From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Self-Denial, and Renunciation of all Cupidity  [II]   
      
   THE DISCIPLE.   
    Lord, this is not the work of a single day, and no easy matter. These   
   few words contain the whole way of spiritual perfection.   
      
   CHRIST.   
   My son, do not be discouraged or diverted from your purpose at hearing   
   of this way of perfection. Rather let it spur you to higher things and   
   at least, to set your heart on them. If only you would do this, and   
   attain that state where you cease to be a lover of self and stand   
   ready to do My will and His whom I have appointed as your Father, you   
   would greatly please Me and your whole life would be filled with joy   
   and peace. You have still many things to renounce, and unless you   
   surrender them to Me without reserve, you cannot obtain what you ask   
   of Me. I counsel you to buy from Me gold, refined in the fire, that   
   you may be rich (Rev.3:18) in that heavenly wisdom that rejects all   
   worthless things. Despise the wisdom of the world and every temptation   
   to please others or yourself.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 32   
      
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    11 September – Blessed Bonaventure of Barcelona OFM   
   Also known as Bonaventure of Riudoms, Bonaventura Gran   
   Fra Bonaventure of Barcelona   
   Miguel Baptista Gran Peris   
      
   Memorials   
   11 September   
   24 November (Riudoms, Spain)   
      
    Franciscan Friar, Reformer, Papal Adviser, Founder of Retreat houses   
   Born on 24 November 1620 on Carrer de la Butxaca (Pocket Street) in   
   Riudoms, Tarragona, Catalonia (in modern Spain) as Miguel Baptista   
   Gran Peris (the street where he was born has been re-named in his   
   honour) and died on 11 September 1684 at the friary of Saint   
   Bonaventure on the Palantine Hill in Rome, Italy of natural causes.   
   Patronage – Riudoms, Spain.   
      
   He was born in Riudoms, Catalonia, on 24 November 1620 in a modest   
   house in the street known as Pocket Street and now has his name. After   
   marrying at the age of 18 as his father wished, he was widowed in a   
   few months. He entered the Franciscan convent of Sant Miquel   
   d’Escornalbou and made religious profession on 14 July 1641, changing   
   his name to Bonaventura. In the following years, he was sent to Mora   
   d’Ebre, Figueres, la Bisbal d’Empordà and Terrassa, where another   
   street has been named for him.   
      
   In 1658 he was sent to Rome where he founded Santo Retiro are four   
   monasteries in the province of Rome, including San Bonaventura al   
   Palatino. He was an adviser to four popes – Alexander VII, Clement IX,   
   Clement X and Innocent XI. In Rome in 1662 he founded the Riformella,   
   a reform movement within the Reformed Order of Friars Minor of the   
   Strict Observance, so the monks and Franciscan priests who dedicated   
   themselves to the apostolate could gather in meditation and spiritual   
   retreat, living the founding spirit of the Franciscan order.   
      
   In 1679, he sent from Rome the relics of Saint Boniface, Saint Julian   
   and Saint Vincent. Since then, the second Sunday of May is celebrated   
   in Riudoms as the Feast of the Holy Relics.   
      
   In 1775 he was declared venerable and in 1906 he was beatified by the   
   Pope Pius X, after the verification of two miraculous healings. The   
   first one in 1790 when a woman was in a serious condition after   
   falling from the horse and was inexplicably cured after having invoked   
   him. The other, in 1818 in which another woman remained unconscious   
   for three days after childbirth and was cured instantaneously after   
   applying a relic of Bonaventura.   
      
   In Riudoms, his remains have been preserved since 1972, when they were   
   moved from Rome. They are currently in the tabernacle chapel in the   
   church of Saint James the Apostle. In Riudoms, there is a great   
   devotion to Blessed Bonaventura and a feast in his honour is   
   celebrated every 24 November the day he honoured Riudoms by his birth,   
   where his remains are taken in procession through the village.   
   By Anastpaul   
      
   Saint Quote   
   Perfection consists in one thing alone, which is doing the will of   
   God. For, according to Our Lord's words, it suffices for perfection to   
   deny self, to take up the cross and to follow Him.   
   --St. Vincent de Paul   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   For which cause I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God   
   which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God hath not   
   given us the spirit of fear: but of power and of love and of sobriety.   
   Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me   
   his prisoner: but labour with the gospel, according to the power of   
   God. .--St. Paul in his second letter to Timothy (2 Tim 1:6-8)  DRB   
      
      
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   Hymn from Corpus Christi.   
      
   Jesus! my Lord, my God, my All! How can I love Thee as I ought?   
   And how revere this wondrous gift, So far surpassing hope or thought?   
      
   Had I but Mary's sinless heart To love Thee with, my dearest King!   
   O, with what bursts of fervent praise Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing!   
   Sweet Sacrament! We Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more!   
      
   F. Faber: Corpus Christi. (19th cent.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)