From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Sharing our Talents   
      
   So, it is very important for us to spend some time in reflecting on   
   what are my unique ‘talents’ or gifts or abilities and then to ask how   
   and to what end I am using them? And the time to do that is today   
   because, as we have been amply warned, we do not know when our   
   ‘employer’ is coming back to check his accounts with us. The end of   
   today’s passage indicates that if we do not move forward, or are not   
   productive, then we go backwards. We cannot remain static or purely   
   passive in God’s service. To do nothing is not a possible option. The   
   more we give and share with others from the resources we have the more   
   we are personally enriched; on the other hand, to cling to our gifts   
   and keep them just for ourselves is to become smaller in every way.   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 20th - Bl. Columba of Rieti, Virgin, Mystic   
      
   IN the chronicles of Perugia we find many references to Bl. Columba, a   
   Dominican tertiary who, by virtue of her sanctity and spiritual gifts,   
   became whilst yet living so completely the city's patroness that her   
   mediation was officially sought by the magistrates in times of danger   
   and perplexity. She was a native, not of Perugia, but of Rieti, where   
   her father and mother earned a modest livelihood as weavers and   
   tailors. Although her angelic looks as a baby led her parents to   
   choose for her the name of Angiolella, she was always called Columba,   
   in allusion to a dove which made its appearance during her baptism and   
   alighted on her head. As she grew in years so she grew in beauty of   
   soul and body. From the Dominican nuns who taught her to read she   
   acquired a great veneration for St. Dominic and St. Catherine of   
   Siena, and during her life they often appeared in visions to encourage   
   or direct her. She secretly dedicated herself to God, and when her   
   parents urged that she should be betrothed to a wealthy young man, she   
   cut off her hair, declaring that her whole heart belonged to Jesus.   
   She now gave herself up to austerities, hidden as far as possible from   
   the eyes of men, and she strove to tread in the footsteps of St.   
   Catherine. On one occasion, after a cataleptic trance in which she had   
   lain as though dead for 5 days, she described the holy places of   
   Palestine which she had been visiting in spirit. But it was at the age   
   of 19, when she had been invested with the Dominican tertiary habit   
   which she had long desired, that she emerged from her retirement and   
   entered upon what may almost be described as her public life.   
      
   A resident of Rieti lay under sentence of death for murder, and   
   Columba's prayers were asked on his behalf. She visited him in prison,   
   brought him to repentance and, after he had made a good confession,   
   assured him that his execution would not take place. Her prophecy was   
   fulfilled when at the 11 hour a reprieve arrived. Her reputation was   
   further enhanced by miracles and by her almost complete abstention   
   from food. At Viterbo, where she cured a demoniac, and also at Narni,   
   the inhabitants sought to detain her by force, but she eluded them.   
   She was not, however, to remain long at Rieti. It was revealed to her   
   that her mission lay elsewhere, and accordingly early one morning she   
   slipped out of the house in secular clothes-bound she knew not   
   whither. Upon her arrival at Foligno she was arrested on suspicion   
   that she was a fugitive for whom the authorities were searching, and   
   her relations were notified. Joined by her father, her brother, and an   
   elderly matron, she was then able to pursue her mysterious journey   
   which led finally to the gates of Perugia--perhaps the most turbulent   
   city in Italy. She was received in a humble dwelling already occupied   
   by several tertiaries, and immediately seems to have been made the   
   object of a popular demonstration. Her fame, no doubt, had preceded   
   her. Not only the poor, but many of the rich, including the ladies of   
   the Baglioni family then in power, welcomed her with open arms. On the   
   other hand, certain excellent persons--notably the Franciscan and   
   Dominican friars--were openly suspicious of a young woman who was said   
   to subsist on a few berries and who was constantly falling into   
   ecstasies. Amongst them was Fr. Sebastian Angeli, afterwards her   
   confessor and biographer. In his book he confesses his early doubts   
   and the incredulity with which he received the information that she   
   had resuscitated a child. "Wait for ten years", he said to young   
   Cesare Borgia, who suggested ringing the city bells, "and then if her   
   conduct has not belied her reputation we can reckon her a saint." The   
   citizens generally, however, had no such doubts, and they offered to   
   provide her with a convent.   
      
   On January 2, 1490, Columba with a few companions took the vows of a   
   Dominican religious of the third order. A few years later, on the   
   outbreak of plague, her position was so well established that the   
   magistrates applied to her for advice and adopted her suggestion of   
   penitential processions. Many of the sick were healed by her touch,   
   some in her convent where they were tended by her nuns, some outside.   
   She had offered herself to God as a victim; and when in answer to her   
   prayers the plague abated, she contracted it in a virulent form. Her   
   recovery she attributed to St. Catherine, in whose honour the   
   magistrates decreed an annual procession which was continued for a 100   
   years. In the bitter quarrels that rent the city Columba invariably   
   acted as an angel of peace, and once she warned the rulers of a   
   projected attack from outside which they were consequently able to   
   frustrate.   
      
   Pope Alexander VI when he came to Perugia asked specially to see her,   
   and was so impressed that at a later date he sent his treasurer to   
   consult her on certain secret projects--only to receive reproaches and   
   warnings the details of which were never made public. But if the   
   pontiff himself was favourably disposed, it was otherwise with his   
   daughter, Lucrezia Borgia, whom Columba had refused to meet and who,   
   it is said, became her bitter enemy. Apparently as the result of her   
   hostile influence, Bl. Columba was subjected to a period of   
   persecution, when a decree issued from Rome accused her of magic and   
   deprived her of her confessor. She uttered no complaint and bore all   
   in patience until the attack passed. Towards the end of her life she   
   suffered much bodily pain, but her interest in Perugia continued to   
   the end. To the city fathers who came to visit her in her last illness   
   she gave an exhortation to observe Christian charity and to do justice   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)