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   
      
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   February 6th – St. Dorothy, Virgin and Martyr   
   (died 304)   
      
   Saint Dorothy was a young virgin celebrated already in Caesarea of   
   Cappadocia, where she lived, for her angelic virtue. Her parents are   
   believed to have been martyred before her in the Diocletian   
   persecution; thus, when the Governor Sapricius came to Caesarea and   
   called her to appear before him, he sent this child of martyrs to the   
   eternal home where they were waiting for her.   
      
   She explained that the God she adored was majestic--above all   
   emperors, who were mortal, and their gods, none of whom created either   
   heaven or earth. She was stretched upon the rack, and offered honors   
   if she would consent to sacrifice, or death if she refused. And they   
   waited. She asked why they delayed to torture her; they were expecting   
   she might cede out of fright. She said to them, “Do what you have to   
   do, that I may see the One for whose love I fear neither death nor   
   torments, Jesus Christ.” She was asked, “Where is this Christ?” and   
   she replied: “As Almighty He is everywhere, but for weak human reason   
   we say that the Son of God has ascended into heaven, to be seated at   
   the right hand of the Almighty Father. It is He who invites us to the   
   garden of His delights, where at all times the trees are covered with   
   fruits, the lilies are perpetually white, the roses ever in their   
   freshness. If you believe me, you too will search for the true   
   liberty, and will labor to earn entry into the garden of God’s   
   delights.” She was then placed in the custody of two women who had   
   fallen away from the faith, in the hope that they might pervert her;   
   but the fire of her own heart rekindled the flame in theirs, and led   
   them back to Christ.   
      
   When she was set once more on the rack, Sapricius himself was amazed   
   at the heavenly expression on her face, and asked her the cause of her   
   joy. “Because,” she said, “I have brought back two souls to Christ,   
   and because I shall soon be in heaven rejoicing with the Angels.” Her   
   joy grew as she was buffeted in the face and her sides were burned   
   with plates of red-hot iron. “Blessed art Thou,” she cried, when she   
   was sentenced to be beheaded, “Blessed art Thou, O Lover of souls, who   
   call me to paradise, and invite me to Thy nuptial chamber!”   
      
   Saint Dorothy suffered in mid-winter, and on the road to her execution   
   a lawyer called Theophilus, who had grown accustomed to calumniating   
   and persecuting the Christians, asked her, in mockery, to send him   
   “apples or roses from the garden of her Spouse.” The Saint promised to   
   grant his request. Just before she died, a little child stood by her   
   side bearing three apples and three roses. She told him to take them   
   to Theophilus, and to tell him it was the present he sought from the   
   garden of her Spouse. Saint Dorothy had gone to heaven, and Theophilus   
   was still making merry over his challenge to her, when the child   
   entered his room. He recognized that the fruit and flowers were of no   
   earthly growth, and that the child was an Angel in disguise. He was   
   converted to the faith, and then shared in the martyrdom of Saint   
   Dorothy.   
      
   Saint Dorothy is the patroness of brewers, brides, florists,   
   gardeners, midwives, and newly-wedded couples (Roeder).   
      
   Reflection. Do you wish to be safe amid the pleasures and happy   
   despite the troubles of this world? Pray for heavenly desires, and say   
   with the Saints, “Paradise, paradise!”   
      
   Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on   
   Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Dismiss all anger, and look a little into yourself. Remember that he   
   of whom you are speaking is your brother, and, as he is in the way of   
   salvation, God can make him a Saint, notwithstanding his present   
   weaknesses. You may fall into the same faults or perhaps into a worse   
   fault. But supposing that you remain upright, to whom are you indebted   
   for it, if not to the pure mercy of God?   
   -- St. Thomas of Villanova   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not   
   even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do   
   you more? do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as   
   also your heavenly Father is perfect.  (Matt. 5:46-48) DRB   
      
      
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   Jesu Corona Virginum   
      
   Jesu, the Virgins' crown, do thou Accept us as in   
    prayer we bow; Born of that Virgin, whom alone The   
    Mother and the Maid we own.   
      
   Amongst the lilies thou dost feed, By Virgin choirs   
    accompanied; With glory decked, the spotless brides   
    Whose bridal gifts thy love provides.   
      
   They, wheresoe'er thy footsteps bend, With hymns   
    and praises still attend: In blessed troops they follow   
    thee, With dance, and song, and melody.   
      
   We pray Thee therefore to bestow Upon our   
    senses here below Thy grace, that so we may endure   
    From taint of all corruption pure.   
      
   To God the Father, God the Son, And God the   
    Spirit, Three in One, Laud, honor, might, and glory be   
    From age to age eternally. Amen    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)