From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   April 11th - St. Gemma Galgani V (RM)   
      
   Born at Borgo Nuovo di Camigliano near Lucca, Tuscany, Italy, 1878; died   
   April 11, 1903; beatified in 1933; canonized in 1940.   
   Gemma's was the daughter of a poor pharmacist. Her mother died when she was   
   seven, and from then on her life was one of domestic trials and great   
   physical and spiritual pain. Through it all, however, she remained at peace   
   and was the subject of extraordinary supernatural phenomena--visions,   
   ecstasies, revelations, supernatural knowledge, visible conversations with   
   her guardian angel, prophecy, miracles, recurring periodic stigmata, and   
   diabolic assaults.   
      
   When she was 18, her father died, and Gemma joined the household of Matteo   
   Giannini at Lucca as a domestic servant. She wished to join the Passionist   
   congregation of which her spiritual director was a member, but she was   
   prevented from doing so by her physical frailties, which included a   
   condition of the spine (tuberculosis). Later Gemma believed herself to have   
   been cured of the tuberculosis by the intercession of Saint Gabriel   
   Possenti, who had himself died of consumption.   
      
   She was of a remarkably fervent religious disposition. Between 1899 and   
   1901, she was subject to various supernatural phenomena, which were   
   carefully investigated by her confessor, Father Germano. For over 18 months   
   she suffered the stigmata of Christ's Crucifixion and marks of His scourging   
   while she prayed. She experienced visions of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and   
   her guardian angel. When she spoke in ecstasies, the sound of her voice   
   changed, and listeners recorded her words.   
      
   At other times, however, she seemed to suffer possession and performed such   
   acts as spitting on a crucifix and breaking a rosary. Throughout her life   
   she patiently endured her spiritual and physical sufferings--which included   
   the scorn of unbelieving relatives and townspeople--and practiced severe   
   austerities.   
      
   She died an early death on Holy Saturday and shortly thereafter a popular   
   cult developed. Her popularity increased in 1943, when her correspondence   
   with her spiritual director was published. She was canonized, despite much   
   opposition because of some of the phenomena connected with her, based not on   
   the phenomenal nature of her religious experiences but on the holiness of   
   her life (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, White).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Repentance is the returning from the unnatural to the natural state, from   
   the Devil to God, through discipline and effort.   
   -St. John of Damascus   
      
   Bible Quote   
   10 When thou shalt pour out thy soul to the hungry, and shalt satisfy the   
   afflicted soul then shall thy light rise up in darkness, and thy darkness   
   shall be as the noonday.  11 And the Lord will give thee rest continually,   
   and will fill thy soul with brightness, and deliver thy bones, and thou   
   shalt be like a watered garden, and like a fountain of water whose waters   
   shall not fail.   (Isaias 58:10-11)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer Against the Seven Deadly Sins   
      
   Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving You   
   glory.   
      
   Therefore, keep me, above all things, from sin. Keep me from the death of   
   deadly sin which puts hell in my soul. Keep me from the murder of lust that   
   blinds and poisons my heart. Keep me from the sins that eat a man's flesh   
   with irresistible fire until he is devoured. Keep me from loving money in   
   which is hatred, from avarice [greed] and ambition that suffocate my life.   
   Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labor in which   
   artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints   
   are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal. Staunch in   
   me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature   
   with their bleeding. Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison   
   and kills all joy.   
      
   Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the   
   laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required   
   of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to   
   escape sacrifice.   
      
   But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me   
   humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the   
   heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity   
   of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of   
   love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of   
   perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but   
   for You alone.   
      
   Thomas Merton, 1961, Gethsemani. Imprimatur Francis Cardinal Spellman,   
   Archbishop of New York   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)