From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Putting Up with All That is Annoying   
      
   "Now, what does 'Let him take up his cross' mean? Put up with all that   
   is annoying: that is how they must follow me. To tell the truth, when   
   they follow me, imitating my conduct and keeping my commandments, they   
   will have many who will try to oppose them, forbid them, dissuade   
   them, and this will be done by those same people who appear to be   
   followers of Christ."   
   --St. Augustine--Sermon 96, 4   
      
   Prayer: O Lord, my God, what is the kernel of your deep mystery? How   
   far from it have I been led by the consequences of my sins!   
   --St. Augustine--Confessions 11, 31   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   January 2nd - St. Adelard or Adalhard, monk   
   d. 827   
      
   THE family of this holy monk was most illustrious, his father Bernard   
   being son of Charles Martel and brother of King Pepin, so that   
   Adalhard was first cousin to Charlemagne. He was only 20 years old   
   when, in 773, he took the monastic habit at Corbie in Picardy, a   
   monastery founded by Queen St. Bathildis. The first employment   
   assigned him was that of gardener, in which, whilst his hands were   
   employed in digging or weeding, his thoughts were on God and heavenly   
   things.   
      
   The great example of his virtue defeated the projects of his humility   
   and did not suffer him to live long unknown, and some years after he   
   was chosen abbot. Being obliged by Charlemagne often to attend at   
   court, he soon, in fact, became the first among the king’s counselors,   
   as he is styled by Hincmar, who had seen him there in 796. He was even   
   compelled by Charlemagne to quit his monastery altogether, and act as   
   chief minister to that prince’s eldest son Pepin, who, at his death at   
   Milan in 810, appointed the saint tutor to his son Bernard.   
      
   After the death of Charlemagne, Adalhard was accused of supporting the   
   revolt of Bernard against Louis the Debonair, who banished him to a   
   monastery in the little island of Hen, called afterwards Noirmoutier,   
   on the coast of Aquitaine. The saint’s brother Wala (one of the great   
   men of that age, as appears from his curious life, published by   
   Mabillon) he obliged to become a monk at Lérins. This exile St.   
   Adalhard regarded as a great gain, and in it his tranquillity of soul   
   met with no interruptions.   
      
   The emperor at length was made sensible of his innocence, and after   
   five years’ banishment recalled him to court towards the close of the   
   year 821 but he soon had again to retire to his abbey at Corbie, where   
   he delighted to take upon himself the most humbling employments of the   
   house. By his solicitude and powerful example his spiritual children   
   grew daily in fervour; and such was his zeal for their advancement,   
   that he passed no week without speaking to every one of them in   
   particular, and no day without exhorting them all in general by his   
   discourses. The inhabitants of the country round had also a share in   
   his labours, and he expended upon the poor the revenues of his   
   monastery with a profusion which many condemned as excessive, but   
   which Heaven sometimes approved by sensible miracles. The good old man   
   would receive advice from the least of his monks. When entreated to   
   moderate his austerities, he answered, “I will take care of your   
   servant”, meaning himself, “that he may serve you the longer.”   
      
   During his banishment another Adalhard, who governed the monastery by   
   his appointment, began at our saint’s suggestion to prepare the   
   foundation of the monastery of New Corbie, commonly called Convey, in   
   the diocese of Paderborn, that it might be a nursery of evangelical   
   labourers for conversion of the northern nations. St. Adalhard, after   
   his return to Corbie, completed this undertaking, and to perpetuate   
   the strict observance, which he established in his two monasteries, he   
   compiled a book of statutes for their use, of which considerable   
   fragments are extant. Other works of St. Adalhard are lost, but by   
   those, which we have, and also by his disciples St. Paschasius   
   Radbertus, St. Anskar and others, it is clear that he was a zealous   
   promoter of literature in his monasteries. Paschasius assures us that   
   he instructed the people not only in the Latin, but also in the   
   Teutonic and vulgar French languages.   
      
   Alcuin, in a letter addressed to him under the name of Antony, calls   
   him his son, whence many infer that he had been scholar to that great   
   man. St. Adalhard had just returned from Germany to Corbie, when he   
   fell ill 3 days before Christmas and died on January 2, 827, in his   
   73rd year. Upon proof of several miracles the body of the saint was   
   translated with solemnity in 1040; of which ceremony we have a full   
   account, by an author, not St. Gerard, who also composed an office in   
   his honour, in gratitude for having been cured of intense pains in the   
   head through his intercession.   
      
   See his life, compiled with accuracy but in a tone of panegyric, by   
   his disciple, Paschasius Radbertus, printed in the Acta Sanctorum, and   
   more correctly in Mabillon (vol. v, p. 306). Cf. also U. Berlière in   
   DHG., vol. i, cc. 457-458; and BHL., n. 11.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Do not worry about me; I am in God’s hands. I want to assure you that   
   I feel His help at every step. Despite the present situation, I am   
   happy and completely at peace.   
   --Blessed Joseph, writing to his parents from the concentration camp   
   at Auschwitz, Poland   
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer to Our Lady Immaculate   
      
   Most holy Virgin, who wast pleasing to the Lord and became His Mother,   
   immaculate in body and spirit, in faith and in love, look kindly on   
   the wretched who implore thy powerful patronage. The wicked serpent,   
   against whom was hurled the first curse, continues fiercely to attack   
   and ensnare the unhappy children of Eve. Do thou, then, O Blessed   
   Mother, our queen and advocate, who from the first instant of thy   
   conception didst crush the head of the enemy, receive the prayers   
   which, united with thee in our single heart, we implore thee to   
   present at the throne of God, that we may never fall into the snares   
   which are laid out for us, and may all arrive at the port of   
   salvation; and, in so many dangers, may the Church and Christian   
   society sing once again the hymn of deliverance and of victory and of   
   peace.   
   Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)