From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Great Longing   
      
      My soul pines for your salvation. This kind of pining is right, for   
   it is the sign of desire for a good not yet obtained but longed for   
   with great eagerness and intensity. Who is speaking if not the chosen   
   race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people God has   
   claimed as his own? From the beginning of the human race until the end   
   of the world, in the person of those who at their various times have   
   lived, are alive now or will live on earth, this people longs for   
   Christ.   
      Thus the earlier ages of the Church, before Christ was born of the   
   Virgin, produced saints who longed for his coming in the flesh, but   
   the saints of this present age that began after his ascension into   
   heaven long for him to appear as judge of the living and the dead.   
   This yearning on the part of the Church has never known the slightest   
   diminishment from the beginning until the end of the ages, except   
   during the time that Christ lived with his disciples in the flesh.   
   Therefore we may fittingly understand the cry My soul pines for your   
   salvation and I hope in your word to be uttered by the whole body of   
   Christ as it groans in this life. His word is his promise. Buoyed by   
   this hope, we look forward to it in patience, not yet seeing but   
   believing.   
   --St. Augustine of Hippo   
      
   ===================   
   October 16th – St. Gerard Majella, Thaumaturge   
   (1726-1755)   
      
   Saint Gerard Majella is known as a Thaumaturge, a Saint who works   
   miracles not just occasionally, but as a matter of course. It has been   
   said that God raises up not more than one every century. He was born   
   in Italy at Muro Lucano, south of Naples, in 1726. As a child of 5,   
   when he would go to pray before a statue of the Virgin with her Child,   
   the Infant Jesus regularly descended to give him a little white bun.   
   He took it home and naively told his mother, when she asked him, where   
   he obtained it. His sister was sent to the church to observe in   
   secret, and saw the miracle for herself. He wanted very much to   
   receive Holy Communion at the age of 7 and went to the Communion   
   railing one day with the others; but the priest, seeing his age,   
   passed him up; and he went back to his place in tears. The following   
   night, Saint Michael the Archangel brought him the Communion he so   
   much desired.   
      
   As he grew older, when anyone spoke to him about marriage, he would   
   answer: “The Madonna has ravished my heart, and I have made Her a   
   present of it.” He desired to enter religion, but his health was   
   unstable as a result of the mortifications he had constantly practiced   
   as a young man. He had acquired a reputation of sanctity, and finally,   
   when he was 23 years old, he obtained the aid of some missionaries to   
   second his request, and was admitted as a Coadjutor of the newly   
   founded Congregation of Redemptorists, in 1749.   
      
   He showed himself to be a model of every virtue and he did the work of   
   four, still finding time to take on himself that of others. He would   
   say: “Let me do it, I am younger, take a rest.” He made the heroic vow   
   of always choosing what appeared to him most perfect. He was perfectly   
   obedient to his superior’s wishes, even when not expressed; and one   
   day, to demonstrate this to a visiting authority who required a proof,   
   his immediate Superior sent him out, saying: “I will tell him   
   interiorly to return; he needs no other command than this.” Soon the   
   Brother knocked on the door once more and said: “You sent for me to   
   come back?” He conducted a group of students on a nine-day pilgrimage   
   to Mount Gargano, where the Archangel Michael had appeared. They had   
   very little money for the trip, and when they arrived at the site,   
   there was none left. Gerard went before the tabernacle and told Our   
   Lord that it was His responsibility to take care of the little group.   
   He had been observed in the church by a religious, who invited the   
   Saint and his companions to lodge in his residence. When the party was   
   ready to start home again, Gerard prayed once more, and immediately   
   someone appeared and gave him a roll of bills.   
      
   The most famous of Saint Gerard’s miracles occurred when a mason fell   
   from a scaffolding during the construction of a building. Gerard had   
   been forbidden by his Superior to work any more miracles without   
   permission. He stopped the man in mid-air, telling him to wait until   
   he had obtained permission to save him. He received it, and the man   
   descended gently to the ground. When a plague broke out, he had the   
   gift of bilocation; he was seen in more than one house at the same   
   time, assisting the sick. Not a page of his life, it is said, was   
   without prodigies, all tending to the glory of God and motivated by   
   prodigious charity towards his neighbor. He was condemned falsely at   
   one time, as a result of a connivance between two individuals; the   
   Superior General, Saint Alphonsus Liguori himself, who did not know   
   Gerard personally, was induced to believe the black calumny. Later the   
   guilty ones wrote him a letter confessing their fault, and Gerard, who   
   had said nothing at all when relegated into solitude, was asked why he   
   had not said he was innocent. He replied that the Rule required that   
   the religious not defend themselves.   
      
   He died in 1755 at the age of 29 years, was beatified in 1893 by Pope   
   Leo XIII and canonized in 1904 by Saint Pius X.   
      
   Source: Biography of St. Gerard Majella, text by A. R. Levebvre, in Un   
   Saint pour chaque jour du mois (Paris: 1932), Vol. 10, October.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer   
   suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy. Prayer   
   draws into the soul the Holy Spirit, and raises man to Heaven.   
   -- Saint Ephraem of Syria   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   What great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our   
   God is to us whenever we call to him?    (Deuteronomy 4:7 )   
      
      
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   To the Holy Archangel Who Strengthened Our Lord in His Agony   
      
   I salute thee, holy Angel who didst comfort my Jesus in His   
   agony, and with thee I praise the most holy Trinity for having   
   chosen thee from among all the holy Angels to comfort and   
   strengthen Him who is the comfort and strength of all that   
   are in affliction. By the honor thou didst enjoy and by the   
   obedience, humility and love wherewith thou didst assist the   
   sacred Humanity of Jesus, my Savior, when He was fainting   
   for very sorrow at seeing the sins of the world and   
   especially my sins, I beseech thee to obtain for me perfect   
   sorrow for my sins; deign to strengthen me In the afflictions   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)