From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    The Toil of Righteousness   
      
      "Most people would desire--if it were possible--to obtain at once   
   the joys of lovely and perfect wisdom, without the endurance of toil   
   in action and suffering. However, that is impossible in this mortal   
   life.   
      In the discipline of the human, the toil of doing the work precedes   
   the delight of understanding the truth."   
   --St. Augustine--Against Faustus 22, 52   
      
   Prayer: Lord, you truly gave me free will, but without you my effort   
   is worthless. You give help since you are the one who created, and you   
   do not abandon your creation.   
   --St. Augustine--Commentary on Psalm 26 (2), 17   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   February 8th – St. Stephen (Etienne) of Grandmont (of Muret)   
      
   Born in Thiers, Auvergne, France, 1046; died 1124; canonized by Pope   
   Clement III in 1189 at the request of King Henry II of England.   
      
   Saint Stephen was the son of the virtuous viscount of Thiers. His life   
   from infancy presaged uncommon sanctity. Father Milo, then the dean of   
   the church of Paris, was appointed his tutor. At age 12, Stephen   
   accompanied his father, lord of the district, to the tomb of Saint   
   Nicholas of Bari. He fell ill at Benevento and remained there to   
   continue his education under Milo, who had become Benevento's   
   archbishop.  At the appropriate time, he ordained Stephen a deacon.   
   Following Milo's death, Stephen pursued his studies in Rome for four   
   years. In the meantime his parents died.   
      
   In 1076, on his return to France, Stephen renounced inheritance to   
   become a hermit in the mountains of Ambazac at Muret (northeast of   
   Limoges). He led an austere life, with little food or sleep for 46   
   years. He wore a metal breastplate (one of his attributes in art)   
   instead of the usual hairshirt. When he was not employed in manual   
   labor, he lay prostrate on the ground in profound adoration of the   
   majesty of God. The sweetness which he felt in divine contemplation   
   made him often forget to take any refreshment for two or three days   
   together. Stephen remained deacon throughout life, never seeking   
   presbyterial ordination.   
      
   As with many of the holiest hermits, disciples gathered about him.   
   There on the mountain-top he founded a congregation of Benedictine   
   hermit-monks using the model he observed in Calabria; thus, its rules   
   was based on his sayings. Although he was strict with himself, he was   
   mild to those under his direction, and proportioned their   
   mortifications to their strength. But he allowed no indulgence with   
   regard to the essential points of a solitary life, silence, poverty,   
   and the denial of self-will. He behaved himself among his disciples as   
   the last of them, always taking the lowest place, never suffering any   
   one to rise up to him; and while they were at table, he would seat   
   himself on the ground in the midst of them, and read to them the lives   
   of the saints. He ruled but never seems to have become a monk himself.   
      
   The order is conspicuous for its intransigent insistence on total   
   renunciation. Stephen compared monastic life to life in a prison. "If   
   you come here, you will be fixed to the cross and you will lose your   
   own power over your eyes, your mouth, and your other members. . . . If   
   you go to a large monastery with fine buildings, you will find animals   
   and vast estates; here, only poverty and the cross." To those wishing   
   to join his community, he would say: "This is a prison without either   
   door or hole whereby to return into the world, unless a person makes   
   for himself a breach. And should this misfortune befall you, I could   
   not send after you, none here having any commerce with the world any   
   more than myself."   
      
   God give Stephen the ability to read hearts. The author of his now   
   lost vita, the fourth prior Stephen de Liciaco, gives a long history   
   of miracles which he wrought. But the conversions of many obstinate   
   sinners were still more miraculous; it seemed as if no heart could   
   resist the grace which accompanied his words. Saint Stephen died at   
   Muret. In his last hours he was carried into the chapel, where he   
   heard mass, received extreme unction and the viaticum. His disciples   
   buried him privately, but news of his death drew many to his tomb,   
   which was honored by innumerable miracles.   
      
   Four months after his death, the priory of Ambazac, dependent on the   
   great Benedictine abbey of St. Austin, in Limoges, put in a claim to   
   the land of Muret. The disciples of the holy man immediately gave up   
   the ground without any contention, and retired to Grandmont, taking   
   Stephen's remains with them. It is from this site that the   
   congregation received the name Grandmontines.   
      
   With its austere rule it never became widespread; however, the   
   successors to Stephen's spirit gained the admiration of many. Abbot   
   Peter of Celles, calls them angels, and testifies that he placed an   
   extraordinary confidence in their prayers (Epistle 8). John of   
   Salisbury, a contemporary author, represents them as men who, being   
   raised above the necessities of life, had conquered not only   
   sensuality and avarice, but even nature itself (Poly. l. 7, c. 23).   
      
   The rule of the Grandmontines consists of seventy-five chapters....   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   We must faithfully keep what we have promised. If through human   
   weakness we fail, we must always without delay arise again by means of   
   holy penance, and give our attention to leading a good life and to   
   dying a holy death. May the Father of all mercy, the Son by his holy   
   passion, and the Holy Spirit, source of peace, sweetness and love,   
   fill us with their consolation. Amen.   
   -- Saint Colette of Corbie   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the   
   goodness of the Lord In the land of the living."  [Psalm 27:13]   
      
      
   Hear us    
      
   Hear us, Lord, holy Father,   
   almighty and eternal God; and   
   graciously send your holy angel from   
   heaven to watch over, to cherish, to   
   protect, to abide with, and to defend all   
   who dwell in this house. Through   
   Christ our Lord. Amen    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)