From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On approaching the wedding feast without the proper garment   
      
   [t]hrough this improper reception of the Eucharist, we come to the   
   wedding feast without the proper garment. In one of Christ’s parables,   
   a king is hosting a marriage feast for his son, and after many of   
   those invited rejected the invitation, the king brought in any from   
   the streets who would come. Among these, however, “He {the king} saw   
   there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend,   
   how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was   
   speechless” (Matthew 22:11-12). This man was thrown “into the outer   
   darkness” because he did not come properly dressed (Matthew 22:13).   
   Thus, when we approach the Lord without having gone to the sacrament   
   of Confession, and receive him unworthily, we are likewise approaching   
   the wedding feast of the Lamb without the proper garment....   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   July 9th - St. Paulina do Coração Agonizante de Jesus   
   (Also known as Amabile Lucia Visintainer   
      
   Mother Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus (Amabile Lucia   
   Visintainer), was born on 16 December 1865 in Vigolo Vattaro in the   
   Province of Trent in Italy. Like all the other people of the area her   
   parents were practicing Catholics and very poor. In September 1875 her   
   family, together with many other people from Trent, emigrated to the   
   State of Saint Catherine in Brazil, thus creating the town of Vigolo,   
   which is presently part of the community of Nova Trento. After   
   receiving her first Communion at about the age of twelve, Amabile   
   began to participate in parish life: catechism for children, visits to   
   the sick and cleaning the chapel of Vigolo.   
      
   On 12 July 1890 Amabile and her friend Virginia Rosa Nicolodi took   
   care of a woman suffering from cancer. Thus began the Congregation of   
   the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, which obtained the   
   approval of the Most Reverend José de Camargo Barros, Bishop of   
   Curitiba. In December of the same year, Amabile, together with her   
   first two companions, Virginia and Teresa Anna Maule, professed her   
   religious vows and took the name of Sister Pauline of the Agonizing   
   Heart of Jesus. The holiness of life and apostolic zeal of Mother   
   Pauline and her Sister companions attracted many vocations despite the   
   poverty and the difficulties in which they lived. In 1903 Mother   
   Pauline was elected Superior General “for life” and left Nova Trento   
   in order to take care of the orphans, the children of former slaves,   
   and the old and abandoned slaves in the district of Ipiranga of Saõ   
   Paulo.   
      
   In 1909 Mother Pauline was removed as Superior General by the Most   
   Reverend Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, Archbishop of Saõ Paulo, and sent to   
   work with the sick at “Santa Casa” and the elderly of the Hospice of   
   Saint Vincent de Paul at Bragança Paulista, without any longer being   
   able to assume an active role in her Congregation. These were years   
   marked by prayer, work and suffering, all of which she accepted and   
   endured so that the Congregation of the Little Sisters might continue   
   its journey and “our Lord be known, loved and adored by all souls, in   
   the whole world”. In 1918, with the permission of Archbishop Duarte,   
   she was called by the Superior General Mother Vicência Teodora to the   
   Mother House of Ipiranga, where she would remain until her death.   
   There she lived a hidden life, interwoven with prayer and loving   
   assistance to the infirm Sisters.   
      
   She was acknowledged as the “Venerable Mother Foundress” when, on 19   
   May 1933, the “Decree of Praise” was granted by the Holy See to the   
   Congregation of the Little Sisters, and during the celebration of the   
   50th anniversary of its foundation on 12 July 1940, when Mother   
   Pauline wrote her Spiritual Testament: “Be humble. Trust always and a   
   great deal in divine Providence; never never must you let yourselves   
   be discouraged, despite contrary winds. I say it again: trust in God   
   and Mary Immaculate; be faithful and forge ahead!”.   
      
   From 1938 onwards, Mother Pauline began to experience serious health   
   problems due to diabetes. After two operations, first her middle   
   finger and then her right arm were amputated. She spent the last   
   months of her life totally blind. On 9 July 1942 she died with the   
   last words: “God's will be done”....The entire life of Mother Pauline   
   can be summed up by the title given her by the people of Vigolo in   
   Nova Trento: “nurse”, that is “being-for-others”; or the one given her   
   today by those devoted to her and by the Little Sisters: “all for God   
   and for her brethren”....   
      
   When the General Chapter was finished in August of 1909, the sorrowful   
   and meritorious holocaust of the Mother Foundress began. The   
   Archbishop had decreed that “she should live and die as an underling”.   
   Indeed she lived in the shadows right up until her death in 1842, in   
   union with God as she declared to her spiritual director, Father Luigi   
   Maria Rossi, SJ: “The presence of God is so intimate to me that it   
   seems impossible for me to lose it; and such presence gives my soul a   
   joy which I can not describe”.   
      
   The charism which Mother Pauline left to her Congregation consists in   
   the sensitivity to hear the cry of reality with its needs, and in the   
   willingness to serve, in the Church, the most needy and those who live   
   in situations of great injustice, with a spirit of poverty, humility   
   and interior life. It is a service which feeds upon a   
   Eucharistic-Marian spirituality. It is because of this spirituality   
   that every Little Sister makes Jesus, present in the Eucharist, the   
   center of her own life, nourished by tender devotion to the Immaculate   
   Virgin and to the good Father Saint Joseph.   
      
   The first Saint of Brazil was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 18   
   October 1991 in Florianopolis in the State of Saint Catherine in   
   Brazil. [She was canonized 19 May 2002 by Pope John Paul II, Rome,   
   Italy.]   
   To Mother Pauline we entrust the Brazilian people, the Church in   
   Brazil and the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate   
   Conception, and all those who have helped to attain her Canonization.   
      
   Source: Vatican News Service   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "He who purifies himself from his faults in the present life,   
   satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand ducats; and he who waits   
   until the other life to discharge his debts, consents to pay a   
   thousand ducats for that which he might before have paid with a   
   penny."   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)