From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Obedience and Discipline: (II)   
      
   Everyone gladly does whatever he most likes, and likes best those who   
   think as he does; but if God is to dwell among us we must sometimes   
   yield our own opinion for the sake of peace. Who is so wise that he   
   knows all things? So do not place too much reliance on the rightness   
   of your own view but be ready to consider the views of others. If your   
   opinion is sound, and you forego it for the love of God and follow   
   that of another, you will win great merit. I have often heard that is   
   safer to accept advice than to give it. It may even come about that   
   each of two opinions is good; but to refuse to come to an agreement   
   with others when reason or occasion demand it is a sign of pride and   
   obstinacy.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 9   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 8th – Blessed Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin   
      
   Also known as   
   Catherine Symon of Longprey   
   Marie-Catherine Simon de Longpré   
   Marie-Catherine Symon de Longprey   
   Mary Catherine of Saint Augustine   
      
   (1632-1668)   
   A young future missionary to New France, Catherine de Longpré, in   
   religion Sister Marie-Catherine of Saint Augustine, was a nursing nun   
   in the community of the Hospitaler Sisters of Saint Augustine in   
   Evreux. Born in France in 1632, she went to Quebec at the age of 16.   
   Having offered her life for the sick and the sanctification of souls,   
   she found in Quebec City a newly-established and very poor hospital,   
   where she would labor for 20 years with unfailing devotion and   
   courage.   
      
   Blessed Catherine’s physical and moral sufferings increased to a   
   measure which few Saints have surpassed; she was chosen as a victim by   
   God for the expiation of sins, in this territory which He destined for   
   Himself in a particular way. To sustain her in the terrible obsessions   
   which she endured, to preserve other souls who could not have   
   withstood hell’s assaults, she was given for her heavenly spiritual   
   director, Saint John de Brebeuf, the North American martyr who had   
   died not long before, in what is now Ontario. The entire history of   
   her interior life was written by her confessor, the Jesuit Paul   
   Ragueneau, who had been a friend of the great Martyr and had labored   
   with him. Father Ragueneau recognized as authentic his fellow Jesuit’s   
   spiritual role in the life of this remarkable religious.   
      
   The sale of alcoholic beverages to the Indians in exchange for furs   
   was a grievous abuse which the saintly first bishop of Quebec,   
   Monsignor Francis Montmorency de Laval, was striving to abolish; sins   
   of the tongue, immodesty and impiety were rampant in the city and   
   surroundings. Monsignor de Laval recognized in Sister Catherine a soul   
   of predilection, and he often asked her intercession for particular   
   persons, for the colony and the Indians, whose souls were his great   
   concern, as they were also of his clergy and missionaries. She, for   
   her part, complied by her prayers and sacrifices, and saw in a vision   
   how the demons of hell were working for the ruin of the colony, in   
   various places and in various ways. A spiritual battle of great   
   proportions was underway, to win Canada for Christ.   
      
   Blessed Catherine died at the age of 36, saying shortly before she   
   expired: “My God, I adore Your divine perfections; I adore Your divine   
   Justice; I abandon myself to it with my whole heart.” One of the great   
   mystics of the Church, her life remains a prodigy of sacrifice and   
   love, a gold mine of doctrine for those who seek understanding of   
   God’s ways with His Saints and His people.   
      
   Source: Fr. Paul Ragueneau, S.J., La vie de la Mère Catherine de Saint   
   Augustin, (F. Lambert: Paris, 1671). Reprinted in Quebec City, 1923,   
   by the Augustinian nuns.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   When anyone has really given up his sins, he must not be content   
   simply with bewailing them.  He must give up, leave far behind, and   
   fly from anything which is capable of leading him in the direction of   
   them again.  In other words, my dear brethren, we must be ready to   
   suffer anything rather than fall back into those sins which we have   
   just confessed.   
   --St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    He who seeks the glory of the One who sent him is truthful, and there   
   is no injustice in him.  (John 7:18)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   You are Holy, Lord,   
   All-Powerful God   
   Prayer known as   
   “Of Peter and the Other Apostles”   
   (Papyrus of the early Church)   
      
   You are Holy, Lord, All-Powerful God,   
   Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,   
   Paradise of happiness,   
   Royal sceptre,   
   Infinite love,   
   Assurance of hope…   
   You are Holy, Lord God,   
   You are “the King of kings   
   and the Lord of lords:   
   You alone have immortality,   
   You live in the inaccessible light,   
   that no-one has ever seen” (1 Tm 6:15-16).   
   You walk on the wings of the winds (Ps 103:3);   
   You created the sky, the earth and the sea   
   and all they contain (Acts 4:24).   
   You make the winds Your messengers   
   and burning fire Your servant (Ps 103:4);   
   You made man in Your image   
   and likeness (Gen 1:26),   
   You measured out the span of the sky   
   and the whole earth with the Fingers of Your Hand.   
   Yes, in Your Presence,   
   Your works are altogether lovely.   
   Amen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)