From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Judgment and the Punishment of Sin  (1)   
      
      IN ALL things consider the end; how you shall stand before the   
   strict Judge from Whom nothing is hidden and Who will pronounce   
   judgment in all justice, accepting neither bribes nor excuses. And   
   you, miserable and wretched sinner, who fear even the countenance of   
   an angry man, what answer will you make to the God Who knows all your   
   sins? Why do you not provide for yourself against the day of judgment   
   when no man can be excused or defended by another because each will   
   have enough to do to answer for himself? In this life your work is   
   profitable, your tears acceptable, your sighs audible, your sorrow   
   satisfying and purifying.   
   --Thomas A Kempis--Imitation of Christ, Bk 1 Ch 24   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   March 2nd - Bl. Fulco of Neuilly   
   (also know as "Fulke," "Foulque," "Foulques," "Folco," etc., and as   
   "de Neuilly")   
   d. 1201   
      
   THE early life of this great preacher, whose activities seem to have   
   centred in the north of France, is said to have been by no means free   
   from reproach, but after a serious conversion he set about his   
   priestly duties at Neuilly-sur-Marne with fervour and success. His   
   sermons, delivered with intense enthusiasm in a simple, popular style,   
   attracted hearers from far and near, and soon he began to undertake   
   missionary journeys through Normandy, Picardy and Burgundy, fearlessly   
   de­nouncing the evils of the time and bringing numberless sinners to   
   repentance. The general licence of manners and the extortions of   
   usurers formed the theme of his discourses, and he had often to pay   
   the penalty of the freedom with which he spoke. He was more than once   
   thrown into prison, but escaped miraculously (?) from custody, and was   
   reputed to have a strange knowledge of men’s thoughts and to have   
   worked innumerable cures upon those who had recourse to him in their   
   infirmities. A remarkable feature in his apostolic career, considering   
   the ideas of the age in which he lived, was his repudiation of any   
   conspicuous practice of asceticism. Ralph Coggeshall, the English   
   chronicler, records that he took his night’s rest like other people,   
   attempted no unusual fasts and accepted grate­fully any food that was   
   set before him. It may have been this which at a later date started   
   rumours unfavourable to his disinterestedness. In certain comments of   
   the worthy Cardinal James de Vitry we seem to find the echo of some   
   such gossip.   
      
   All the chroniclers, however, are agreed that Fulco never flattered   
   and was no respecter of persons. According to Roger Hoveden it was he   
   who told King Richard Coeur-de-Lion that unless he married off his   
   three disreputable daughters, he would certainly come to a bad end.   
   When Richard exclaimed in a fury that the words proved his censor to   
   be a hypocrite and an impostor, for he had no daughters, the holy man   
   answered, “Yes, but indeed you have three daughters, and I will tell   
   you their names. The first is called Pride, the second Avarice and the   
   third Lust.”   
      
   The fame of the French priest’s missionary labours attracted the   
   notice of Pope Innocent III, and in the year 1198 he commissioned   
   Fulco to preach the new Crusade, accounted the Fourth, throughout the   
   northern part of France. His eloquence had already produced marvellous   
   effects, and if we may credit his own statement, as reported by   
   Coggeshall, 200,000 people in the course of three years had taken the   
   cross at his hands. Fulco was himself to have joined in the   
   expedi­tion, but before starting he fell ill and died on March 2,   
   1201. His tomb was still venerated at Neuilly-sur-Marne in the 18th   
   century. The cultus formerly paid to him seems never to have been   
   authoritatively confirmed.   
      
   Contemporary chroniclers, such e.g. as Roger Hoveden, Rigord and Ralph   
   Coggeshall, as well as the later Jordan, provide a good deal of   
   information about Fulco. See also Raynald’s continuation of Baronius’s   
   Annales Ecclesiastici, s.a. 1198, nn. 38-42. A letter addressed by   
   Innocent III to “Brother Fulco” is printed in his Regesta (Migne, PL.,   
   ccxiv, 375), but there seems no evidence that the preacher belonged to   
   any religious order.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not   
   depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect.   
   Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus   
   alone.   
   --St. Frances Xavier Cabrini   
      
   Bible Quote   
   "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which   
   endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto   
   you: for him hath God the Father sealed."  (John 6:27)  DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Angels--Their Nine Choirs--The Virtues   
      
   The Second of the Regulative Choirs of the Holy Angels is called the   
   Virtues. They represent unshaken fortitude in the cause of God. Among   
   the Saints on earth, the Martyrs represent their spirit of undaunted   
   courage in the cause of God. The Apostles after the Resurrection were   
   endowed with it. All those who boldly confess Christ before men, or   
   endure shame for His sake, share the same spirit. Am I one of these   
   brave soldiers of Jesus, or do I play the coward from fear of man and   
   human respect?   
      
   The office of the Virtues is to be the instruments through which God   
   works His miracles. They have the arrangement and control of them   
   committed to their hands. Unshaken fortitude is the characteristic of   
   all who work miracles in God's name. Hence the miraculous power of   
   Eliseus, St. Paul, St. Francis Xavier, and others. If I am to do great   
   things for God, I must be brave, I must deny myself, I must not yield   
   to human respect.   
      
   The Virtues among the Angelic hosts have also the task of dispensing   
   the graces of God, which make difficult things easy. How wonderful is   
   the power of God's grace! Suffering and persecution, and even death   
   itself become sweet to those, who have the grace of God aiding and   
   consoling them, and giving them strength to endure and filling them   
   with supernatural joy. God has always ready the grace necessary for   
   us, if we will only avail ourselves of it. Courage then, faint heart,   
   in every trial!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)