From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    Turn out all thoughts of doubt and fear and resentment   
      
       Turn out all thoughts of doubt and fear and resentment. Never tolerate   
   them if you can help it. Bar the windows and doors of your mind against them,   
   as you would bar your home against a thief who would steal in to take away   
   your treasures. What    
   greater treasures can you have than faith and courage and love? All these are   
   stolen from you by doubt and fear and resentment. Face each day with peace and   
   hope. They are results of true faith in God. Faith gives you a feeling of   
   protection and safety    
   that you can get in no other way.    
   -- 24 Hours a Day   
      
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   July 6th - St Godeleva, Martyr   
   d.1070   
      
   The scene of the murder of Godeleva soon had a reputation for miracles   
      
   According to the narrative written by a contemporary priest, Drogo,   
   the story of Godeleva is an example of that wanton persecution and   
   cruelty shown towards an innocent victim which is as shocking to   
   reasonable, not to say Christian, human beings as it is unexplainable;   
   no adequate motive is given or even suggested for the behaviour of the   
   offender at first, though afterwards his desire to get rid of his wife   
   is clear enough.   
      
   Godeleva was born at Londefort-lez-Boulogne about 1049, of noble   
   parentage. She grew up beautiful both in person and character, and was   
   particularly beloved by the poor, to whose welfare she constantly   
   devoted herself. At age eighteen she married a Flemish lord, Bertulf   
   of Ghistelles, who conducted his bride home, where she was received   
   with insults by his mother; apparently she had had other plans for her   
   son, and was furious that he had disregarded them in favour of this   
   girl from the Boulonnais.   
      
   Bertulf, the days of the wedding festivities yet unfinished, deserted   
   Godeleva, leaving her in charge of his mother, who was not content   
   with petty persecutions, but treated her who should have been mistress   
   of the house with fanatic brutality. She at length contrived to escape   
   and returned to her parents, who took the case to the count of   
   Flanders and the bishop of Tournai. It was ruled that Bertulf should   
   receive back his wite, and henceforward treat her properly, which he   
   promised to do.   
      
      But once she was back at Ghistelles, Bertulf was first indifferent   
   and then again openly violent to her, and to get rid of her he   
   resolved on more direct action. First of all he shammed penitence and   
   a desire for reconciliation, with the object both of averting   
   suspicion from himself and to enable him the more easily to entrap the   
   girl.   Then at the appointed time Godeleva was induced by a trick to   
   go out of the castle by a back-door at night; she was seized by two of   
   Bertulf's servants and smothered by having her head held down in a   
   pond, with a thong drawn tight round her neck.  When she was dead, the   
   ruffians replaced her body in bed, meaning it to be supposed she had   
   died a natural death.  It was obvious that she had not, but Bertulf   
   had absented himself in Bruges at the time of the crime and Godeleva's   
   parents were unable to bring it home to him. He at once married again,   
   but his wickedness haunted him, and he ended his days in a monastery   
   at Bergues-St-Winoc.   
      
      The scene of the murder of Godeleva soon had a reputation for   
   miracles, and the sudden recovery of sight by Bertulf's blind daughter   
   by his second wife was attributed to her intercession.   In 1084 her   
   body was dug up and enshrined in the church, which is still a place of   
   pilgrimage, the people drinking the water of her well and   
   appropriately invoking her intercession against sore throats.   
      
    It is difficult to see why (except in popular estimation) Godeleva is   
   venerated as a martyr: she did not endure death for any article of the   
   faith or for the preservation of any Christian virtue or for any other   
   act of virtue relating to God-unless indeed her supernatural patience   
   finally provoked her husband to his wicked violence.   
      
   The Bollandists in the Acts Sanctorum (July, vol. ii) have treated St   
   Godeleva at great length, printing not only the life by Drogo, but   
   also another, more diffuse, narrative of her history. A copy of the   
   formal verification of the saint's relics made when they were elevated   
   in 1084, shortly after her death, has been preserved, and its   
   authenticity has been established by the tattered fragments of a later   
   deed which recites it.  This was found when the shrine was examined in   
   1907.   
      
   See the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xliv (1926), pp. 102-137, for an   
   earlier text of the Drogo vita, ed. by Father Coens, and vol. lxii   
   (1944), pp. 292-295; and also the charming little book of M. English,   
   Les quatre couronnes de Ste Godelieve de Gistel (1953) .   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   “Nowhere does Jesus    
   hear our prayers    
   more readily than   
   in the Blessed Sacrament.”   
   --Blessed Henry Suso O.P. (1290-1365)   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Each will receive his own reward according to his labor.( I Cor. 3:8)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   ETERNAL Father, I wish to honor St. (Name), and I give You thanks for   
   all the graces You have bestowed upon him (her).  I ask You to please   
   increase grace in my soul through the merits of this saint, and I   
   commit the end of my life to him (her) by this special prayer, so that   
   by virtue of Your goodness and promise, St. (Name) might be my   
   advocate and provide whatever is needed at that hour.  Amen.   
      
   PROMISE:  "When you wish to honor any particular saint and give Me   
   thanks for all the graces I have bestowed on that saint, I increase   
   grace in your soul through the merits of that saint.  When you commit   
   the end of your life to any of the saints by special prayers, I   
   appoint those saints to be your advocates and to provide whatever you   
   need at that hour."   
   --Our Lord to St. Gertrude    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)