From: hildegard8@excite.com   
      
   February 12th - St. Marina V (RM)   
   (also known as Pelagia)   
      
   Date unknown. Marina is said to be the daughter of Eugenius, a Bithynian who   
   became a monk. She was brought into the monastery as a boy by her father so   
   that   
   he could keep her with him. She dressed as a boy and lived the life of a   
   monk   
   until her father died when she was 17. Marina was accused of impregnating   
   the   
   daughter of the local innkeeper but concealed her identity and was dismissed   
   from the monastery. She became a beggar at the gates of the monastery and   
   still   
   maintained her silence about her sex when the innkeeper's daughter made her   
   take   
   custody of the child. Marina was readmitted to the monastery with her 'son'   
   five   
   years later. She was assigned the lowliest tasks and made to perform the   
   most   
   severe penances.   
      
   Her sex was finally revealed at her death, when of course all concerned in   
   the   
   affair were filled with remorse. The whole story is typical of the pious   
   fictions telling of women saints masquerading as men (Attwater,   
   Benedictines,   
   Delaney).   
      
   In art, Saint Marina is generally pictured with a child in a cradle by her   
   as   
   she kneels in prayer. Sometimes she may be shown (1) in a monk's habit   
   carrying   
   the child, (2) nursing the child in a hermitage, (3) drawing a woodcart to   
   the   
   monastery, or (4) kneeling by an open tomb with a dove descending (Roeder).   
   Click here to view a 8th/9th-century icon from Cyprus. Venerated in Galicia   
   (Roeder).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Who except God can give you peace? Has the world ever been able to satisfy   
   the   
   heart?   
   -St. Gerard Majella   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   I will give glory to Thee, O Lord, O King, and I will praise Thee, O God my   
   Saviour.   
   I will give glory to Thy name: for Thou hast been a helper and protector to   
   me.   
   -(Ecclesiasticus 51:1-2)   
      
      
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   FIRST SATURDAY DEVOTION   
      
   ORIGIN   
      
   The First Saturday Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was first   
   mentioned by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917. After showing the three   
   children a vision of hell she said, "You have seen hell where the souls of   
   poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion   
   to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be   
   saved and there will be peace... I shall come to ask for... the Communion of   
   reparation on the first Saturdays..."   
      
   Eight years later, on December 10, 1925, Mary and the Child Jesus appeared   
   to Lucia, the sole surviving Fatima visionary, at a convent in Pontevedra,   
   Spain. Our Lady rested her hand on Lucia's shoulder, revealing a heart   
   encircled by thorns.   
      
   The Child Jesus said: "Have compassion on the heart of your most holy   
   Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every   
   moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation..."   
      
   CONDITIONS   
      
   Our Lady spoke next, saying: "Look, my daughter, at my heart, surrounded   
   with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their   
   blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I   
   promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for   
   salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months,   
   shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary,   
   and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on fifteen   
   mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me."   
      
   WHY FIVE SATURDAYS?   
      
   Christians have always honored the Blessed Virgin on Saturday because of her   
   constant faith in Jesus on that first Holy Saturday before the Resurrection.   
      
   Five first Saturdays of reparation were requested to atone for the five ways   
   in which people offend the Immaculate Heart of Mary:   
      
   1. attacks upon Mary's Immaculate Conception   
      
    2. attacks against her Perpetual Virginity   
      
   3. attacks upon her Divine Maternity and the refusal to accept her as the   
   Mother of all mankind   
      
   4. for those who try to publicly implant in children's hearts indifference,   
   contempt and even hatred of this Immaculate Mother   
      
   5. for those who insult her directly in her sacred images.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)