness.

"There is no such thing as bad weather. All weather is good because it is God's." - St. Teresa of Jesus.

Yes, whatever God gives us is best for us. This reminds me of how during the golden age of the Faith, we hear about how medical arts were not advanced as it is in these times. All in God's plan. . . People bore their pains, and for these they did not suffer in vain. . .