From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   May 25th - St. Aldhelm of Sherborne, OSB B (RM)   
    (Also known as Adhelm, Aldelmus)   
      
   Born in Wessex, England, c. 640; died at Doulting in Somerset, May 25, 709.   
   In the 7th century an Irish monk named Maeldubh settled in the lonely forest   
   country that in those days lay in the northeast of Wiltshire. After living   
   for a time as a hermit, he gathered the children of the neighborhood for   
   instruction. In the course of time his hermitage became a school and so   
   continued after his death, acquiring fame as a community of scholars known   
   as Malmesbury.   
      
   To this center of learning came a young and clever boy called Aldhelm, a   
   kinsman of Ina (Ine), King of Wessex. He was to be the first English scholar   
   of distinction. After studying under Maeldubh, he learned what he could from   
   Saint Adrian and Saint Theodore at Canterbury, where he probably became a   
   Benedictine monk (though he may have done so earlier at Malmesbury).   
      
   He returned to Malmesbury and under Aldhelm the school became a monastery,   
   of which he was appointed abbot about 675. He knew Greek, Latin, and Hebrew,   
   and attracted scholars from other lands. He was also a poet, and was so full   
   of music that it was said that he could play every musical instrument in   
   use. In course of time he established other smaller religious communities in   
   the neighborhood and, thereby, advanced education in all of Wessex.   
      
   He was an advisor to Ina and held in high regard by King Alfred, who wrote   
   down this story about him:   
      
   ""Aldhelm was distressed because the townspeople were indifferent to the   
   Mass, either by absenting themselves or by gossiping and remaining   
   inattentive when they attended. He therefore stood on the town bridge and   
   acted the part of a minstrel by singing popular ballads and reciting his   
   verses interspersed with hymns, passages from the gospels, a bits of   
   clowning in hopes of winning 'men's ears, and then their souls.' The result   
   was that he soon collected a crowd of hearers and was able to impart simple   
   religious teaching to them; 'whereas if he had proceeded with severity and   
   excommunications, he would have made no impression whatever upon them.'"   
      
   Later, at the request of Pope Sergius I, he accompanied Coedwalla, the West   
   Saxon king, to Rome. Later still, he took an active part in disputes between   
   the Celtic and the Anglo-Saxon Church. He addressed a famous letter to   
   Gerent, king of Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall), explaining the date on which   
   Easter ought to be kept by the Celtic clergy there. At one famous synod   
   (Whitby?) Aldhelm attempted reconciliation with what remained of the old   
   British Church in Cornwall, which was then a kingdom with its own king.   
      
   In 705, Aldhelm became the first bishop of Sherbourne, his appointment   
   dating from the time of the division of the old diocese of Wessex into   
   Sherborne and Winchester. His brief episcopate was marked by energy and   
   enterprise. He had travelled a long way from the days when he joined the   
   school in the forest and sang as a minstrel on Malmesbury Bridge. But always   
   he is remembered as the Saxon poet-preacher, who first translated the Psalms   
   into the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and who sang the words of Scripture into the   
   hearts of the common people. In King Alfred's words: 'Aldhelm won men to   
   heed sacred things by taking his stand as a gleeman and singing English   
   songs on a bridge."   
      
   His English writings, hymns and songs, with their music, have all perished;   
   of his Latin works, the longest are a poem in praise of holy maidens and a   
   treatise on virginity written for the nuns of Barking in Essex. In his   
   lighter moments he composed Latin verse and metrical riddles. As a scholar,   
   Saint Aldhelm has been described as 'ingenious,' and it has been well said   
   that the Latin language went to his head. He liked to play with words and   
   his writing was so involved and obscure as often to be unintelligible; but   
   his reading was extensive-so extensive that he has been described as the   
   first English librarian.   
      
   In his own day Aldhelm had a wide influence in southern England. He was   
   buried at Malmesbury Abbey. The cape in Dorset usually called Saint Alban's   
   Head is properly Saint Aldhelm's Head (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney,   
   Duckett, Gill).   
      
   In art, Saint Aldhelm is portrayed as a bishop in a library. He is venerated   
   at Malmesbury (Roeder).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "O Lord my God, let me joy in nothing but what leads to Thee, nor grieve for   
   anything but what leads away from Thee."   
   -St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor, 1225-74) - "Prayer of St Thomas Aquinas for   
   grace to lead a holy life"   
      
   Bible Quotes:   
   "Delight in the Lord: and he will give thee  the requests of thy heart"  (Ps   
   36:3)   
      
   "And he saith to them: Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do   
   evil? To save life, or to destroy? But they held their peace. And looking   
   round about on them with anger, being grieved for the blindness of their   
   hearts"  (Mark 3:4-5)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   The Restoration Prayer   
      
       There are moments, o my Mother, in which my souls feels   
   touched in its deepest recesses by an ineffable yearning. I   
   long for the time in which I loved thee and thou didst love me   
   in the vernal atmosphere of my spiritual life. I yearn for thee,   
   my Lady, and for the paradise that was placed in me by the   
   great communication I had with thee.   
      
       My Lady, dost Thou not also long for that time? Dost thou   
   not long for the goodness which existed in that child that I   
   once was?   
      
       Come, therefore, thou who art the best of all Mothers, and   
   for the love of that which was blossoming in me, restore me.   
   Recompose in me that love for thee and make of me the   
   complete realization of that child without stain which I would   
   have been had I not been so miserable.   
      
       Give me, o my Mother, a repentant and humbled heart and   
   make shine once again before my eyes that which, through   
   the splendor of thy grace, I had once begun to love so very   
   much. Remember, o Lady, this David, and all the sweetness   
   thou didst place in him.   
      
       So be it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)