From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Be found a wise and faithful servant   
      
   Be careful to be found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate   
   the heavenly to your fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not   
   take up the vain excuse of your rawness of inexperience which you may   
   imagine or assume. For sterile modesty is never pleasing, not that   
   humility laudable which passes the bounds of reason. Attend to your   
   work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as a master.   
   But I am not sufficient for these things, you say. As if your offering   
   were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not.   
   Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge,   
   and take no thought for the test. For he that is unjust in the least   
   is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the   
   uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have, not what you   
   have not.   
   --St. Bernard of Clairvaux   
      
   ==============   
   April 19th - Blessed Bernard of Sithiu   
   (Also known as Bernard of Maguellone, Bernard the Penitent)   
      
   NOTHING is known of the early years of this Bernard except that he was   
   born in the diocese of Maguelone in Provence, and even his   
   contemporary biographer could never ascertain of what crimes he had   
   been guilty beyond his participation in a rising which had resulted in   
   the death of an unpopular governor. We have, however, the exact   
   wording of the certificate which he obtained from his bishop before   
   entering upon his penitential life.   
      
   John, by the grace of God Bishop of Maguelone, to all the pastors and   
   faithful of the Catholic Church, eternal salvation in the Lord. Be it   
   known to you all that in expiation of the horrible crimes committed by   
   him, we have imposed upon Bernard, the bearer of this present letter,   
   the following penance. He is to go barefoot for seven years: he is not   
   to wear a shirt for the rest of his life:  he is to observe the forty   
   days before the Birthday of our Saviour like a Lenten fast: he is to   
   abstain from meat and fat on Wednesdays and from everything but bread   
   and a little wine on Fridays. On the Fridays of Lent and Embertide he   
   shall drink nothing but water, and on all Saturdays which are not   
   great festivals he shall take no meat or fat unless illness requires   
   it. Therefore we ask you of your charity in Jesus Christ, for the   
   redemption of your souls and in a spirit of compassion, to give to   
   this very poor penitent the necessary food and clothing and to shorten   
   his penance so far as reason may allow. Given at Maguelone in the year   
   of the Incarnation of our Lord 1170 in the month of October. In force   
   for seven years only.   
      
   In the garb of a penitent and loaded with heavy iron fetters, Bernard   
   undertook a number of pilgrimages, during which he endured and even   
   courted hardships of all sorts. Three times, it is said, he visited   
   Jerusalem, and once went as far as India to implore the intercession   
   of St. Thomas. At last one day when he arrived at Saint-Omer, it was   
   revealed to him that his travels were now to cease. A generous citizen   
   gave him a little house abutting on the monastery of Saint-Bertin, and   
   the monks allowed him access at all hours to their church. He was   
   always the first at the night offices and he would stand bare-legged   
   and barefooted on the stone flags even in the depth of winter when his   
   flesh was cracked and frozen with the cold. He loved to make himself   
   useful by nursing the poor or by cleaning the churches. Bernard came   
   to be a familiar and popular figure as he passed through the streets   
   on his errands of mercy, replying to all greetings with the words,   
   “God grant us all a good end”. The time came when he ventured to ask   
   the monks to give him the habit, and they welcomed him, for they   
   regarded him as a saint. Towards the end of his life he was endowed   
   with the gift of prophecy and many miracles were attributed to him;   
   and after his death the church was thronged by such crowds that the   
   monks had the utmost difficulty in proceeding with the funeral:   
   everyone was begging for some fragment of his garments or for   
   something he had used. Bl. Bernard’s biographer testifies that he had   
   been an eye-witness of many of the wonderful cures which he relates.   
      
   This life printed in the Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. ii, purports to   
   have been written by one John, a monk of the abbey of Saint-Bertin.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   If we try to escape sadness by seeking our consolation in sleep, we   
   will fail to find what we are seeking, for we will lose in sleep the   
   consolation we might have received from God if we had stayed awake and   
   prayed.   
   --St. Thomas More   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried.   
   But we, we thought of him as someone punished, struck by God, and   
   brought low. Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for   
   our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through   
   his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5 )   
      
      
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   O my Jesus ! how do I behold Thee weighed down with sorrow and sadness   
   ! Ah, too much reason hast Thou to think that while Thou dost suffer   
   even to die of anguish upon this wood, there are yet so few souls that   
   have the heart to love Thee! O my God! how many hearts are there at   
   the present moment, even among those that are consecrated to Thee, who   
   either love Thee not, or love Thee not enough! O beautiful flame of   
   love, thou that didst consume the life of a God upon the cross, oh,   
   consume me too; consume all the disorderly affections which live in my   
   heart, and make me live burning and sighing only for that loving Lord   
   of mine, who, for love of me, was willing to end his life, consumed by   
   torments, upon a gibbet of ignominy! O my beloved Jesus! I wish ever   
   to love Thee, and Thee alone, alone ; my only wish is to love my love,   
   my God, my all.   
   --From The Passion And Death Of Jesus Christ, by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)