From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Preparation for Communion   
      
   THE DISCIPLE.   
    Lord, when I consider Thy dignity and my own wretchedness, I am full   
   of fear and confusion. For if I do not receive Thee, I refuse life;   
   and if I intrude myself unworthily, I incur Thy displeasure. What,   
   then, shall I do, my God, my Helper, my Counselor in need? Show me the   
   right way, and set before me some short exercise, suitable for Holy   
   Communion. I must learn to prepare my heart for Thee devoutly and   
   reverently, both for the fruitful receiving of Thy Sacrament, and for   
   the right offering of so august and divine a Sacrifice.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Book 4 Ch.6   
      
      
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   June 2nd - Saint Photinus of Lyons   
   Also known as Pothin, Pothinus   
      
   After a miraculous victory obtained by the prayers of a Christian   
   legion under Marcus Aurelius in 174, the Church was enjoying a kind of   
   peace, which was nonetheless often disturbed in various places by   
   popular commotions, or by the superstitious fury of pagan governors.   
   These factors become evident in the persecution which was raised at   
   Vienne and Lyons in 177, three years after the victory of the legion.   
   Saint Pothinus was then Bishop of Lyons, and Saint Irenaeus, still a   
   young priest, had recently come to Lyons with several other   
   Christians, sent from Asia Minor by Saint Polycarp; soon Irenaeus   
   would replace Saint Pothinus.   
      
   The Christians of the region were forbidden to frequent the baths and   
   the forum, and they were tracked everywhere, becoming the subject of   
   popular uprisings, stonings, outrages and imprisonments. A justly   
   famous letter attributed to Saint Irenaeus, addressed by the churches   
   of Lyons and Vienne to their mother-church in Asia, narrates in detail   
   the martyrdom of these heroic Christians. The citations which follow   
   are from that letter.   
      
   Many of the principal Christians were brought before the Roman   
   governor. “Saint Pothinus himself was ninety years old, weak and   
   infirm; in fact he could scarcely talk, but his zeal and desire for   
   martyrdom sustained him. He was taken, or rather carried, to the   
   tribunal amidst insults... The governor asked him who the god of the   
   Christians was: “You will know Him if you are worthy of it,” he   
   replied. The multitude became furious; those around him struck him   
   with their hands and feet, showing no respect for his age; those   
   farther away threw at him everything they could find, imagining they   
   were avenging their gods. The holy bishop scarcely had a breath of   
   life left when he was thrown into prison, where he expired soon   
   afterwards.”   
      
   With Attalus, a deacon “who was always the pillar and support of our   
   church,” three martyrs were subjected to cruel torture for two days in   
   the amphitheatre, as “a diversion for the people.” One was a young   
   slave, Blandina; her mistress, also a Christian, feared she would lack   
   strength to brave the torture. But when she was tormented, suspended   
   from a cross, tossed about by a bull, she bore it all with joy, until   
   the executioners gave up, confessing themselves outdone. She was the   
   last one to die after a glorious combat. The letter says: “Like a   
   generous mother who, having inspired her children during the combat,   
   has sent them victorious ahead of her to the King of Glory, she was   
   rejoicing at being about to join them in the heavens. She bore the   
   series of tortures with so radiant a joy, that one would have said she   
   was invited to a wedding feast rather than condemned to the lions...”   
      
   “Human language could not describe the tortures that the Saints were   
   made to endure, in the hope of making them admit the impious things we   
   were charged with.” They had been accused of eating human flesh.   
   Red-hot plates were held to the sides of Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne,   
   until his body became one great sore, and he no longer looked like a   
   man; but amidst his tortures he said to his tormentors that it was   
   such torments which consumed human flesh, whereas Christians did no   
   harm to their fellow men. The letter says he was “strengthened by the   
   stream of heavenly water which flows from the side of Christ.”   
      
   In the meantime, many confessors were kept in prison, and among them   
   were some who had been terrified into apostasy. Even the pagans could   
   perceive in the Christians the joy of martyrdom, contrasting with the   
   misery of the apostates. But the faithful confessors brought back all   
   but one of those who had fallen, and the Church rejoiced when she saw   
   her children live again in Christ. Some died in prison, the rest were   
   martyred one by one, giving their God their blood in loving exchange   
   for His.   
      
   Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul   
   Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882)   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Anxiety proceeds from an ill-regulated desire to be delivered from the   
   evil we experience, or to acquire the good to which we aspire;   
   nevertheless, nothing aggravates evil and hinders good so much as   
   anxiety and worry.   
   --St Francis de Sales   
      
   Bible quote:   
   Unless you do penance, you will all perish. (Luke 13:3)   
      
      
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   PRAYER OF ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX   
      
   Jesus, Who in Thy bitter passion did become "the reproach of   
   men and the Man of Sorrows", I venerate Thy Holy Face on   
   which shone the beauty and gentleness of Divinity. In those   
   disfigured features I recognize Thine infinite love, and I long   
   to love Thee and to make Thee loved. May I behold Thy   
   glorious Face in Heaven! Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)