From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Advance into battle   
      
   "...advance into battle without hesitation. Should you be visited by   
   the troubling thought of the hatred and undying malice, which the   
   enemies harbor against you, and of the innumerable hosts of the   
   demons,  think on the other hand of the infinitely greater power of   
   God and of His love for you, as well as of the incomparably greater   
   hosts of heavenly angels and the prayers of saints. They all fight   
   secretly for us and with us against our enemies."   
   -- Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli.   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
    20 July – Blessed Gregory Lopez   
      
   Hermit, Spiritual Advisor, Writer. Born on 4 July 1542 at Madrid,   
   Spain and died on 20 July 1596 of natural causes near Mexico City.   
      
   Around 1585, word of a “Mystery Man” began to leak into Mexico City, a   
   strange hermit who lived out in the lonely valley of Guesteca, who   
   walked miles to go to Mass, lived totally subject to “Lady Poverty”   
   and had travelled from the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Spain   
   (which dates from 712), to her Shrine in Mexico (which dates from   
   1531). Disturbed by the wagging tongues of the day and the stories   
   becoming exaggerated with the telling, the Archbishop of Mexico, set   
   up an investigating commission to examine the matter. What they   
   discovered was quite remarkable and Blessed Gregory had to find a new   
   place to hide.   
      
   He had been a Page in the Court of Philip II of Spain and while   
   visiting the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Estremadura, had heard   
   of the Shrine of the same name in Mexico. He sold all his possessions   
   and gave the money to the poor and then went to Mexico convinced that   
   God would show him what to do. In Mexico, he went in search of a place   
   to live as a hermit. He found a suitable place in Guesteca, walked 24   
   miles to Mass on Sundays and Feast days and caused a lot of gossip by   
   his unusual way of life. To quiet the tongues, he lived on a   
   plantation for a while to attend daily Mass regularly but after the   
   earthquake of 1566, he returned to his hermitage.   
      
   He thought he should perhaps become a Dominican Friar but he found   
   that community life was not for him and returned to his solitude. When   
   the Archbishop approved his way of life and Blessed Gregory became too   
   popular, he went to work in a hospital and wrote a book on pharmacy   
   for the nursing brothers.   
      
   In 1589, a priest friend, Fr Francisco de Losa (1536-1634) helped him   
   to set up a Hermitage near his Parish. At this point, Fr Losa could   
   more carefully observe the piety of his charge and the biography   
   focuses on this aspect. Fr Losa was so edified that he retires from   
   his pastoral duties to accompany and observe his friend.   
      
   “I then observed both day and night all his actions and words with all   
   possible attention, to see if I could discover anything contrary to   
   the high opinion which I had of his virtue. But far from this, his   
   behaviour appeared everyday more admirable than before, his virtue   
   more sublime and his whole conversation rather divine than human.”   
      
   They spent time in scriptural study, long hours in prayer and became   
   Spiritual advisors to many. Fr Losa notes a typical day.  Gregory   
   would rise, wash, read a little, then fall into a “recollection”: “All   
   one could conjecture from the tranquility and devotion which appeared   
   in his countenance was that he was in the continual presence of God.”   
   They would dine at one o’clock, afterwards engage in conversation or   
   one might read aloud as a recreation. Then Gregory would return to his   
   room until the next day, though sometimes he received visitors; in his   
   last years the visitors were often ecclesiastics, the learned, or the   
   nobility, going away much edified.  Gregory’s routine remained not to   
   use a candle and he retired by about 9:30 in the evening. Towards his   
   last years he had reluctantly accepted the sheepskin quilt offered by   
   Fr Losa and a bed rather than the floor. In any case, he seldom slept   
   more than a few hours.   
   Among the virtues of Gregory was his mildness, patience, and humility   
   — though he must have suffered greatly from his physical pain (a bad   
   intestinal illness which caused bleeding).  He never judged others:   
   “For many years I have judged no man but believed all to be wiser and   
   better than me. I have not pretended to set myself up above others or   
   to assume any authority over others.”   
      
   He never complained, and Fr Losa says, “I never heard him speak one   
   single word that could be reproved.” His conversation was never but   
   “useful and spiritual,” though he preferred silence. Gregory used to   
   say that “My silence will edify more than my words” and “I see that   
   many talk well, but let us live well.” Ultimately, however, Gregory no   
   longer identified with this world:  “Ever since I came to New Spain I   
   have never desired to see anything in this world, not even my   
   relations, friends or country.”   
      
   Fr Losa attests to the vast knowledge of López, of ecclesiastical and   
   profane history, ancient to contemporary, of astronomy, cosmography,   
   geography, botany, zoology, anatomy, medicine and botanicals. These   
   topics did not distract López from his spirituality, however, for he   
   told Losa, “I find God alike in little things and in great.”   
      
   But his spiritual discernment was keen and Fr Losa says that Gregory   
   “saw spiritual things with the eyes of his soul as clearly as outward   
   things with those of his body and had an amazing accuracy in   
   distinguishing what was of grace and what of nature.” For this Blessed   
   Gregory was often consulted by visitors as if he was an “oracle from   
   heaven, as a prodigy of holiness.” One can imagine how this edified Fr   
   Losa, for in 1579 he began writing about López, even while yet a   
   rector of a large parish in Mexico City.   
      
   Blessed Gregory remained a hermit all his life, wishing always to be   
   alone with God.  When he died in 1596 at the age of 54, miracles were   
   attributed to him almost immediately. He was a most unusual man, who   
   took his own path to holiness and remained convinced that it was the   
   will of God for him. His fame reached as far as England, France and   
   Germany. The sickness that had dogged him returned one last time in   
   1596. He lost all appetite and could swallow only liquids. The bloody   
   flux would not stop and he grew progressively weaker. He told Fr Losa   
   that he had entered “God’s time” and his comportment would consist in   
   doing and not in talking.  Fr Losa records that “I never perceived in   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)