From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   A transformed heart filled with gratitude and respect   
      
   God wants to change our hearts so that we will show by our speech and   
   by our actions that we respect his will and do it. God offers each one   
   of us the greatest treasure possible--indestructable peace, joy, and   
   friendship with him in his everlasting kingdom. We can lose that   
   treasure if we refuse the grace--the free gift of God's blessing and   
   strength--which the Lord Jesus has won for us through his victory on   
   the cross. The Lord Jesus fills us with the gift of the Holy Spirit   
   who works in and through us for the glory of God. Do you seek to   
   please God and respect his will and loving plan for your life? Allow   
   the Holy Spirit to to fill your heart with the peace, joy, and   
   righteousness of  God's kingdom (Romans 14:17).   
      
   ==============   
   October 10th – St. Daniel Comboni   
   (1831 – 1881)   
      
   In 1549 the idealistic Dominican Friar Luis Cancer de Barbastro landed   
   near Tampa Bay, Florida, with a small crew, purposely unarmed, in the   
   belief that the local Indians would welcome peaceful gospellers. But   
   it didn’t work. When he set foot on shore he was promptly murdered by   
   the natives. This heroic tragedy might have been avoided had Friar   
   Louis better understood the aborigines of Florida.   
      
   Missionary leaders in recent centuries have been more careful to   
   acquaint their missionaries with the languages and the ways of the   
   non-Christians where they were to be sent, and to study and help   
   develop their civilizations. One such leader was Daniel Comboni,   
   founder of the Verona Missionary Fathers and the Missionary Sisters of   
   Verona. He was not only an apostolic man; he was a learned man who   
   made relevant learning a part of his missiology.   
      
   Comboni, a native of Limone, on Lake Garda, Italy, felt a special   
   calling to preach the Gospel in Africa. Preparing for ordination as a   
   secular priest, he studied not only theology but languages and   
   medicine. The first three years after his ordination he spent in   
   Italy. Then in 1857 he set out for Africa and worked for two years   
   along the White Nile. Ill health obliged him to go back to Italy, but   
   there he continued to lay plans for resumption of his work in the Dark   
   Continent.   
      
   He would not return alone. In 1867 he established in Verona, Italy,   
   the Sons of the Sacred Heart, whose members were to devote themselves   
   exclusively to the African mission. At the outset, this society was a   
   religious institute. In 1885 this became a full-fledged religious   
   congregation of priests and brothers. Today it bears the name of the   
   Combonian Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, or the Verona Fathers.   
   In 1872 he established the Missionary Sisters of Verona, whose field   
   of operation was likewise to be in Africa.   
      
   The Comboni Fathers started their work in the Sudan. Obliged to leave   
   there because of a revolution, they eventually returned and branched   
   out into Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique. (In later years they would   
   come to the Americas: Mexico. Brazil, Ecuador, and in 1940 to the   
   United States, where their work has been chiefly with Blacks, Indians   
   and Mexicans.)   
      
   Father Comboni had been consecrated bishop to head the Vicariate   
   Apostolic of Central Africa (1872). This was an immense missionary   
   diocese embracing the Sudan, Nubia and territories south of Africa’s   
   great lakes. The founder insisted that his missionaries, men and women   
   alike, be specially trained to understand Black society and the   
   climatic perils of the mission lands. An intense student of African   
   cultures, he published much scientific work, particularly on African   
   geography and ethnology. A “language genius” himself, he was a master   
   not only of six European tongues, but he also learned Arabic and three   
   African languages, and compiled a dictionary of the Nubian language.   
   His institutes, therefore, learned from his rules and example, the   
   need of fully understanding the mentality of those to whom they   
   preached. Meanwhile, Bishop Comboni cultivated the friendship of the   
   African civil authorities, and worked effectively through them to end   
   the widespread slave trade and its abuses.   
      
   He was, then, a pioneer in superior methods of evangelization, working   
   always to regenerate Africa through Africans. Pope Leo XIII termed his   
   death “a great loss,” but Pope John Paul II, who beatified him on   
   March 17, 1996 and canonized him on October 5, 2003, was already a   
   witness to the flowering of a genuine African Catholic Church.   
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   O my soul, what are you doing? Are you not aware that God sees you   
   always? You can never hide yourself from His sight. O Father, have   
   pity on us because we are blind and in darkness. Drive out the   
   darkness and give me light. Melt the ice of my self-love and kindle in   
   me the fire of Your charity.   
   -- St. Catherine of Siena   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Fear ye not, neither be ye troubled from that time I have made thee to   
   hear, and have declared: you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides   
   me, a maker, whom I have not known? The makers of idols are all of   
   them nothing, and their best beloved things shall not profit them.   
   They are their witnesses, that they do not see, nor understand, that   
   they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a god, and made a graven thing   
   that is profitable for nothing?  [Isaiah 44:8-10] DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Behold Me at Your Feet   
      
   Behold me at Your feet, O Jesus of Nazareth, behold the most wretched of   
   creatures, who comes into Your presence humble and penitent! Have mercy on   
   me, O Lord, according to Your great mercy! I have sinned and my sins are   
   always before You. Yet my soul belongs to You, for You created it, and   
   redeemed it with Your Precious Blood.   
      
   Ah, grant that Your redeeming work be not in vain! Have pity on me; give me   
   tears of true repentance; pardon me for I am Your child; pardon me as You   
   pardoned the penitent thief; look upon me from Your throne in heaven and   
   give me Your blessing.   
      
   I believe in God, etc.--Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)