in meditatione veritatis

PhD Student (Electrochemistry) Catholic convert (Easter 2024).

[levtolstoiz]

[geopsych]

Nostalgic walk along Pine Creek Road, July 2020

[rosavaya]

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

— Vincent Van Gogh

[anarchistmemedistro]

[mentalhealthmemesofficial]

[notthegrouch]

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.” 

- Vincent van Gogh

[weil-weil-lautre]

The presence and apparent absence of God are felt in the heart, giving blissful happiness or a most painful longing. [...] God takes hold of the soul both in faith and in contemplation. Revealed truth is not simply accepted by a natural decision of the will. The message of faith comes to many who do not receive it. this may also be due to natural motives, but there are cases in which there is a mysterious incapacity: the hour of grace has not yet come. The indwelling by grace has not yet begun. But in contemplation the soul meets God himself who takes hold of it.

Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, 138

[eternal-echoes]

“When speaking about poverty, he often proposed to the friars this text of the Gospel: "The foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" (Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58). For this reason he instructed the friars to build poor houses like those of the poor and to live in these not as their own, but like pilgrims and strangers in the house of another. For he used to say that the law of pilgrims was to take shelter under another's roof, to thirst for their homeland and to travel peacefully. Sometimes he ordered the friars to tear down a house they had built or to move out of it if he noticed something contrary to Gospel poverty either because they had appropriated it as their possession or because it was too sumptuous. He used to say that poverty was the foundation of the Order, on which the entire structure of their religious life so basically depended that it would stand firm if poverty were firm and collapse completely if poverty were undermined.”

-St. Bonaventure, Life of St Francis of Assisi 

[a-franciscan-spirit]

“I understood that Love embraces all vocations, that Love is all things, that it embraces all times and all places... in a word, that it is eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: ‘O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation, my vocation is Love!’”

-St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul

[but-how-do-you-drive]

"Wash the plate not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next."

- St. Teresa of Calcutta

[mademoiseli]

May the Lord bless you and keep you

[tornadointhetundra]

May he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you

[scaremoonturkey]

May He turn His face toward you and give you peace.

[la-inmaculada]

[iscariotes]

just. john the apostle. john the beloved. john the youngest. john who rests his head on jesus' shoulders while he speaks. john who stayed with the women during the passion & wasnt ashamed of sharing their pain. john who got to the empty tomb before anyone else. john the patron saint of love & friendship & loyalty & writers & poets. my good friend john

[mxjackparker]

Don't leave your friends and even acquaintances to go to the hospital alone. If they don't have someone already going with them and don't explicitly tell you they don't want you there, go to advocate for them. Outcomes for sick people change dramatically when they have someone else there to observe doctors (making them know they can't get away with negligence) and note symptoms from an outside perspective.

Going to the hospital is scary and even someone totally unprepared to be a medical advocate or physical support will be better than nothing, purely from their presence. You can grab food, be there with your phone to search if theirs dies, go in search of a doctor, distract them from pain or discomfort... go with them.

[undertherosary]

always thinking about the monastic life ♡

[eternal-echoes]

“Through divine inspiration he had learned that if he opened the book of the Gospels, Christ would reveal to him what God considered most acceptable in him and from him. After praying with much devotion, he took the book of the Gospels from the altar and had his companion, a holy man dedicated to God, open it three times in the name of the Holy Trinity. When all three times the book was opened the Lord's passion always met his eyes, the man filled with God understood that just as he had imitated Christ in the actions of his life, so he should be conformed to him in the affliction and sorrow of his passion, before he would pass out of this world. And although his body was already weakened by the great austerity of his past life and his continual carrying of the Lord's cross, he was in no way terrified but was inspired even more vigorously to endure martyrdom. His unquenchable fire of love for the good Jesus had been fanned into such a blaze of flames that many waters could not quench so powerful a love.”

-St. Bonaventure, Life of St Francis of Assisi 

[thelostcanyon]

Heavily overcast afternoon, J-Six Ranch, Cochise County, Arizona.

[apenitentialprayer]

Been thinking a lot about love lately, and it’s interesting that although caritas and agape technically mean the same thing (divine love, a supernatural love), they have different connotations in my mind. It’s doubtless because ‘charity’ has taken on a different meaning in everyday English, but when I think of agape I am very much impressed by the selfless, disinterested nature of that love, while caritas brings to mind the way that this love reaches out to others.

Again, both mean the same thing, but agape makes me think about this love’s nature, while caritas makes me think about its expression.

[godmechanic]

(tone of complete and utter exhaustion) this is the day that the Lord hath made

[catholic-on-main]

-facedown on the floor- let us rejoice and be glad in it

[orthodoxadventure]

When the grace of God sets the heart ablaze, a spiritual person feels boundless love for his brothers. Within himself he feels as if he is embracing everyone: brothers, friends, enemies, as well as the entire lifeless creation. No matter what people do to him, he will not be offended; rather, he will only express himself through acts of love. Then it is revealed to him the infinite God with His infinite love endures sinful people despite all their evils!

The Art of Salvation by Elder Ephraim of Arizona