From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Everything becomes Light with Love   
      
   "Even those fasts and night watches that seem burdensome and are taken   
   on so as not to disturb one's health are turned into spiritual   
   pleasure provided they are accepted with prayer, psalmody, and reading   
   and meditation on the law of God.   
       The labor of those who love is in no way burdensome; in fact, it   
   even gives pleasure. What matters is what is loved. When we do what we   
   love, either we do not notice the work or the work itself is loved."   
   --St. Augustine--Holy Widowhood, 21, 26   
      
   Prayer: Come, Lord, into my soul, which you have prepared for your own   
   reception by inspiring in me a longing for your goodness.   
   --St. Augustine--Confessions 13, 1   
      
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   19 September – St Alonso de Orozco Mena O.S.A.   
      
    Religious Priest, Preacher, Writer, Apostle of Charity, Spiritual   
   Director, Marian Devotee, Ascetic – born on 17 October 1500 at   
   Oropesa, Toledo, Spain and died on 19 September 1591 in the College of   
   the Incarnation, Madrid, Spain of natural causes.   
      
   Alphonsus de Orozco was born in Oropesa, Province of Toledo, Spain, on   
   the 17th of October 1500, where his father was governor of the local   
   castle. He began his studies in the nearby Talavera de la Reina and   
   for three years he was a choir boy in the Cathedral of Toledo, where   
   he made progress in the study of music. At the age of fourteen his   
   parents sent him to the University of Salamanca, where an elder   
   brother was already studying.   
      
   During the Lenten sermons preached by Thomas of Villanova in 1520, on   
   the psalm “In exitu Israel de GYPTO”, his vocation to the religious   
   life was brought to maturity and a little later, attracted by the   
   religious atmosphere of the Friary of Saint Augustine, he entered that   
   community and there made his profession of vows at the hands of Saint   
   Thomas of Villanova (1486-1555).   
      
   When ordained a priest in 1527 his superiors detected in him such deep   
   spirituality and a capacity for proclaiming the Word of God, that very   
   soon they appointed him to the ministry of preaching. From the age of   
   thirty he held many offices but in spite of his own austere life, his   
   style of governing always showed him to be full of understanding.   
   Inspired by a desire for martyrdom, he set off for Mexico as a   
   missionary in 1549 but on his way, in the Canary Islands, he suffered   
   a severe bout of arthritis and the doctors, fearing for his life,   
   forbade him to continue his journey.   
      
   In 1554, when he was Prior of the Convent in Valladolid, a city which   
   was for many decades the seat of the royal court, Alphonsus was   
   appointed “royal preacher” to the court of the emperor Charles V. When   
   the court was moved to Madrid in 1561, Alphonsus also had to move to   
   the new capital of the Kingdom and he took up his residence in the   
   convent of Saint Philip the Royal.   
      
   In spite of the fact that he was now exercising an office which was   
   outside the jurisdiction of his superiors and which also carried a   
   stipend, he renounced all privileges and only wished to live as a   
   humble friar in obedience to his superiors. He lived in austere   
   poverty. He took only one daily meal at midday, he slept no more than   
   three hours, because he said that was enough for the tasks of the new   
   day. A table was his bed; cut vines his pillow. His room had just one   
   chair, a candle, a broom and some books. By choice, the room was near   
   the door so that he could better attend to the poor who used to come   
   there to ask his help. Without neglecting his daily attendance in   
   choir for prayer, he used to visit the sick in hospitals, the   
   prisoners in the goals and the poor in the streets and in their homes.   
   He spent the day in prayer, in writing his books and preparing his   
   sermons. He was very popular with members of every social class.   
   Personages of society and culture were witnesses in his process for   
   Canonisation, such as the Princess Isabel Clara Eugenia, the Dukes of   
   Alba and of Lerma, the writer Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo and   
   González Dávila. Association with the upper classes did not divert him   
   from his simple lifestyle. His fame spread throughout Madrid. The   
   people who used to call him, much to his displeasure, the “saint of   
   Saint Philip’s”, loved him for his gentle sensitivity in getting close   
   to everyone without distinction.   
      
   He wrote many works, both in Latin as well as in Spanish. The   
   simplicity of the titles indicate that they were written with a view   
   to pastoral ministry: Rule for a Christian life (1542), Garden of   
   prayer and the mount of contemplation (1544), Memorial of holy love   
   (1576), Spiritual treasury (1551), The art of loving God and neighbour   
   (1567), The book of the gentleness of God (1576), Tract on the crown   
   of Our Lady (1588). Like his own life, these writings sprung from a   
   spirit of contemplation and a study of sacred scripture. Such was his   
   great devotion to the Virgin Mary, that he was convinced that he was   
   writing in obedience to her command.   
      
   He was also fervently attached to the love of his own religious Order,   
   writing about its history and spirituality, in the hope of encouraging   
   good men to imitate the Augustinian way of life. Along these lines,   
   led by a desire of internal reform, which would later develop into a   
   movement of recollection in the Order, he was responsible for the   
   foundation of Augustinian monasteries, both of friars and of   
   contemplative nuns.   
      
   In August 1591, Friar Alphonsus fell ill of a fever but this did not   
   prevent him from celebrating his daily Mass, as he never, in spite of   
   any illness, failed to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, saying with a   
   certain humour, “God does no harm to anybody”. During his illness, he   
   was visited by the king, Philip II, by the heir to the throne and   
   Princess Isabel and by the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Gaspar de   
   Quiroga, who personally fed him and then asked for his blessing.   
      
   News of his death, which occurred on the 19th of September 1591 in the   
   College of the Incarnation, which he had founded two years before and   
   which today is the seat of the Spanish Senate, brought sadness to the   
   whole city. The people of Madrid, as testified by Quevedo, filed past   
   the chapel of rest and rushed the doors of the church of the college,   
   knocking down the doors seeking some relic, a splinter of the bed, or   
   a fragment of his clothes, his shoes or of his hair shirt. For many   
   years the Cardinal Archbishop kept for himself the wooden cross which   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)