From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Be found a wise and faithful servant   
      
   Be careful to be found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate   
   the heavenly to your fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not   
   take up the vain excuse of your rawness of inexperience which you may   
   imagine or assume. For sterile modesty is never pleasing, not that   
   humility laudable which passes the bounds of reason. Attend to your   
   work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as a master.   
   But I am not sufficient for these things, you say. As if your offering   
   were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not.   
   Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge,   
   and take no thought for the test. For he that is unjust in the least   
   is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the   
   uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have, not what you   
   have not.   
   --St. Bernard of Clairvaux   
      
   ==============   
   19 April – St Expeditus, Roman Centurion, Martyr   
      
   (Died 303)   
    Patronages – emergencies, expeditious solution, against   
   procrastination, merchants, navigators.   
      
   His position in the army was not compatible with conversion to   
   Christianity, as this seemed to be an open challenge to the authority   
   of the emperor. In the Roman Empire of the 3rd and early 4th century   
   AD, any military commander who converted to Christianity and refused   
   to worship and make sacrifices to their pagan gods, immediately was   
   subjected to derision. The emperor did not tolerate a commander who   
   challenged his laws.   
      
   Expeditus was quickly betrayed by a jealous rival. Upon learning these   
   facts, the Caesar Galerius sent orders for an immediate end to what he   
   considered a military revolt. The execution order came quickly. On 19   
   April in the year 303, during the reign of Diocletian, by order of   
   emperor Caesar Galerius, son of a Pagan priestess, Expeditus was   
   tortured and executed in Melitene, now a part of Turkey. Expeditus,   
   who had fought and defeated many enemies in a hundred battles fought   
   with honour and loyalty to a Caesar and culture that gave no mercy.   
      
   Expeditus perished in a most cruel manner, first scourged in view of   
   his legion and then when given the opportunity to repent, he refused   
   without hesitation and was beheaded.   
   St Expeditus is little known and given the fact that very little is   
   known about his life, it is absolutely astounding that an ever-growing   
   number of people thank him for his help every day. They thank him   
   because he has helped them. He seems to help everyone who asks for it,   
   regardless of the fact that he is not really known – something like St   
   Veronica.   
      
   St Expeditus, is the saint of “just and urgent causes.” He is our   
   advocate and our mediator before God  . Veneration of St Expeditus, is   
   not recent. In Turin Italy St Expeditus was the patron saint of   
   traders in the early Middle Ages. In Germany in the 1700’s St   
   Expeditus was pictured as an old man with a white beard (symbolising   
   wisdom) near a clock with the inscription “hodie” (“today” in Latin).   
   In the rest of the world, he is depicted as a young Roman soldier with   
   a palm frond in his left hand and tramples a black crow that shouts   
   “cras” (“tomorrow” in Latin) and holding a crucifix in his right hand   
   which has the word “hodie” on it.   
      
   Tradition has it that one day, while thinking about embracing the   
   Lord, the devil appeared to him in the form of a black crow, with the   
   intention of delaying his conversion as long as possible. The bird   
   squawked saying “cras, cras” but the devil failed, because Expeditus   
   realising it, roared angrily and stomped on the bird while yelling   
   “Hodie, hodie” “Today, today!” I will not leave anything for   
   tomorrow, starting now I will be Christian. I will become a Christian   
   today, because tomorrow I could be dead and may forfeit my chance at   
   salvation. He immediately found a group of Christians who welcomed him   
   into their community and baptised him into the faith.   
      
   https://anastpaul.com/2019/04/19/   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   If we try to escape sadness by seeking our consolation in sleep, we   
   will fail to find what we are seeking, for we will lose in sleep the   
   consolation we might have received from God if we had stayed awake and   
   prayed.   
   --St. Thomas More   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried.   
   But we, we thought of him as someone punished, struck by God, and   
   brought low. Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for   
   our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through   
   his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5 )   
      
      
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   O my Jesus ! how do I behold Thee weighed down with sorrow and sadness   
   ! Ah, too much reason hast Thou to think that while Thou dost suffer   
   even to die of anguish upon this wood, there are yet so few souls that   
   have the heart to love Thee! O my God! how many hearts are there at   
   the present moment, even among those that are consecrated to Thee, who   
   either love Thee not, or love Thee not enough! O beautiful flame of   
   love, thou that didst consume the life of a God upon the cross, oh,   
   consume me too; consume all the disorderly affections which live in my   
   heart, and make me live burning and sighing only for that loving Lord   
   of mine, who, for love of me, was willing to end his life, consumed by   
   torments, upon a gibbet of ignominy! O my beloved Jesus! I wish ever   
   to love Thee, and Thee alone, alone ; my only wish is to love my love,   
   my God, my all.   
   --From The Passion And Death Of Jesus Christ, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)