From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   July 21st - Blessed François De Montmorency-Laval   
      
   First Bishop of Quebec and of Canada   
   (1623-1708)   
      
   Blessed François de Laval was born at St. Martin de Montigny-sur-Avre,   
   Normandy, France. He wanted to become a priest from his earliest childhood.   
   When he was eight years old, his father placed him with the Jesuits, where   
   he lived for fourteen years far from his family.   
      
   François lost his father in 1636. His uncle, a bishop, appointed him a canon   
   of Evreux to assist his family. He was ordained a priest on May 1, 1647.   
   King Louis XIV chose him as the first Bishop of New France. On December 8,   
   1658, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the thirty-eight year old   
   prelate was consecrated a bishop. He left for Quebec on June 16, 1659, and   
   immediately began making pastoral visits throughout his immense diocese.   
      
   Upon his arrival, he won everyone's confidence with his charity, piety,   
   discernment and impartiality. His first concern consisted in advancing the   
   organization of the Church in Canada. He contributed greatly towards both   
   the civil and religious formation of the country. Even though he had to face   
   many difficulties, with his wise, firm action, he succeeded in implanting   
   the Faith all over North America.   
      
   Bishop de Laval first founded the Seminary of Quebec which gathered together   
   a community of priests; in 1663 he entrusted the formation of his clergy to   
   this seminary. Five years later, a Minor Seminary was opened for the   
   recruitment of his clergy. In conformity with holy practice in the early   
   centuries of the Church, all the clerics and churchmen lived out of a common   
   fund.   
      
   Blessed François de Laval had to fight with all his might against disorders   
   that had been introduced into the country at the beginning of its   
   colonization, chiefly the traffic of intoxicating liquor. Saint Mary of the   
   Incarnation wrote, "The bishop has had many conflicts in New France   
   concerning liquor given to the natives which almost led to the total ruin of   
   this new Church." Thanks to his apostolic zeal, this shameful commerce was   
   absolutely forbidden.   
      
   The secular powers raised serious opposition to his evangelizing activities,   
   but Bishop de Laval never capitulated in the face of his adversaries' odious   
   proceedings. With firmness and perseverance, the holy bishop resisted all   
   encroachments of civil authorities in Church government. He rose up with   
   authority against anyone who wanted to hinder the implantation of   
   Christianity in the blessed land of New France. With supreme patience, he   
   endured all the wicked actions that earthly magnates wrought against him, as   
   well as two major fires that demolished his seminary, for which he had   
   labored so hard.   
      
   This holy bishop, a pioneer of the Church in New France, lived in constant,   
   heroic renouncement. He wore a hair shirt and slept very little, so as to be   
   able to pray all his offices and rosaries. As for the brief rest he granted   
   himself, he took it on a wretched mat laid on a bed of boards, without even   
   a sheet to cover himself. His great evangelical simplicity was also very   
   praiseworthy, for never did any man have a greater horror of showmanship and   
   vanity, especially when it presented itself under a cover of religion.   
      
   This worthy, virtuous prelate wore old, patched garments. For twenty years   
   he owned only two winter cassocks. At his death one of them was still good;   
   the other, threadbare and patched, attested to his wonderful spirit of   
   poverty. Hard on himself, this admirable man of God was prodigal to excess   
   towards Christ's poor. Every year he never failed to give the needy 1,500 to   
   2,000 pounds.   
      
   Blessed François de Laval endured the sufferings of his last years with   
   great serenity and resignation to God's will. During Holy Week in 1708 he   
   contracted the illness that was to take him to the grave. On May 6, 1708, he   
   died in the company of his priests, reciting the Rosary and the Litany of   
   the Holy Family, which devotion he had propagated throughout Canada.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   We exhort you in every respect, honorable brother, to heed obediently what   
   has been written by the Most Blessed Pope of the City of Rome; for Blessed   
   Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, provides the truth of faith to   
   those who seek it.   
   --Saint Peter Chrysologus, from a letter to Eutyches, 449   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful   
   hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you   
   belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can   
   completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think   
   and feel." - Philippians 4:6-7   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Four Prayers in Times of Weakness, Trial, Tribulation:   
      
   Thou makest a root below the soil flourish, O Lord; and Thou   
   can makest fruitful the darkness in which Thou dost keep me.   
   -Jean-Pierre de Caussade:   
      
   I adore all Thy purposes without knowing them; I am silent; I   
   offer myself in sacrifice; I yield myself to Thee; I would have   
   no other desire than to accomplish Thy will. Teach me to   
   pray; pray Thyself in me.   
   -Fenelon:   
      
   May I be patient!  It is so difficult to realize what one   
   believes, and to make these trials, as they are intended, real   
   blessings.   
   -John Henry Cardinal Newman:   
      
   Mine own heart let me more have pity upon.   
   -Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ:   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)