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   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   December 10th - Pope St. Gregory III   
      
   As the funeral procession of St. Gregory II moved slowly along, there   
   was a sudden outcry. The clergy and people shouted that Gregory, a   
   Syrian who was walking with the Pope's bier, should be the next pope.   
   And they hurried him off without further ado, and elected him. The man   
   who could arouse such unusual and universal enthusiasm must have been   
   a striking personality. And indeed the biographer of Gregory paints   
   him in glowing colors. He was an educated man who knew both Latin and   
   Greek, polished in style, learned in Holy Scripture, pious, zealous   
   for the faith, and a lover of the poor.   
      
   Consecrated on March 18, 731, Gregory III at once turned his attention   
   to the image-breaking controversy. To recall Leo the Isaurian to an   
   orthodox state of mind, he sent him the priest George with letters of   
   warning and instruction. When George returned from the East, the Pope   
   was surprised to find that the timid legate had been afraid even to   
   deliver the letters to the fierce Isaurian. Not unnaturally angry,   
   Gregory was going to degrade George from the priesthood, but the   
   clergy of a synod held to consider the situation, persuaded the Pope   
   to let George off with a penance. However, Gregory sent him back to   
   the Emperor. This time the imperial officials in Sicily seized George   
   and exiled him.   
      
   Gregory held another synod, this time with 93 bishops and the clergy   
   and people of Rome. The council decreed that anyone who should destroy   
   or dishonor holy images should be excommunicated But the Emperor would   
   not allow the envoys even to reach him. His answer was to send a fleet   
   to carry out the imperial decrees. The fleet was shipwrecked, but Leo   
   punished the Italians by raising their taxes and the Pope by   
   confiscating the estates of the patrimony in Sicily and Calabria.   
      
   The Emperor also transferred the Church in Calabria, Sicily, and   
   Illyricum from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome as patriarch to   
   the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. This arbitrary   
   act was a remote cause of the unhappy Eastern Schism. It made the   
   patriarchate of Constantinople practically coterminous with the   
   Eastern Empire. And in spite of the fact that it had been thus   
   arbitrarily given to them by a heretical emperor, the patriarchs of   
   Constantinople clung to their increased jurisdiction.   
      
   St. Boniface visited Pope Gregory III in 737 to receive consolation   
   from him. Gregory asked Boniface's cousin, the holy monk Willibald, to   
   help in the conversion of the Germans. The Pope granted the request of   
   Egbert of York that he should be made archbishop, thus restoring to   
   England the two metropolitan sees planned by Gregory the Great.   
      
   Once more a pope was troubled by the Lombards. Liutprand, King of the   
   Lombards, strove to break the Lombard Dukes of Spoleto and Benevento   
   and to overrun all Italy. He ravaged the exarchate of Ravenna and   
   marched south. The Dukes allied themselves with Pope Gregory, but   
   nothing could stop Liutprand. Once more the Lombards ravaged Roman   
   territory. The Pope, at a loss, appealed to Charles Martel, the   
   Frankish "hammer." Charles sent an embassy to Rome, but no help.   
   Actually he could do little, for his health was broken. In the middle   
   of all this trouble, late in 741, St. Gregory III died.   
      
   --Taken from “Popes Through the Ages" by Joseph Brusher, S.J.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   God is more anxious to bestow His blessings on us than we are to receive them.   
   --St. Augustine   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   “Plead my cause, O Lord, with those who strive with me; Fight against   
   those who fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, And stand   
   up for my help."  [Psalm 35:1-2]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   A prayer to the Holy Ghost to be freed from evil habits:   
      
   Give to me, I beseech Thee O Holy Ghost, Giver of all good gifts, that   
   powerful grace which converts the stony hearts of mortals into burning   
   furnaces of Thy love. By Thy grace, free my captive soul from the thralldom   
   of every evil habit and concupiscence, to restore to it the Holy   
   liberty  of the children of God, Give me to taste how sweet it is to serve   
   the Lord and crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences. Enlarge   
   my heart that I may ever cheerfully run the way of Thy commandments until I   
   reach the goal of my aspirations: the joy and bliss of Thy habitation in   
   Heaven. Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)