From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Love does not envy others   
      
   Envy and jealousy, its counterpart, are sinful because they lead us to   
   sorrow over what should make us rejoice--namely, our neighbor's good.   
   The reason we may grieve over our another's good is that somehow we   
   see that good as lessening our own value or excellence. Envy forms   
   when we believe that the other person's advantage or possession   
   diminishes or brings disgrace on us. Envy is contrary to love. Both   
   the object of love and the object of envy is our neighbor's good, but   
   by contrary movements, since love rejoices in our neighbor's good,   
   while envy grieves over it.   
      
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   May 28th - Bl. Margaret Pole, Royal Martyr   
   (1473-1541)   
      
   By birth, Blessed Margaret Pole was a Plantagenet--a member of the   
   royal family that ruled England from 1154 to 1485. Kings Edward IV and   
   Richard IV were her uncles, and by marriage she was a first cousin to   
   Henry VII Tudor. Her royal blood was the cause of both her prominence   
   and her death.   
      
   King Henry VII gave Margaret in marriage to one of his favorite   
   knights, Sir Richard Pole. Richard and Margaret had five children. One   
   of them was Reginald Pole (1500-1558). Reginald felt called to the   
   clergy, was made a cardinal in 1536 and in 1549 came close to being   
   elected pope. He was a leader in the Catholic Reformation spearheaded   
   by the Ecumenical Council of Trent. Named papal nuncio to England in   
   1554 when Catholic Mary Tudor succeeded King Edward VI, Cardinal Pole   
   formally received that country back into union with the Holy See and   
   died as the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury.   
      
   Henry VII had at one point charged Margaret’s brother with treason and   
   confiscated his property. When his son, young Henry VIII, became king,   
   he repaired this injustice to the Poles by returning to Margaret her   
   brother’s estates and creating her Countess of Salisbury. At that   
   time, Henry had only praise for this noble matron. He even called her   
   the saintliest woman in England. Since she was now a widow, the   
   monarch invited her to come to court and serve as governess to his   
   daughter, Mary Tudor.   
      
   After a while, however, the king determined to get an annulment of his   
   marriage to Princess Mary’s mother, Queen Catherine of Aragon.   
   Catherine had not given him a male heir. Furthermore, he was attracted   
   to a woman of the court, Anne Boleyn. When the pope declared himself   
   unable to grant the annulment requested, Henry broke not only with the   
   pope but with the Catholic Church. He had the Protestant Archbishop of   
   Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, issue an invalid declaration that the   
   marriage to Catherine was null; and Henry VIII proclaimed himself head   
   of the Church in England.   
      
   While seeking opinions favorable to his divorce, Henry had asked   
   Reginald Pole for his view. Pole wrote a respectful but strong   
   denunciation of the King’s arguments. Henry now turned against   
   Reginald’s whole family. To revenge himself, he executed Margaret’s   
   other son, Lord Montague, as well as her nephew, the Marquis of   
   Exeter. In 1539, the king got Parliament to pass a law declaring the   
   Pole family guilty of treason. Margaret had approved her son   
   Reginald’s statement on the royal marriage, and since she disapproved   
   of the ruler’s attack on the papacy, she withdrew from the court. But   
   she could not escape his vindictiveness. A board of inquiry that   
   subjected her to a long interrogation could find nothing treasonable   
   in her actions. Nevertheless, she was jailed in the wretched Tower Of   
   London, and held prisoner for two years.   
      
   There never was a trial. Quite likely, the authorities realized that   
   no jury would convict the respected Countess Margaret. Finally, on May   
   27, 1541, on only an hour’s notice, Margaret was led out into the   
   square and beheaded. Since the official headsman was not present, his   
   amateurish assistant plied the axe, causing further grief by his   
   clumsy hacking.   
      
   Thus died Margaret Pole, a commanding matron of 70 years, for her   
   loyalty to the pope. She was truer to her royal blood than the   
   misguided king who shed it. On December 29, 1886, Pope Leo XIII   
   declared this queenly woman a blessed martyr. She is a glory of   
   Catholic motherhood and widowhood. Her feast day is May 28.   
   –Father Robert F. McNamara   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Listen to me for one moment and you will see that only the service of   
   God will console us and make us happy in the midst of all the miseries   
   of life. To accomplish it, you do not need to leave either your   
   belongings, or your parents, or even your friends, unless they are   
   leading you to sin. You have no need to go and spend the rest of your   
   lives in the desert to weep there for your sins. If that were   
   necessary for us, indeed, we should be very happy to have such a   
   remedy for our ills. But no, a father and a mother of a family can   
   serve God by living with their children and bringing them up in a   
   Christian way. A servant can very easily serve God and his master,   
   with nothing to stop him. No, my dear brethren, the way of life that   
   means serving God changes nothing in all that we have to do. On the   
   contrary, we simply do better all the things we must do!   
   -- St. John Vianney   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   6 The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,   
   and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  [2   
   Corinthians 9:6]  RSVCE   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   “If I’m not willing, to change my schedule,   
   so that I can, spend time with Jesus,   
   than I’m not really, a disciple of His.”   
   “If you follow Jesus,   
   you’re going to get into some trouble!”   
   “If not YOU,   
   then WHO?   
   If not NOW,   
   then WHEN?   
   --Fr Mike Schmitz   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)