From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Interior Life, Meditation (6)   
      
   He who learns to live the interior life and to take little account of   
   outward things, does not seek special places or times to perform   
   devout exercises. A spiritual man quickly recollects himself because   
   he has never wasted his attention upon externals. No outside work, no   
   business that cannot wait stands in his way. He adjusts himself to   
   things as they happen. He whose disposition is well ordered cares   
   nothing about the strange, perverse behavior of others, for a man is   
   upset and distracted only in proportion as he engrosses himself in   
   externals.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Book 2, Chapter 1   
      
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   February 11th - St. Gregory II   
      
   715 - 731   
   St. Gregory II was a Roman of noble family. From his youth a cleric,   
   Gregory was made treasurer by St. Sergius, and papal librarian. As a   
   deacon he accompanied Constantine on his visit to Justinian II and is   
   credited with the skillful answers which at once satisfied the   
   half-mad monarch and safeguarded Catholic doctrine and practice.   
   Gregory was consecrated on May 19, 715. A man of virtue and eloquence,   
   he was well versed in Holy Scripture. Above all, he was prudent and   
   firm.   
      
   Gregory II showed great interest in the vital work of conversion going   
   on in lands beyond the old empire's far-flung borders. He encouraged   
   St. Corbinian to keep on sacrificing his desire for solitude and   
   continue his work among the Bavarians. In 718 Pope Gregory received   
   Winfred, a zealous young English monk who sought his blessing on a   
   mission to the Germans. The Pope gave him not only a blessing but a   
   name glorious in the annals of Christianity--Boniface. He recalled St.   
   Boniface to Rome in 722, questioned him about his faith, and   
   thoroughly satisfied, consecrated him bishop and sent him back to his   
   Germans.   
      
   Gregory was fond of monks. He turned his ancestral mansion into a   
   monastery and rebuilt Monte Cassino. This mother abbey of the   
   Benedictines, destroyed by the Lombards around 580, had been a   
   desolate ruin. On the Lombards, Gregory had a good influence. He helped   
   them with their laws. But when these still untamed barbarians began   
   raiding imperial territory in Italy, Gregory tried to stop them.   
   Loyalty to the Emperor, however, was becoming difficult.   
      
   Leo III, a tough soldier from the Isaurian uplands, had saved the   
   empire from the Saracens by his spirited defense of Constantinople in   
   717. Leo was a very demanding tax gatherer. His impositions caused   
   discontent especially in Italy, where the small protection afforded by   
   imperial forces made high taxes seem a bad investment. Discontent   
   flamed higher when in 726 the Emperor touched not only his subjects'   
   purses but their devotion. Leo, rough soldier that he was, decided to   
   play the theologian. His pet idea was to forbid the use of sacred   
   images. Iconoclasm, the Greek word for image breaking, is a   
   Jewish-Moslem idea, quite alien to Christian tradition. The imperial   
   decree, issued in 726, provoked riot and rebellion in the East. More   
   constructively, it occasioned the masterful writings of the great   
   Eastern doctor of the Church, St. John Damascene.   
      
   The imperial decree forbidding images reached Italy in 727. Pope   
   Gregory held a synod at Rome which stated the traditional teaching of   
   the Church. He then wrote to Leo reproving him for his meddling and   
   teaching him the traditional doctrine of the Church. He quite bluntly   
   warned the Emperor against enforcing his decree in the West. The Pope   
   also supported the deposed patriarch of Constantinople and threatened   
   his intruded successor. Leo sent a fleet to seize the Pope, but a   
   storm destroyed it. He did seize the estates of Peter's patrimony in   
   Sicily and Calabria. His officials in Italy were prevented by the   
   aroused Italians and the Lombards from taking measures against the   
   Pope. The Italians wished to set up a rival emperor, but Gregory   
   dissuaded them. The extraordinary circumstances forced Gregory to   
   assume more temporal power in Rome.   
      
   http://www.cfpeople.org/Books/Pope/POPEp89.htm   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   What does it cost us to say: "My God help me! Have mercy on me!" Is   
   there anything easier than this? And this little will suffice to save us   
    if we be diligent in doing it.   
   -- St. Alphonsus Liguori   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   I will give glory to Thee, O Lord, O King, and I will praise Thee, O   
   God my Saviour. I will give glory to Thy name: for Thou hast been a   
   helper and protector to me.  (Ecclesiasticus 51:1-2)   
      
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   A Prayer for a Pure Heart and Heavenly Wisdom   
      
   Strengthen me, O Lord God, by the grace of Your Holy Spirit.(Ps.   
   51:12) Grant me inward power and strength (Eph.3:16) and empty my   
   heart of all profitless anxiety and care.(Matt.5:34) Let me never be   
   drawn away from You by desire for anything else, whether noble or   
   base, but help me to realize that all things are passing, and myself   
   with them. Nothing in this world is lasting, and everything in this   
   life is uncertain, troubling to the spirit (Eccles.1:14; 2:11) How   
   wise is the man who knows these truths! Grant me heavenly wisdom, O   
   Lord, that above all else I may learn to search for and discover You;   
   to know and love You; and to see all things as they really are and as   
   You in Thy wisdom have ordered them. May I prudently avoid those who   
   flatter me, and deal patiently with those who oppose me. True wisdom   
   cannot be swayed by every wordy argument, (Eph.4:14) and pays no   
   regard to the cunning flatteries of evil men. Only thus shall we go   
   forward steadily on the road on which we have set out.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 27   
      
      
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   An innumerable company of angels   
      
   An innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of the just;   
   --we dwell under their shadow; we are baptized into their fellowship;   
    we are allotted their guardianship;   
   we are remembered, as we trust, in their prayers.   
   We dwell in the very presence and court of God himself,   
   and of his eternal Son our Savior, who died for us, and rose again,   
    and now intercedes for us before the throne.   
   We have privileges surely far greater than Elisha's;   
   But of the same kind. Angels are among us,   
   and are powerful to do anything.   
   And they do wonders for the believing,   
   which the world knows nothing about.   
   According to our faith, so it is done unto us.   
   Only believe, and all things are ours. We shall have clear and   
   deeply-seeded convictions in our minds of the reality of the invisible world,   
   though we cannot communicate them to others,   
   or explain how we come to have them.   
   --St. John Henry Newman   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)