From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   God's union with the beloved   
      
    Anyone who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. As God's   
   kindness is beyond all telling, as his love for our race defies human   
   utterance and is commensurate with the divine goodness alone, so it   
   follows that his union with his beloved ones is closer than any other   
   conceivable union and admits of no comparison. Scripture of necessity   
   has recourse to many models in order to describe that intimacy, for   
   one alone is insufficient. Sometimes it takes a dweller and his house   
   as an example, sometimes a vine and its branch, sometimes marriage,   
   sometimes members and head; but none of these is adequate to express   
   it or bring us to the complete truth. Friendship and love tend   
   necessarily to unite, but what human friendship can compare with the   
   love of God? The models which seem best fitted to connote intimacy and   
   oneness are marriage and the harmonious subordination of the members   
   of a body to its head.   
   -- Nicolas Cabasilas, Life of Christ 1: PG 150, 497-500.   
      
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   September 24th - St. Gerard, Bishop of Csanad, Martyr   
    (A.D. 1046)   
      
   ST. GERARD, sometimes surnamed Sagredo, the apostle of a large   
   district in Hungary, was a Venetian, born about the beginning of the   
   11th century. At an early age he consecrated himself to the service of   
   God in the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice,   
   but after some time left it to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.   
   While passing through Hungary he became known to the king, St.   
   Stephen, who made him tutor to his son, Bl. Emeric, and Gerard began   
   as well to preach with success. When St. Stephen established the   
   episcopal see of Csanad he appointed Gerard to be its first bishop.   
   The greater part of the people were heathen, and those that bore the   
   name of Christian were ignorant, brutish and savage, but St Gerard   
   laboured among them with much fruit. He always so far as possible   
   joined to the perfection of the episcopal state that of the   
   contemplative life, which gave him fresh vigour in the discharge of   
   his pastoral duties. But Gerard was also a scholar, and wrote an   
   unfinished dissertation on the Hymn of the Three Young Men (Daniel   
   iii), as well as other works which are lost.   
      
   King Stephen seconded the zeal of the good bishop so long as he lived,   
   but on his death in 1038 the realm was plunged into anarchy by   
   competing claimants to the crown, and a revolt against Christianity   
   began. Things went from bad to worse, and eventually, when celebrating   
   Mass at a little place on the Danube called Giod, Gerard had prevision   
   that he would on that day receive the crown of martyrdom. His party   
   arrived at Buda and were going to cross the river, when they were set   
   upon by some soldiers under the command of an obstinate upholder of   
   idolatry and enemy of the memory of King St. Stephen. They attacked   
   St. Gerard with a shower of stones, overturned his conveyance, and   
   dragged him to the ground. Whilst in their hands the saint raised   
   himself on his knees and prayed with St. Stephen, "Lord, lay not this   
   sin to their charge. They know not what they do." He had scarcely   
   spoken these words when he was run through the body with a lance; the   
   insurgents then hauled him to the edge of the cliff called the   
   Blocksberg, on which they were, and dashed his body headlong into the   
   Danube below. It was September 24, 1046. The heroic death of St.   
   Gerard had a profound effect, he was revered as a martyr, and his   
   relics were enshrined in 1083 at the same time as those of St. Stephen   
   and his pupil Bl. Emeric. In 1333 the republic of Venice obtained the   
   greater part of his relics from the king of Hungary, and with great   
   solemnity translated them to the church of our Lady of Murano, wherein   
   St. Gerard is venerated as the protomartyr of Venice, the place of his   
   birth.   
      
   The most reliable source for the history of St. Gerard is, it appears,   
   the short biography printed in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. vi   
   (pp. 722-724). Contrary to the opinion previously entertained, it is   
   not an epitome of the longer life which is found in Endlicher,   
   Monumenta Arpadiana (pp. 205-234), but dates from the 12th or even the   
   end of the 11th century. This, at least, is the conclusion of R. F.   
   Kaindl in the Archiv f. Oesterreichische Geschichte, vol. xci (1902),   
   pp. 1-58. The other biographies are later expansions of the first   
   named, and not so trustworthy....   
      
   Taken from   
   http://www.katolikus.hu/hun-saints/gerard.html   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Let my soul live as if separated from my body.   
   --St. John of the Cross   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and   
   your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you.   
   (John 16:22) DRB   
      
      
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   Sing to the Lord a new song   
      
   My dear brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fruit of the true   
   faith and holy seed of heaven, all you who have been born again in   
   Christ and whose life is from above, listen to me; or rather, listen   
   to the Holy Spirit saying through me:   
      Sing to the Lord a new song. Look, you tell me, I am singing. Yes   
   indeed, you are singing; you are singing clearly, I can hear you. But   
   make sure that your life does not contradict your words. Sing with   
   your voices, your hearts, your lips, and your lives:   
      Sing to the Lord a new song. Now it is your unquestioned desire to   
   sing of him whom you love, but you ask me how to sing his praises. You   
   have heard the words:   
      Sing to the Lord a new song, and you wish to know what praises to   
   sing. The answer is: His praise is in the assembly of the saints; it   
   is in the singers themselves. If you desire to praise him, then love   
   what you express. Live good lives, and you yourselves will be his   
   praise.   
   --St. Augustine of Hippo   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)