From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Love Reaches Out   
      
      "Moreover, this is the rule of love: the good that we desire for   
   ourselves we desire for our neighbor also; and the evil that we are   
   unwilling to undergo we wish to prevent from happening to our   
   neighbor.   
      All who love God will have such a desire toward everybody."   
   --St. Augustine--True Religion 87   
      
   Prayer: O Lord, my God, let my soul praise you that it may love you.   
   Let it recount to you your mercies that it may praise you for them   
   all.   
   --St. Augustine--Confessions 5, 17   
      
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   July 30th - Blessed Manés de Guzmán   
   Also known as   
       • Mamerto   
       • Mamés   
       • Manez   
      
   d. 1230   
   Of the three sons of Felix de Guzman and Bl. Joan of Aza, Mannes was   
   the middle one, Antony being the elder, and St. Dominic, founder of   
   the Friars Preachers, the younger.  Mannes was born at Calaruega, in   
   the province of Burgos, in the middle of the twelfth century and had   
   already devoted himself to God when Dominic was born in 1170.  Of most   
   of his life nothing is known, but he was among his younger brother's   
   first followers, one of the sixteen who adopted the Rule of St.   
   Augustine in 1216 and made their profession at Prouille in the   
   following year. These men were "all in fact and in name excellent   
   preachers", and Mannes had already shared his brother's labours in   
   Languedoc. After they had made their vows Dominic decided on the bold   
   stroke of sending them straight out into the world, and Mannes with   
   six others went to Paris and made the first French foundation, under   
   Brother Matthew of France, near the university. He is next heard of as   
   chaplain to the nuns at Prouille, whom St. Dominic had established in   
   1207, and later on was put in charge of their new convent at Madrid;   
   the founder refers to him in a letter to the sisters: "Our very dear   
   brother, Brother Mannes, who has spared no pains to bring you to this   
   high state, will take what steps seem to him necessary to secure its   
   continuance. He has authority from us to make visitation of the   
   convent, to correct what he finds amiss, and if he so judge fitting,   
   to change the prioress, so long as the greater number of the sisters   
   consent thereto."   
      
    Dominic evidently had a very high opinion of the qualities of his   
   brother, who had always had an attraction to the contemplative life,   
   making him a particularly suitable director for the Madrid nuns, an   
   office he filled for a dozen years.  He clearly shared the peaceful   
   gentle disposition and personality which strongly attracted men to St.   
   Dominic, and had a similar serene and reasonable knowledge of the   
   difficulties of souls. Bl. Mannes outlived his great brother, but the   
   year of his death is not certain; it is generally given as 1230, but   
   there is a story that he visited Calaruega after St. Dominic's   
   canonization in 1234 and urged the people to build a chapel in his   
   honour, saying, "Be satisfied with a small one for the present: my   
   brother will know how to enlarge it when he chooses to", a prophecy   
   fulfilled by King Alfonso X thirty years after. Bl. Mannes was buried   
   at the Cistercian church of St. Peter at Gamiel d'Izan, and his cult   
   was approved in 1834.   
      
   See Mortier, Maîtres, Généraux 0.P., vol. i, pp. 2, 29, 90; Procter,   
   Dominican Saints, pp. 213-215  Année Dominicaine, vol. vii, p. 819.   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose   
   words in order   
   to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that   
   could never be put   
   into words.  (Romans 8:26 )   
      
      
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   Be simple as doves.  [Matt. 10:16 ]  July: Simplicity   
      
   31. God is a Being most simple in His essence, admitting no   
   composition whatever. If, then, we desire to render ourselves as much   
   like Him as possible, we should endeavor to be by virtue what He is by   
   nature; that is, we ought to have a simple heart, a simple soul, a   
   simple intention, a simple mode of action. We ought to speak simply,   
   and to act frankly, without deceit or artifice, always letting our   
   exterior reflect our interior, and never regarding anything in all our   
   actions except God, Whom alone we endeavor and desire to please.   
   --St. Vincent de Paul   
      
   Such, in fact, was the simplicity of this Saint, for his exterior was   
   always in entire conformity to his interior. Whoever heard his words   
   could immediately know what was in his heart, which he always kept   
   upon his lips. And however numerous and varied might be his   
   occupations, they all had the same end, which was to please God alone.   
   It might be truly said that he possessed this virtue to such a degree   
   that the faculties of his soul were wholly steeped in it, and whatever   
   he said or did proceeded from this source.   
      
   (Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints".   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)