From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Ardent Desire for the Body of Christ  [II]   
      
   O, how true was their burning faith -- in itself a true and evident   
   token of Your divine Presence! For they truly know their Lord in the   
   Breaking of Bread, whose hearts burn so ardently when Jesus walks with   
   them. (Luke 24:32) Alas, such devotion and affection, such unfeigned   
   love and fervour is seldom felt by me. O good and kind Jesus, have   
   mercy on me and grant me Your poor mendicant at least sometimes to   
   feel a measure of this heartfelt desire of Your love in sacred   
   Communion, that my faith may be strengthened, that my hope in Your   
   goodness may be fostered and that love once perfectly kindled, having   
   tasted the Bread of Heaven, may never fail. Your mercy, O Lord, is   
   boundless enough to grant me even this favour from which I long and   
   when it shall please You, I pray to You For Your grace and generosity   
   to visit me with the spirit of fervour. For though I do not burn with   
   so ardent a desire as those who are so supremely devoted to You, yet   
   by Your grace I do long to have that great and burning desire and I   
   beg and pray that I may have a part with all Your true lovers and be   
   numbered in their holy company.   
   --Thomas à Kempis--Imitation of Christ Book 4 Ch. 14   
      
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   March 24th – Saint Catherine of Sweden   
    (Also known as   
   Catherine Vastanensis   
   Catherine of Vadstena   
   Katarina av Vadstena)   
      
   Born at Ulfasa, Sweden, in 1331; died March 24, 1381; cultus approved   
   in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII.   
      
   Fourth of the 8 children of Saint Bridget and her husband, Ulf   
   Gudmarsson of Nierck, Saint Catherine was sent to Risberg Convent to   
   be educated at a very young age. She wished to remain in the convent   
   to pursue a religious vocation, but she was married at age 13 or 14 to   
   Eggard (Edgard) Lydersson von Kürnen, a lifelong invalid and   
   long-suffering man. She and Eggard took a vow to remain celibate and   
   she tended to him with great devotion. He allowed her to do anything   
   she pleased under the direction of the Church.   
      
   Catherine grew extremely sad when her father died and Saint Bridget   
   went to live in Rome. For a time (as she herself told Saint Catherine   
   of Siena), she never smiled. In 1349, Eggard permitted Catherine to   
   travel to Rome to visit her mother during the Jubilee of 1350. While   
   in Rome she learned of her husband's death, which Saint Bridget had   
   prophesied. (Farmer says that she returned to Sweden and nursed her   
   husband until his death.) Even then she was for some time extremely   
   unhappy, because Rome in the 14th century was a dissolute place and   
   her mother would not let her go out.   
      
   From the time of her husband's death, she lived the life of devotion   
   that she had desired, refusing persistent suitors who wished to marry   
   the beautiful young widow. Some of them even lay in wait for her to   
   carry her off. One was distracted when a hart ran by just as Bridget   
   and Catherine passed. Others, it is said, were blinded. To try to   
   repulse such suitors, and also as an act of humility, Catherine always   
   went about in the most ragged and threadbare clothing.   
      
   Soon Catherine was her mother's devoted, reliable, and constant   
   assistant, and served her for the next 25 years. In 1372, she and her   
   mother made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, returning by way of Rome,   
   where Saint Bridget died the following year. Catherine returned with   
   her mother's body to Sweden and there she became abbess of the convent   
   of Vadstena, founded by her mother, and the motherhouse of the   
   Bridgettine (Salvatorian) Order.   
      
   Now followed intense work to promote the Bridgettine Order. Bound   
   together in double monasteries, men and women pledged themselves to   
   live in poverty, save for the right to buy as many books as they   
   needed for study and devotion   
      
   In 1375, she returned to Rome to win papal approval for the order. She   
   succeeded in getting Urban VI's approval but failed in bringing about   
   the canonization of her mother. She died soon after her return from   
   Rome. Her vita was written by Ulpho, a Brigittine friar, thirty years   
   after her death (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney,   
   Encyclopedia, Husenbeth, White).   
      
   In art, Saint Catherine is commonly depicted as a Bridgettine abbess   
   with a hind, which, according to legend, protected her from harm on   
   many occasions, including attacks on her chastity (Roeder, White). She   
   may also be shown (1) holding a lily; (2) dressing a poor man's   
   wounds; or (3) as the Blessed Sacrament is brought to her after her   
   death (Roeder).   
      
   Saint Catherine's patronage is invoked as protection against abortion,   
   perhaps because of the chastity of her life (White).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "The Just Judge will give you the rewards of your patience and will   
   punish your adversaries with what they deserve.  He sits at the door   
   where he can watch everything you do, and he will come quickly to give   
   each one whatever he or she deserves."   
   --The Venerable Bede   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   And from a violent heart come violent actions.   
      
   He sits in ambush in the villages;   
       in hiding places he murders the innocent.   
   His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;   
       he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;   
       he lurks that he may seize the poor;   
       he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.   
   The helpless are crushed, sink down,   
       and fall by his might. (Ps. 10:8-10)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   "To you, O Master, who loves all mankind   
   I hasten on rising from sleep.   
   By your mercy I go out to do your work   
   and I make my prayer to you.   
   Help me at all times and in all things.   
   Deliver me from every evil thing of this world   
   and from pursuit by the devil.   
   Save me and bring me to your eternal kingdom,   
   For you are my Creator,   
   You inspire all good thoughts in me.   
   In you is all my hope and to you I give glory,   
   now and forever."   
   --Saint Macarius   
      
   Piously baptized Christopher in Constantinople, he took the name   
   Macarius upon becoming a monk at Pelekete nearby. Eventually he was   
   elected abbot and became known for the miracles he wrought. He died   
   on Aphusia Island, Bithynia, on August 18, c. 830.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)