7 Quick Takes Friday ~ Vol 92

— 1 — This Week’s Post: He Doesn’t Need More Time It is tempting to think that guys need to gather more information before deciding to marry a girl. More time, to me, can spell trouble. How much time, you ask? See next week’s post!

— 2 — Next Week’s Post: This was in the comments section and I plan to answer it, as well as the ‘how much time?’ question next week!

Cindy, why do you think that men string women along even when they know they don’t want to marry them? I understand that for a lot of men, it’s sex, but why would a practising Catholic/Christian man (whose girlfriend is, I assume, not sleeping with him) string things out?

I’ve heard the opinion that a woman should break up with a man after a year if he hasn’t at least mentioned marrying her (the opinion-giver added the caveat that the man and woman should both be finished with university in order for this rule to apply.) What do you think?

— 3 — Saint Hat Trick: Three great saints had feast days this month!

August 20th: Saint Bernard of Clairveau (patron Saint of this blog)

August 27th: Saint Monica (Saint Augustine’s mother and patron saint of mothers with sons)

August 28th: Saint Augustine (patron saint for all of us sinners searching for the truth)

— 4 — Of Course He Would Give Us A Pope: Sunday’s readings reminded us that God cares about us so much that He left us in good hands. He did not leave us to figure it out on our own. Isn’t it interesting that the role of The Pope was prophesized about way back in Isaiah?

“I shall place the key of David’s palace on his shoulder; when he opens, no one will close, when he closes, no one will open.”

Isaiah 22: 22

— 5 — Peter, Our First Pope: And, Jesus confirms it!

“ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said, ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’

Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a blessed man! Because it was no human agency that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Matthew 16:13-20

— 6 — Psalm 138: I love this Psalm:

“I thank you, Yahweh, with all my heart, for you have listened to the cry I uttered. In the presence of angels I sing to you, I bow down before your holy Temple. I praise your name for your faithful love and your constancy; your promises surpass even your fame. You heard me on the day when I called, and you gave new strength to my heart. Sublime as he is, Yahweh looks on the humble, the proud he picks out from afar. Yahweh will do all things for me. Yahweh, your faithful love endures for ever, do not abandon what you have made.”

Psalm 138

— 7 — Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron: (1911-1938), a Spanish Trappist monk wrote this:

“We lack virtue not because it’s difficult, but be-cause we don’t wish for it. We lack patience because we don’t want it. We lack moderation and chastity for the same reason. If we were to wish it we would become saints; it’s much more difficult to be an engineer than to be a saint. If only we had faith!…Interior life, life of spirit, life of prayer. My God that is what must be hard! It isn’t so. Remove the im-pediment from your heart and there you will find God. Everything is now done. Many times we go looking for what isn’t there, and on the other hand pass by a treasure and don’t see it. This happens to us with God, whom we seek… through a jungle of things which, the more complicated they are, the better they appear to us. And yet we carry God within the heart, and don’t look for Him there. Retire within yourself, look at your nothingness, at the nothingness of the whole world, place
yourself at the foot of a Cross, and if you are guileless you will see God…If God is not there in our souls sometimes, it’s because we don’t wish it. We have so many affairs on hand, distractions, predilections, vain desires, presumptions, so much of the world within us, that God withdraws Himself; but it is sufficient to love Him, for God fills the soul in such a way that one must be blind not to see it. Does a soul wish to live according to God? Let it cast out everything that is not Him, and then it is achieved. It is relatively easy. If we were to wish for it, and if we were to ask God with simplicity, we should make great advances in the spiritual life. If we were to wish it we would become saints, but we are so stupid that we don’t want it, we would rather waste our time over foolish vanities.

God love and bless you!

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