From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   January 8th - St. Severinus of Noricum, Hermit (RM)   
      
   Died at Favianae in Noricum (Austria), c. 476-78. Severinus was a Roman   
   citizen   
   who gave all his worldly goods to live for a time in the deserts of Egypt.   
   Here   
   he was torn between his desire to live alone and God's call for him to   
   evangelize unbelievers. Guess who's will triumphed? Severinus followed God's   
   call to Austria, which at that time was a highway of invading barbarians,   
   its   
   towns plundered and beleaguered.   
      
   About 453, Severinus came as a mysterious and unknown man sent by God in   
   that   
   unhappy hour to bring help to Noricum's suffering people. He gave no   
   information   
   as to who he was beyond his name, which indicated his high rank, and it was   
   obvious from his manner that he was a man of scholarship and distinction. He   
   appeared to be an African Roman from Carthage and a fellow-countryman of   
   Saint   
   Augustine of Hippo. Attila, the Scourge of God, had just died, leaving   
   behind   
   him, with the break-up of his empire, confusion and chaos, and the fair and   
   fertile lands of central and southern Europe were at the mercy of leaderless   
   armies and plundering tribes.   
      
   Into this scene of wretchedness and distress came Severinus, who settled as   
   a   
   hermit near Vienna. The work was not easy. Many people ignored all that he   
   preached, but-knowing that God doesn't ask us to be successful, only   
   obedient-Severinus continued to preach and found monasteries along the   
   Danube,   
   seeing these as oases of Christianity in an evil land.   
      
   He warned the inhabitants of approaching invasion, but his words went   
   unheeded.   
   They replied with scorn that the proud city of Vienna would never surrender   
   and   
   that they had no fear of the barbarian hordes. But when his words proved   
   only   
   too true, in their helplessness they sent for him, and quietly and calmly he   
   came to their rescue and organized relief. He discovered that a rich woman   
   had   
   hidden away vast quantities of food, which Severinus persuaded her to give   
   to   
   the starving.   
      
   He put new heart into the people, gave them courage to go out to meet the   
   wild   
   German horsemen, and strengthened the defenses of the city. Then,   
   providentially, the ice melted on the Danube and the river was filled with   
   ships   
   of food. Thus Severinus stood in the path of the Goths, and the fear of him   
   was   
   to them, we are told, as the hand of God.   
      
   During this time Severinus was a great apostle of penance. He redeemed   
   captives,   
   helped to comfort the oppressed and the poor, tended the sick, and undertook   
   many efforts for the instruction of the Catholic people of the Danube valley   
   near Vienna. He also worked miracles. It seems that he drove away a plague   
   of   
   locusts that threatened to bring another famine. Slowly many Austrians   
   accepted   
   his faith. He was saddened that he never managed to heal the blindness of   
   one of   
   his greatest friends, but Severinus continued to trust in God.   
      
   When the cloud of terror lifted, he retired to his hermit's cell, but still   
   continued his relief work of securing food, redeeming captives, and   
   conciliating   
   enemy tribes; and to this he added many other works of sanctity and charity.   
   His   
   difficulty was how to preserve a life of detachment amid so much pressure of   
   activity, for the more he longed to dwell in solitude and lead a simple   
   life,   
   the greater were the demands made upon him.   
      
   Even the enemies of Austria came under this influence. The proud and   
   desperate   
   Odoacer, the boldest of the barbarians, sought his counsel, but on reaching   
   the   
   cell of the hermit, found it too small for his great height. "Stoop low,"   
   said   
   Severinus, and the ambitious Goth willingly stooped and entered to receive   
   his   
   blessing.   
      
   Severinus also built many churches and evangelized widely in Austria and   
   Bavaria. To Saint Severinus is attributed the honor of establishing many   
   monasteries, though he himself remained a contemplative, living apart in a   
   spirit of great penance and prayer.   
      
   He became the popular saint of that area. He went barefoot, even in   
   mid-winter   
   when the Danube was frozen, and he insisted on possessing only one tunic. It   
   is   
   said that he never ate until sunset and that in Lent he permitted himself   
   only   
   one meal weekly. To the end he preserved a simple and austere life. He   
   refused a   
   bishopric, though it is doubtful whether he was even ordained.   
      
   For 30 years this saintly and active man, whose origin remained unknown,   
   carried   
   on his noble and enterprising work, conferring with kings and commoners. It   
   is   
   said that he predicted the day of his death. As he lay dying of pleurisy   
   those   
   around him could hear him singing the words of the Psalmist: "Let everything   
   that has breath, praise the Lord." And so he died happily in peace and   
   tranquility. Six years after his death, his monks were driven from Austria   
   and   
   carried his relics to Naples, Italy, where the great Benedictine monastery   
   of   
   San Severino was built to enshrine them (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley,   
   Encyclopedia, Gill).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also   
   produce   
   the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not   
   conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone,   
   then,   
   wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with   
   grace   
   and truth , he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ,   
   which   
   she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to   
   true   
   members of Jesus Christ, her true children.   
   --Saint Louis Marie de Montfort   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, to accomplish His work.  (John   
   4:34)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   From The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, by Saint Alphonsus Liguori:   
      
   We read in history of a proof of love so prodigious that it will be the   
   admiration of all ages.   
      
   There was once a king, lord of many kingdoms, who had one only son, so   
   beautiful, so holy, so amiable, that he was the delight of his father, who   
   loved   
   him as much as himself. This young prince had a great affection for one of   
   his   
   slaves; so much so that, the slave having committed a crime for which he had   
   been condemned to death, the prince offered himself to die for the slave;   
   the   
   father, being jealous of justice, was satisfied to condemn his beloved son   
   to   
   death, in order that the slave might remain free from the punishment that he   
   deserved: and thus the son died a malefactor's death, and the slave was   
   freed   
   from punishment.   
      
   This fact, the like of which has never happened in this world, and never   
   will   
   happen, is related in the Gospels, where we read that the Son of God, the   
   Lord   
   of the universe, seeing that man was condemned to eternal death in   
   punishment of   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)