From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   God of power and mercy, open our hearts in welcome. Remove from our hearts   
   all   
   that hinders   
   us from receiving Christ with joy, so that we may share His wisdom and   
   become   
   one with Him   
   when He comes in glory, for He lives and reigns with You and the Holy   
   Spirit,   
   one God,   
   for ever and ever. Amen.   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   December 12th - St. Corentin (Cury), Bishop, Confessor   
      
   He was a son of a British nobleman, and being educated in the fear of God,   
   retired young into a forest in the parish of Ploe-Madiern, where he passed   
   several years in holy solitude, and in the practice of great austerities.   
   Marcellus, who subscribed the first council of Tours, and the several other   
   bishops who came over with the Britons into Armorica, had continued to   
   govern   
   their flocks without any correspondence with the French, being strangers to   
   their language and manners. These being all dead, it was necessary to   
   procure a   
   new succession of pastors. St. Corentin was appointed bishop of Quimper or   
   Quimmer, which, in the British language, signified a conflux of rivers, such   
   being the situation of this place near the seacoast. The cities of Rennes,   
   Nantes, and Vannes were reconquered by Clovis I., and subject to him and his   
   successors, and only became again part of the dominions of the Armorican   
   Britons   
   in the ninth century. French bishops therefore governed those sees, and even   
   the   
   Britons who were settled in those parts. But Lower Brittany was at that time   
   independent, first under its kings; afterwards under counts. The count of   
   Cornouaille, (said in the legends to be Grallo I., who died about 445,) in   
   imitation of Caradoc, count of Vannes, gave his own palace at Quimper to   
   serve   
   the bishop, part for his own house, and part for his cathedral. As long as   
   in   
   the year 1424, under an old equestrian statue in the lower part of the   
   church,   
   was read this inscription: Here was his palace.   
      
   St. Corentin was consecrated by St. Martin at Tours, says the legend, but   
   that   
   holy prelate died about the year 397, and the first colony of the Britons   
   was   
   only settled by the tyrant Maximus under their first king Conan in 383, and   
   their last greatest colonies under Riwal, or Hoel I., about the year 520,   
   when   
   they recovered under Childebert part of what Clovis had conquered. It seems   
   therefore most probable that St. Corentin received his episcopal   
   consecration   
   from one of St. Martin's successors at Tours. He subscribed the council of   
   Angers in 453, under the name of Charaton. Having long governed his church,   
   worn   
   out with his apostolic labors, he gave up his soul to God before the end of   
   the   
   fifth century, probably on the 12th of December, on which his principal   
   festival   
   is celebrated at Quimper, Leon, St. Brieuc, Mans, &c. His name occurs in the   
   English Litany of the seventh century, published by Mabillon. (Annal.) His   
   relics were removed to Marmoutier at Tours in 878, for fear of the Normans,   
   and   
   are still preserved there. See Dom. Morice, Hist. de Bret. t. 1, p. 8; and   
   note   
   13, 14, 19; Lobineau, Vies des Saints de la Bretag. p. 51.   
      
   Another ST. CORENTIN, now called CURY, was honored in Devonshire and   
   Cornwall.   
   He came from little Britain, and lived a hermit at the foot of mount   
   Menehent,   
   which Parker, Drake, &c., take for Menehont in Devonshire. He preached to   
   the   
   inhabitants of the country with great fruit, and died in that place in 401.   
   See   
   Borlase, Ant. of Cornwall, &c.   
      
   <><><>   
   St Corentin's Fish   
      
   St Corentin was first Bishop of Quimper in Brittany, and lived in a hermit's   
   cell at the top of the mountain of Saint-Come. Near by bubbled a spring   
   which   
   had for its lone inhabitant a fish. How Corentin first discovered the little   
   fish's disposition, as well as his ability to provide him with a daily meal   
   is   
   not told. We are only assured that every day Corentin went to the basin into   
   which the spring flowed, put his hand into the water, drew out of it the   
   fish,   
   sliced from him a cutlet sufficient for his day's food, and then placed him   
   back   
   in the water.   
      
   As his performance continued for years, the truth is not to be doubted that   
   the   
   fish was daily healed of his wound, and his flesh entirely restored.   
      
   One day the King came hunting in the vicinity, as was the wont of kings,   
   and, as   
   also seems to have been their habit, he with a single retainer was either   
   lost-or else he strayed or stole away from the rest of his party. On this   
   occasion, the retainer happened to be the King's cook. When both King and   
   cook   
   arrived at Corentin's cell they were hungry, and the hermit was obliged to   
   cut   
   an unusually large slice of his fish to feed his two guests.   
      
   Even so King Gallo's cook sneered at sight of the slender portion, but he   
   fried   
   it-and as he fried, it increased and increased until it filled the pan, and   
   proved more than sufficient for all three-King, cook, and Saint.   
      
   When the rest of the party, after long search for their King, arrived on the   
   spot and were told of the miraculous animal, they trooped to the basin to   
   have a   
   look at him. There he was, frolicking in the water, with not even a scar   
   where   
   he had so lately been wounded. The retinue were greatly interested, and one,   
   bolder than the rest, taking out his hunting knife, and performing the   
   operation   
   which had been described to him, carved a substantial piece out of the back   
   of   
   the fish. All were aghast at what then happened, for the fish, far from   
   taking   
   the performance as a matter of course, wriggled feebly back into the water,   
   lay   
   on his side gasping, and looked as if he were about to die.   
      
   Corentin was hastily summoned, and when he arrived quickly uttered a prayer,   
   healed his friend, and bade him depart from the basin before any other   
   heedless   
   knave attracted by rumours of the miracle should make further experiments   
   upon   
   him.   
      
   But Corentin did not subsequently go hungry on this account, for King Gallo,   
   impressed by the occurrence, made him a gift of all the rich forest of   
   Plou-Vaudiern and the hunting-lodge standing in it, which the Saint enjoyed   
   for   
   the rest of his days.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   When a fire is lit to clear a field, it burns off all the dry and useless   
   weeds   
   and thorns. When the sun rises and darkness is dispelled, robbers,   
   night-prowlers and burglars hide away. So when Paul's voice was raised to   
   preach   
   the Gospel to the nations, like a great clap of thunder in the sky, his   
   preaching was a blazing fire carrying all before it. It was the sun rising   
   in   
   full glory. Infidelity was consumed by it, false beliefs fled away, and the   
   truth appeared like a great candle lighting the whole world with its   
   brilliant   
   flame.   
      
   By word of mouth, by letters, by miracles, and by the example of his own   
   life,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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