From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How Burdens must be Borne to win Eternal Life [II]   
      
   Labor with all your might. Work faithfully in My vineyard;(Matt. 20:7)   
   I myself will be your reward. (Gen. 15:1) Write, study, worship, be   
   penitent, keep silence and pray. Meet all your troubles like a man:   
   eternal life is worth all this and yet greater conflicts. Peace will   
   come at a time known only to the Lord. It will not be day or night as   
   we know it, (Rev. 22:5) but everlasting light, boundless glory,   
   abiding peace and sure rest. You will not say then, 'Who will free me   
   from this mortal body?; (Rom 7:4) nor cry, 'Alas, how long is my   
   exile!' (Ps. 120:5) for the power of death will be utterly broken,   
   (Isa. 25:8) and full salvation assured. No anxiety will remain, but   
   only blessed joy in the fair and lovely fellowship of the Saints.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 47   
      
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   June 7th - Bl. Anne of St. Bartholomew, Virgin, Wonder-Worker   
      
   d. 1626   
   IN the writings of St. Teresa of Avila we find various allusions to a   
   young lay-sister, Anne-of-St.-Bartholomew, whom she made her special   
   companion and whom she once described as a great servant of God. Anne   
   was the child of Ferdinand Garcia and Catherine Mançanas, peasants   
   living at Almendral, four miles from Avila. Until the age of 20 she   
   was employed as a shepherdess, but she then obtained admission to the   
   Carmelite convent of St. Joseph at Avila. During the last 7 years of   
   her life St. Teresa took Anne on nearly all her journeys, declaring   
   that in her work of foundations and reforms she found her more useful   
   than anyone else. Several times she proposed that Anne should receive   
   the black veil, but Anne always refused, preferring to remain a   
   lay-sister. Anne has left a graphic description of their journey from   
   Medina to Alba and of the saint's death, pathetically recording the   
   consolation she herself derived from being able to gratify the holy   
   Mother's love of neatness up to the very end. “The day she died she   
   could not speak. I changed all her linen, headdress and sleeves. She   
   looked at herself quite satisfied to see herself so clean: then,   
   turning her eyes on me, she looked at me smilingly and showed her   
   gratitude by signs." It was in Anne's arms that St. Teresa breathed   
   her last.   
      
   For six years more Anne remained on quietly at Avila, and then a great   
   change came into her life. Important personages in Paris--notably   
   Madame Acarie and Peter de Bérulle--had for some time been anxious to   
   introduce the Barefooted Carmelites into France. They now applied for   
   some Spanish nuns to help in making a foundation, and Teresa's   
   successor, Anne-of-Jesus, set out with five nuns, of whom Bl.   
   Anne-of-St. Bartholomew was one. Upon their arrival in Paris, whilst   
   the rest were being welcomed by Princess de Longueville and ladies of   
   the court, Anne slipped into the kitchen to prepare a meal for the   
   community. Her superiors, however, had decided that St. Teresa's   
   chosen companion was fitted for higher work, and shortly afterwards   
   Anne unwillingly found herself promoted to be a choir sister. She had   
   signed her own profession with a simple cross, but according to the   
   best authorities she had acted long before this as secretary to St.   
   Teresa: according to others, she now found herself miraculously able   
   to write. It may be that the gift of letters was bestowed upon her   
   with other wisdom when she was about to be faced with new   
   responsibilities. Difficulties of various kinds attended the   
   establishment of Carmel in France, and five of the six Spanish nuns   
   went to the Netherlands. Anne, who remained in France, was appointed   
   prioress at Pontoise and then at Tours. The prospect of being set to   
   govern others at first distressed her greatly, and in fervent prayer   
   she pleaded her incompetence, comparing herself to a weak straw. The   
   answer she received reassured her: "It is with straws I light my   
   fire", our Lord had replied.   
      
   A few years later Carmelite houses were opened in the Netherlands. Bl.   
   Anne was sent to Mons, where she remained a year. In 1612 she made a   
   foundation of her own at Antwerp. It was soon filled with the   
   daughters of the noblest families in the Low Countries,[* Among them   
   was Anne Worsley (Anne-of-the-Ascension), the first English Teresian   
   Carmelite. It was she who in 1619 established the English community at   
   Antwerp, now at Lanherne in Cornwall. See Sr A. Hardman, English   
   Carmelites in Penal Times (1936).]  all eager to tread the path of   
   perfection under the guidance of one who already in her lifetime was   
   regarded as a saint and was known to be a prophet and a wonder-worker.   
   On two occasions, when Antwerp was besieged by the Prince of Orange   
   and was on the point of capture, Anne prayed all night; the city was   
   saved, and she was acclaimed the protectress and defender of Antwerp.   
   Her death in 1626 was the occasion for extraordinary demonstrations,   
   when 20,000 persons touched her body with rosaries and other things as   
   it lay exposed before burial. For many years afterwards the city   
   continued to venerate her memory by an annual procession in which the   
   members of the municipality, candle in hand, led the way to her   
   convent. Bl. Anne was beatified in 1917.   
      
   The apostolic letter pronouncing the decree of beatification is   
   printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. ix (1917), pp. 257-261,   
   and it contains the usual biographical summary. Bl. Anne wrote an   
   autobiography at the command of her superiors; the account is carried   
   down to the first years of her residence in Antwerp, and the original   
   document is preserved in the Carmelite convent there. An incomplete   
   French translation was published in 1646, and Fr Bouix makes limited   
   use of the autobiography in his life, "purement édifiante", of the   
   beata (1872); see also Fr Bruno's La belle Acarie (1942). C. Henriquez   
   published a life in Spanish in 1632, and a modern account in the same   
   language, by Florencio del Niño Jesus, appeared in 1917: this was   
   adapted into French by Abbe L. Aubert (1918). See also H. Bremond,   
   Histoire littéraire..., t. ii, pp. 299-319 (there is an English   
   translation of this volume).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   When you find your intellect occupied pleasurably with material things   
   and becoming fondly attached to its conceptual images of them,   
   you may be sure that you love these things more than God.   
   "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matt. 6:21)   
   --St. Maximos the Confessor   
      
   Bible Quote   
   And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)