From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Silence   
      
   Let us leave a little room for reflection, room too for silence. Enter   
   into yourself, and leave behind all noise and confusion. Look within   
   yourself. See whether there be some delightful hidden place in your   
   consciousness, where  you can be free of noise and argument, where you   
   need not be carrying on your disputes and  planning to have your own   
   stubborn way. Hear the word in quietness, that you may understand  it.   
   --St. Augustine-- Sermon 52, 22   
      
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   June 29th - SS. Salome and Judith   
   9th century.   
      
   ABOUT the middle of the 9th century, Walter, the abbot of the double   
   monastery of Ober Altaich in Bavaria, caused an anchoress-cell to be   
   built at the west end of the church with an aperture into the choir.   
   In it he enclosed with the customary rites a relation of his own, a   
   stranger from England named Salome. According to a tradition which   
   became current at Altaich, she was an unmarried princess, the niece of   
   a king of England. On her way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem she   
   had the misfortune to lose her two attendants, all her possessions,   
   and--temporarily--her sight. After many sufferings and much wandering   
   she arrived at Passau, where she found a temporary home, and from   
   thence she went to Altaich to end her days in seclusion and prayer.   
   Some time later she was joined by a cousin or aunt, a widow called   
   Judith, who--it was popularly believed--had been sent in search of   
   Salome by the king of England. Altaich proved as attractive to her as   
   to her kinswoman, and she also decided to remain there. For her   
   accommodation, a 2nd cell was built, adjoining that of Salome. Thus   
   they lived until Salome's death left Judith in solitude. At times she   
   suffered from diabolical attacks and night terrors, and the shrieks   
   which came from her cell sometimes brought the monks running from the   
   neighbouring abbey to find out if she was being murdered. She was   
   buried beside her niece at Ober Altaich. It is stated that in 907,   
   when the monastery was destroyed by the Hungarians, the relics of both   
   recluses were translated to Nieder Altaich, where they are still   
   venerated.   
      
   No contemporary English princess known to history seems to tally with   
   either Salome or Judith, unless, as has been suggested, it be Edburga,   
   the beautiful and wicked daughter of Offa of Mercia. She married   
   Beorhtric, King of the West Saxons, and, after murdering a number of   
   his nobles, she accidentally killed her husband with the poison she   
   had prepared for someone else. She was driven out of England, and she   
   took refuge at the court of Charlemagne. That monarch, in the words of   
   William of Malmesbury, “on account of her wickedness and exceeding   
   beauty, gave her a noble nunnery for women". Her conduct there,   
   however, was so disgraceful that she was ejected with ignominy, and   
   was reduced to wandering from one city to another with a maidservant   
   as her sole companion. Asser states that he knew people who had seen   
   her begging in the streets of Patavium, i.e. Pavia. If Patavium is,   
   indeed, as has been suggested, a copyist's erroneous rendering of   
   Patavia, or Passau, a city within easy reach of Altaich, then Judith   
   the recluse may well have been Edburga; she would naturally change her   
   name on entering religion, to sever so tangible a link with her   
   discreditable past.   
      
   There is a detailed Latin narrative dealing with what purports to be   
   the history of these two recluses, written seemingly by a monk of   
   Nieder Altaich. The Bollandists in 1709 describe him as almost a   
   contemporary of what he records (see the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol.   
   vii), but later critics are satisfied that the document which we   
   possess cannot have taken shape earlier than the close of the twelfth   
   century. Moreover, the Walter referred to in the story as abbot of   
   Altaich seems more likely to belong to the eleventh century, in the   
   time of William the Conqueror. See Holder-Egger in MGH., Scriptores,   
   vol. xv, pp. 847 seq., who quotes the text in part, and cf.   
   Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, vol. xviii (1878), pp. 551 seq.   
   For Edburga, see R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England   
   (1952), pp. 37 seq.   
      
      
   Reflection.   
    The Church takes delight in styling her founder “Jesus most amiable",   
   and He indeed says of Himself, “I am meek and humble of heart.”   
   His true followers can all be characterized in the same way.   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Every time we come into the presence of the Eucharist we may say:   
   This precious Testament cost Jesus Christ His life. For the Eucharist   
   is a testament, a legacy which becomes valid only at the death of the testator.   
   Our Lord thereby shows us His boundless love, for He Himself said there   
   is no greater proof of love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.   
   -- Saint Peter Julian Eymard   
      
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   "Knowledge comes like light from the sun. The foolish man through   
   lack of faith or laziness deliberately closes his eyes--that is, his faculty of   
   choice--and at once consigns the knowledge to oblivion because in his   
   indolence he fails to put it into practice. For folly leads to indolence,   
   and this in turn begets inertia and hence forgetfulness. Forgetfulness   
   breeds self-love--the love of one's own will and thoughts which is   
   equivalent to the love of pleasure and praise. From self-love comes   
   avarice, the root of all evils (cf. 1 Tim. 6:10), for it entangles us in   
   worldly concerns and in this way leads to complete unawareness of   
   God's gifts and of our own faults."   
   --St. Peter of Damaskos.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)