From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Persevere in all God's guidance   
      
      Persevere in all that God's guidance moves you to do. The   
   persistent carrying out of what seems right and good will bring you to   
   that place where you would be. If you look back over God's guidance,   
   you will see that His leading has been very gradual and that only as   
   you have carried out His wishes, as far as you can understand them,   
   has God been able to give you more clear and definite leading. You are   
   led by God's touch on a quickened, responsive mind.   
      I pray that I may persevere in doing what seems right. I pray that   
   I may carry out all of God's leading, as far as I can understand it.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
   <><><><><><>   
   January 12th - St. Marguerite Bourgeoys    
      
   (1620-1700)   
   Saint Margaret Bourgeoys was born in Troyes, France, on Good Friday,   
   April 17, 1620. She was prepared by Divine Providence, over a period   
   of many years, for her future mission. When she was twenty years old,   
   Margaret saw the Blessed Virgin who looked at her during a procession,   
   and smiled at her. From that time on, she abandoned all ornaments and   
   amusements common to her age and entered into a sodality of the   
   Children of Mary, of which she became the President. Ten years later,   
   on the Feast of the Assumption the Child Jesus, in appearance about   
   three years old, made Himself seen by her in the Sacred Host of the   
   monstrance. He kindled in her heart bright flames of divine charity,   
   and inspired in her a great contempt for all earthly goods, with an   
   unquenchable thirst for souls.   
      
   In 1653, when she was thirty-three years old, Margaret Bourgeoys set   
   sail for Canada. The Virgin said to her: “Go, I will not abandon you.”   
   Four years passed before she could undertake the Christian education   
   of children. In the meantime, her charity was lavished on all; she   
   visited and served the sick, buried the dead, consoled the afflicted,   
   taught catechism to the colonists. From then on, her task would be to   
   form and direct a non-cloistered religious community dedicated to   
   teaching. In 1658 she laid the foundations of her Congregation of   
   Notre Dame Sisters by opening the first school of Ville-Marie   
   (Montreal), in a stable offered by Monsieur de Maisonneuve. She soon   
   found co-workers, whom she initiated for their work. The “little   
   schools” of New France began to spring up on every hill and in every   
   valley.   
      
   The social work of Mother Bourgeoys is no less admirable than her   
   educational labors. Her dedication extended to the service of the many   
   young households of those days. She took in, guided and directed the   
   “Daughters of the King,” sent to be married to the colonists,   
   inculcating in them a sense of the serious duties of a spouse and   
   mother. She remained their counselor for long years, to whom they   
   always turned for comfort and encouragement in the practice of virtue.   
   The ingeniousness of Margaret became evident from her many varied   
   projects: a workshop for young girls and married women, a vocational   
   school for the formation of her companions in education, the “Work of   
   the Tabernacles” which she founded with the recluse Jeanne Leber; a   
   pious association for young girls.   
      
   After 47 years of labors blessed by heaven and the Blessed Virgin,   
   Margaret Bourgeoys died, at the age of eighty, with the reputation of   
   a soul eminent in sanctity. In a solemn ceremony at Saint Peter’s in   
   Rome on November 12, 1950, Pius XII declared her Blessed. Since then   
   she has received the honors of canonization.   
      
   Reflection. When a soul has given itself to God, God gives back   
   friendship, with all His other gifts, a hundredfold multiplied.   
   Friends are then loved no longer for themselves only, but for God, and   
   with a love lively and tender, for God can easily purify sentiment. It   
   is not sentiment but self-love which corrupts friendship.   
      
   Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on   
   Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea   
   (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894)   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "Our Lady produced the inaccessible Light of her most blessed Son,   
   without receiving any injury from it nor staining in any way her   
   virginal purity. She produced Him without any effort, nor shock, nor   
   any violence whatsoever." [remaining a virgin during His birth,   
   because God made it miraculous, and a virgin ever after]   
   --St. Francis de Sales (Doctor, 1567-1622)   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him: If you continue in my   
   word, you shall be my disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth:   
   and the truth shall make you free. [John 8:31-32 ] D.V.   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   St. Theresa’s Prayer to the Holy face   
      
   O Jesus, Who in Thy bitter Passion didst become "the most abject of   
   men, a man of sorrows," I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once   
   did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead ... but now it has   
   become for me as if it were the Face of a leper! Nevertheless, under   
   those disfigured features, I recognize Thy Infinite Love and I am   
   consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men.   
      
   The tears which well up abundantly in Thy Sacred Eyes appear to me as   
   so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase   
   the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus,   
   Whose adorable Face ravished my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep   
   within me Thy Divine Image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I   
   may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face   
   in Heaven. Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)