From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    -- Proverbs 29:1 –    
      
   A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes   
   will suddenly be destroyed without remedy.   
   -----------------------------------------------------------   
   Making the same mistake over and over is an invitation to disaster.   
   Eventually people have to face the consequences of refusing to learn.   
   If their mistake is refusing God's invitations or rejecting his   
   commands, the consequences will be especially serious. In the end, God   
   may have to turn them away. May sure you are not stiff-necked.   
      
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   March 18th - St. Edward The Martyr   
   Also known as   
   Edward II   
   Memorial   
   18 March   
   20 June (translation of relics)   
      
   d. 979   
      
   ST EDWARD was the son of King Edgar, sovereign of all the English, by   
   his first wife, Ethelfleda, who did not long survive the birth of her   
   son; he was baptized by St. Dunstan, then archbishop of Canterbury.   
   After Edgar’s death a party sought to set aside Edward in favour of   
   Ethelred, a boy hardly ten years old, who was Edgar’s son by his   
   second queen, Elfrida. Edward himself was but a youth when he came to   
   the throne, and his reign lasted a brief three years. The guidance of   
   St. Dunstan was unable to commend him to the disaffected thegns, for   
   which the young king’s violent temper was perhaps partly responsible.   
   The chroniclers, who are all agreed that he was murdered, are not in   
   accord as to the actual perpetrator of the deed, but William of   
   Malmesbury claims to describe the crime in detail. He tells us that,   
   from the moment of Edward’s accession, his stepmother had sought an   
   opportunity to slay him. One day, after hunting in Dorsetshire, the   
   king, who was weary and wished to see his little stepbrother, of whom   
   he was fond, determined to visit Corfe Castle, the residence of   
   Elfrida, which was close at hand. Apprised of his arrival, the queen   
   went out to meet him and noticed that he was alone, having outstripped   
   his companions and attendants. She feigned pleasure at seeing him and   
   ordered a cup to be brought to allay his thirst. As he drank, Elfrida   
   made a sign to one of her servants, who stabbed the young king with a   
   dagger. Although Edward immediately set spurs to his horse and tried   
   to regain his escort, he slipped from the saddle, his foot caught in   
   the stirrup, and he was dragged along till he died.   
      
   “This year”, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 979, “was King   
   Edward slain at eventide at Corfe-gate, and was buried at Wareham   
   without any kind of kingly honours.” William of Malmesbury says that   
   Elfrida had his body thrown into a marsh, thinking thus to dispose of   
   it, but a pillar of light caused it to be discovered, and it was taken   
   up and buried in the church at Wareham. His relics were afterwards   
   removed to Shaftesbury. Elfrida herself was in the end seized with   
   remorse for her crime and, retiring from the world, she built the   
   monasteries of Amesbury and Wherwell, in the latter of which she died.   
      
   The earliest account of the murder attributes it to Ethelred’s   
   retainers. There is no good evidence for Queen Elfrida’s alleged part   
   in it, which is not mentioned till over a hundred years after the   
   event. Edward was a martyr only in the broad sense of one who suffers   
   an unjust death, but his cultus was considerable, encouraged by the   
   miracles reported from his tomb at Shaftesbury and his feast is still   
   observed in the diocese of Plymouth.   
      
   Our principal authorities are William of Malmesbury, Florence of   
   Worcester, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Osbern the hagiographer and,   
   earliest of all, the author of the Life of St. Oswald in the   
   Historians of the Church of York (Rolls Series), vol. i, pp. 448-452.   
   See also F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (1943), pp. 366-369; and   
   particularly K. M. Wilson, Lost Literature of Medieval England (1952),   
   pp. 111-112.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   I ought to die of shame to think I have not already died of gratitude   
   to my good God.   
   --Saint Julie Billiart   
      
   Bible Quote   
   Jesus saith to them: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone   
   which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the   
   corner? By the Lord this has been done; and it is wonderful in our   
   eyes. Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken   
   from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof.   
   And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on   
   whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.  (Matthew   
   21:42-44)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   A prayer during affliction:   
   O God! Keep me from bitterness. Tis so easy to nurse sharp   
   bitter thoughts in such dull dark hours! Against self-pity,   
   Man of Sorrows, defend me with Thy deep sweetness and   
   Thy gentle power! Help me to harvest a new sympathy for   
   suffering humanity and a wiser pity for those who lift a   
   heavier cross with Thee.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)