From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Inner Conflict   
      
   "Controlling my will as he did, the enemy fashioned a chain out of it   
   and bound me with it. A new will that had begun in me, to wish freely   
   to worship you and find joy in you, O God, was not yet able to   
   overcome that prior will, grown strong with age.   
      
   Thus did my two wills—the one old, the other new, the first carnal,   
   the second spiritual—struggle with one another, and by their conflict   
   they laid waste my soul."   
   --St. Augustine--Confessions 8, 5   
      
   Prayer: You have proved my heart, Lord, and visited me by night":   
   because my heart itself has been proved by the visitation of distress.   
   --St. Augustine--Commentary on Psalm 16, 3   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 14th - St. Matthias, Apostle   
      
   (died 63)   
   After our Blessed Lord's Ascension His disciples came together, with   
   Mary His mother and the 11 Apostles, in an upper room at   
   Jerusalem. The little company numbered no more than one hundred and   
   twenty souls. They were waiting for the promised coming of the Holy   
   Ghost, and they persevered in prayer. Meanwhile there was a solemn act   
   to be performed on the part of the Church, which could not be   
   postponed. The place of the fallen Judas had to be filled, that the   
   number of the Apostles might be complete. Saint Peter, therefore, as   
   Vicar of Christ, arose to announce the divine decree. What the Holy   
   Ghost had spoken by the mouth of David concerning Judas, he said, must   
   be fulfilled. Of him it had been written, "His bishopric let another   
   take." A choice, therefore, was needed of one among those who had been   
   their companions from the beginning, who could bear witness to the   
   Resurrection of Jesus.   
      
   Two were named of equal merit, Joseph called Barsabas, and Matthias.   
   After praying to God, who knows the hearts of all men, to show which   
   of these He had chosen, they cast lots, and the lot fell upon   
   Matthias, who was thereby numbered with the Apostles. It is recorded   
   of the Saint, wonderfully elected to so high a vocation, that he was   
   remarkable for his mortification of the flesh. It was thus that he   
   made his election sure.   
      
   He preached in Judea where he was persecuted by both Jews and   
   Gentiles, and died by stoning, a victim of their pursuits, in the year   
   63. His body was taken to Rome by Saint Helena, mother of Constantine,   
   some 250 years later. A church there bears his name.   
      
   Reflection. Our ignorance of many points in Saint Matthias's life   
   serves to fix the attention all the more firmly upon these two--the   
   occasion of his call to the apostolate, and the fact of his   
   perseverance. We then naturally turn in thought to our own vocation   
   and our own end: may it be like his, a holy death in reward for our   
   fidelity.   
      
   Source: 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).   
      
      
   Bible Quotes:   
   "Because he hath looked forth from his high sanctuary: from heaven the   
   Lord hath looked upon the earth"  (Psalm 101:20)   
      
   "And say not: The mercy of the Lord is great, he will have mercy on   
   the multitude of my sins. For mercy and wrath quickly come from him,   
   and his wrath looketh upon sinners. Delay not to be converted to the   
   Lord, and defer it not from day to day. For his wrath shall come on a   
   sudden, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy thee"   
   (Ecclesiasticus 5:69)   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "As to ... the avoidance of sin, there is no more efficacious means of   
   subduing the passions [desires], of resisting temptations, and   
   consequently of avoiding sin, than the remembrance of God's presence."   
   --St. Alphonsus de Liguori (Useful Doctor, 1696-1787)   
      
   “…All that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.” …   
   John 15:15   
      
   REFLECTION – “Among His disciples Christ chose 12 chief ones whom He   
   destined to be the teachers of the nations. Accordingly, after one of   
   these had been struck off, He commanded the eleven others, on His   
   departure to the Father, to “go and teach all nations” who were to be   
   “baptised into the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28,19).   
   So the Apostles – whom this designation indicates as ‘the sent’ – on   
   the authority of a prophecy which occurs in a psalm of David,   
   immediately chose Matthias by lot in place of Judas. They obtained the   
   promised power of the Holy Spirit for the gift of miracles and tongues   
   and, after first bearing witness to faith in Jesus Christ, throughout   
   Judaea and founding Churches there, they next went out into the world   
   and preached the same teaching of faith to the nations. …   
   Now what it was they preached – in other words, what it was that   
   Christ revealed to them – can properly be proved, in no other way,   
   than by those very Churches that the Apostles founded in person, by   
   directly declaring the Gospel to them, first by word of mouth and   
   subsequently by their epistles. If, then, these things are so, it is   
   manifest, that all doctrine that agrees with the Apostolic Churches,   
   which are the matrix and source of the faith, must be reckoned as true   
   and as undoubtedly containing that, which those Churches received,   
   from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God.” …   
   Tertullian, full name Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c 155- c   
   240) Father of the Church   
      
   PRAYER – Lord God, You chose St Matthias to complete the number of the   
   12. By his prayer, include us among Your chosen ones, since we rejoice   
   to see that the lot marked out for us, is in Your Love. May the Mother   
   of Jesus, the Apostles and our Mother, ever intercede for us all.   
   Through Jesus the Christ, our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God now and   
   forever, amen.   
      
   <><><><>   
   O Sacred Banquet   
   (O Sacrum Convivium)   
      
   O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of His Passion is   
   renewed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is   
   given to us.   
      
   V. Thou didst give them bread from heaven:   
   R. Containing in itself all sweetness.   
      
   Let us pray.   
   O God, who under a wonderful Sacrament hast left us a memorial of Thy   
   Passion; grant us, we beseech Thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of   
   Thy Body and Blood, that we may ever feel within ourselves the fruit of Thy   
   Redemption: Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. -- Amen.   
      
   In Paschaltide the following prayer is said:   
      
   Pour upon us, O Lord, the Spirit of Thy love, to make us of one heart, whom,   
   by Thy tender mercy, Thou hast filled with the paschal sacrament. Through   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)