From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How we must put our Whole Trust in God: [I]   
      
   CHRIST:   
    My son let My will be your guide. I know what is best for you. Your   
   mind is but human and your judgement often influenced by personal   
   considerations.   
   THE D I S C I P L E:   
    Lord, this is true, and Your providence will order my life better   
   than I can myself: most insecure is the man who does not put all his   
   trust in You. (1Pet. 5:7) Lord, keep my will steadfast and true to   
   You, and do with me whatever is Your pleasure; for all is good that   
   comes to me by Your will.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 17   
      
      
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   April 12th - St. Julius, Pope and Confessor   
      
   HE was a Roman, and chosen pope on the 6th of February, in 337. The   
   Arian bishops in the East sent to him 3 deputies to accuse St.   
   Athanasius, the zealous patriarch of Alexandria. These informations,   
   as the order of justice required, Julius imparted to Athanasius, who   
   thereupon sent his deputies to Rome; when, upon an impartial hearing,   
   the advocates of the heretics were confounded, and silenced, upon   
   every article of their accusation. The Arians then demanded a council,   
   and the pope assembled one in Rome, in 341, at which appeared St.   
   Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and other orthodox prelates, who   
   entreated the pope that he would cite their adversaries to appear.   
   Julius accordingly sent them an order to repair to Rome within a   
   limited time. They, instead of obeying, held a pretended council at   
   Antioch, in 341, in which they presumed to appoint one Gregory an   
   impious Arian, bishop of Alexandria, detained the pope’s legates   
   beyond the time mentioned for their appearance; and then wrote to his   
   holiness, alleging a pretended impossibility of their appearing, on   
   account of the Persian war and other impediments. The pope easily saw   
   through these pretences, and, in a council at Rome, examined the cause   
   of St. Athanasius, declared him innocent of the things laid to his   
   charge by the Arians, and confirmed him in his see. He also acquitted   
   Marcellus of Ancyra, upon his orthodox profession of faith. “Julius,   
   by virtue of the prerogative of his see, sent the bishops into the   
   East, with letters full of vigour, restoring to each of them his see,”   
   says Socrates. [1] “For, because the care of all belonged to him, by   
   the dignity of his see, he restored to every one his church.” as   
   Sozomen writes. [2]   
      
    He drew up and sent by Count Gabian, to the Oriental Eusebian   
   bishops, who had first demanded a council, and then refused to appear   
   in it, an excellent letter, which Tillemont calls one of the finest   
   monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity. In it we admire an   
   extraordinary genius, and solid judgment, but, far more, an apostolic   
   vigour and resolution tempered with charity and meekness. “If,” says   
   he, “they (Athanasius and Marcellus) had been guilty, ye should have   
   written to us all, that judgment might have been given by all: for   
   they were bishops and churches that suffered, and these not common   
   churches, but the same that the apostles themselves had governed. Why   
   did they not write to us especially concerning the church of   
   Alexandria? Are you ignorant, that it is the custom to write to us   
   immediately, and that the decision ought to come from hence? In case   
   therefore that the bishop of that see lay under any suspicions, ye   
   ought to have written to our church. But now, without having sent us   
   any information on the subject, and having acted just as ye thought   
   proper, ye require of us to approve your measures, without sending us   
   any account of the reasons of your proceedings. These are not the   
   ordinances of Paul, this is not the tradition of our fathers; this is   
   an unprecedented sort of conduct.—I declare to you what we have   
   learned from the blessed Apostle Peter, and I believe it so well known   
   to every body, that I should not have mentioned it, had not this   
   happened.” [3]   
      
    Finding the Eusebians still obstinate, he moved Constans, emperor of   
   the West, to demand the concurrence of his brother Constantius in the   
   assembling of a general council at Sardica, in Illyricum. This was   
   opened in May, 347, [4] and was a general synod, as Baronius and   
   Natalis Alexander demonstrate; but is joined as an appendix to the   
   council of Nice, because it only confirmed its decrees of faith. This   
   council declared St. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra orthodox and   
   innocent, deposed certain Arian bishops, and framed 21 canons of   
   discipline. The first of these forbids the translation of bishops;   
   for, if frequently made, it opens a door to let ambition and   
   covetousness into the sanctuary, of which Eusebius of Nicomedia was a   
   scandalous instance. The 3rd, 4th, and 7th agree, that any bishop   
   deposed by a synod in his province has a right to appeal to the bishop   
   of Rome. St. Julius sat 15 years, 2 months, and 6 days, dying on the   
   12th of April, 352.   
      
   See St. Athanasius, Hist. Arianorum ad Monachos, t. 1, p. 349, et   
   Apolog. contra Arianos, p. 142, 199; Tillemont, t. 7, p. 278; Fleury,   
   t. 3; Ceillier, t. 4, p. 484; see also the letter of Julius to   
   Prosdocius, with remarks; and his letter to the church of Alexandria,   
   with the notes of Muratori, &c., in the second tome of the new   
   complete edition of the Councils, printed at Venice in 1759.1   
      
   Note 1. Socr. b. 2, c. 15.   
   Note 2. Soz. b. 3, c. 7; Fleury, l. 12, Hist. n. 20, t. 3, p. 310.   
   Note 3. See this letter inserted entire by St. Athanasius in his   
   Apology, p. 141.   
   Note 4. See Mansi in Suppl. Concil. t. 1, where he shows, in a   
   particular Dissertation, that the council of Sardica was not held in   
   347, as most modern historians imagine, but in 344, and rectifies the   
   history of it from 3 letters which he first published.   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   But I have cried to God: and the Lord will save me. Evening and   
   morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and He shall hear my   
   voice: He shall redeem my soul in peace from them that draw near to   
   me...   (Psalm liv, 17-19 )   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Obedience is, without doubt, more meritorious than any austerity. And   
   what greater austerity can be thought of than that of keeping one's   
   will constantly submissive and obedient?   
   --St. Catherine of Bologna   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   (Three Ejaculations to obtain the grace of a Happy Death)   
      
   Jesus, Mary, Joseph,   
   I offer you my heart and my soul.   
      
   Jesus, Mary, Joseph,   
   assist me in my last agony.   
      
   Jesus, Mary, Joseph,   
   may I breathe forth my soul with you in peace.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)