From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    -- Romans 15:7 –    
      
       7 Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for   
   the glory of God. .RSVCE   
       ========================   
       The jury is still out on how many hugs we need in order to be   
   healthy -studies suggest anywhere from four to twelve per day.   
   Whatever the number, all of us need a simple embrace every now and   
   then, an expression of acceptance and love. In Jesus, God our Father   
   runs toward us, the prodigal, and embraces us. It is not that we are   
   sinless. It's that He is merciful. And by His mercy we are able to   
   live our lives in an embrace with God.   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 25th - The Venerable Bede   
      
   Born in Northumbria, England, 673; died at Jarrow, England, on May 25, 735.   
      
   In the days when Northumbria was a great scholastic centre with famous   
   schools at Jarrow and York, Bede was the most distinguished of its   
   scholars. Beginning at age seven, he was educated at the newly-founded   
   monastery at Wearmouth-Jarrow under Abbots Benedict Biscop and   
   Ceolfrid, he was received as a monk by Saint Benedict Biscop and   
   ordained a priest at age 30 by Saint John of Beverley. Except for a   
   few brief visits elsewhere, Bede spent the rest of his life in Jarrow;   
   never going further afield than Lindisfarne and York.   
      
   "I have spent my whole life," he says, "in the same monastery, and   
   while attentive to the rule of my order and the service of the Church,   
   my constant pleasure lay in learning or teaching or writing." He   
   numbered 600 monks among his pupils and became the Father of English   
   learning. "I have devoted my energies to the study of Scriptures,   
   observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in   
   church."   
      
   Bede was a prodigious worker, the author of 45 volumes, including   
   commentaries, text-books, and translations. His range was   
   encyclopaedic, embracing the whole field of contemporary knowledge. He   
   wrote grammatical and chronological works, hymns and other verse,   
   letters, and homilies, and compiled the first martyrology with   
   historical notes. These are in Latin, but Bede was also the first   
   known writer of English prose (since lost). Bede's Biblical writings   
   were extensive and important in their time, but it is as an historian   
   that he is famous. The Latin of the hymns 'The Hymn For Conquering   
   Martyrs Raise' and 'Sing We Triumphant Hymns Of Praise' was written by   
   Bede.   
      
   His supreme achievement, completed in 731, was his "History of the   
   English Church and People," in the laborious preparation of which he   
   searched the archives of Rome (? most sources say he never left   
   England), collecting and collating documents, and set forth in detail   
   the first authoritative history of Christian origins in Britain. To   
   this he added Lives of five early abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow. Nor   
   until his last illness had he any assistance: "I am my own secretary;   
   I dictate, I compose, I copy all myself."   
      
   Many stories have gathered round his name. This one is probably   
   mythic: On a visit to Rome with other scholars, he found them puzzled   
   by an inscription of cryptic letters upon an iron gate. A passing   
   Roman citizen, seeing their confusion, sneered at Bede and rudely   
   called him an English ox, when, to his surprise, Bede at once read out   
   the meaning. From that time, because of the range of his wisdom and   
   the keenness of his intellect, he was given the title of venerable.   
      
   But the best-known story is related by his contemporary Saint Cuthbert   
   of how when illness and weakness came upon him at the end of his life,   
   his translation of Saint John's Gospel into the English tongue was   
   still unfinished. Despite sleepless nights and days of weariness, he   
   continued his task, and though he made what speed he could, he took   
   every care in comparing the text and preserving its accuracy. "I don't   
   want my boys," he said, "to read a lie or to work to no purpose after   
   I am gone." His friends begged him to rest, but he insisted on   
   working. "We never read without weeping," remarked one of them.   
      
   When it came to the last day, he called his scribe to him and told him   
   to write with all possible speed. "There is still a chapter wanting,"   
   said the boy, as the day wore on; "had you not better rest for a   
   while?" But Bede persisted with his task. "Be quick with your   
   writing," he answered, "for I shall not hold out much longer."   
      
   When night fell, the boy said: "There is yet one sentence not   
   written." "Write quickly," Bede replied; and when it was done, he   
   said: "All is finished now," then after sending for his fellow monks   
   and distributing to them his few belongings, in a broken voice he sang   
   the Gloria and passed to his reward on Ascension Eve.   
      
   Of all the writers in Western Europe from the time of Saint Gregory   
   the Great until Anselm, Saint Bede was perhaps the best known and most   
   influential, especially in England. He was a careful scholar and   
   distinguished stylist. His works "De Temporibus" and "De Temporum   
   Ratione" established the idea of dating events "anno domini" (A.D.).   
      
   Already in 853 a church council in Aachen referred to him as 'the   
   venerable,' i.e., worthy of honour. Saint Boniface called Bede 'a   
   light of the church, lit by the Holy Spirit.' To Alcuin, himself the   
   'schoolmaster of his age,' he was 'blessed Bede, our master.' (Alcuin   
   claimed Bede's relics worked miraculous cures.) Bede is the only   
   Englishman whom Dante names in the "Paradiso." The centre of Bede's   
   cultus is Durham, where his shrine is located, and York (Attwater,   
   Benedictines, Delaney, Duckett, Gill, Hamilton Thompson, White).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Since all things lie open to His eyes and ears, let us hold Him in awe   
   and rid ourselves of impure desires to do works of evil, so that we   
   may be protected by His mercy from the judgement that is to come.   
   Which of us can escape His mighty hand?   
   -- Pope Saint Clement I   
      
   Bible Quote   
   His disciples say to him: Behold, now thou speakest plainly, and   
   speakest no proverb. 30 Now we know that thou knowest all things, and   
   thou needest not that any man should ask thee. By this we believe that   
   thou camest forth from God.  (John 16:29-30)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Music: Dominus dixit ad me   
   6th Century Old Roman Chant.   
      
   Psalm 2: 7: The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I   
   begotten thee.   
      
   Psalm 2: 1-5: Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain   
   things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together,   
   against the Lord and against his Christ. Let us break their bonds   
   asunder: and let us cast away their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)