From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   May 16th - Saint Simon Stock   
      
   Saint Simon Stock was born of one of the most illustrious Christian families   
   of   
   England, at the castle of Harford in 1164. Certain prodigies marked him,   
   while   
   an infant in the cradle, as a soul chosen by the Mother of God for Her own.   
   Not   
   yet one year old, he was heard to say the Angelic Salutation distinctly,   
   before   
   he had reached the age to learn it. As soon as he could read he began to   
   recite   
   the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, and he would never cease to do so   
   daily. He read Holy Scripture on his knees at the age of six. He became the   
   object of the jealous persecution of one of his brothers, and at the age of   
   twelve determined to leave and go to live in a forest.   
      
   He found a very large hollow tree which became his oratory; and there Simon   
   Stock lived like an angel of the desert. There he triumphed over the demon,   
   as   
   he would later tell his religious, only by the assistance of the Most Holy   
   Virgin. When, deprived in his retreat of the Sacraments, he suffered sharp   
   remorse and fear of his danger amid demoniac visions of criminal pleasures,   
   Mary   
   showed him the wiles of his enemy's intentions in these harassments.   
      
   After twenty years he returned to his parents and resumed his studies, in   
   particular those of theology. He was ordained a priest to obey the orders of   
   Heaven, then went back to his retreat, which he left definitively in the   
   year   
   1212. The incentive for his departure was a revelation the Blessed Virgin   
   made   
   to him that the Carmelite Fathers of Palestine would come to found   
   monasteries   
   in England. When two Carmelite monks arrived in the company of two English   
   lords   
   returning from a crusade, he hastened to join them, but troubles prevented   
   the   
   foundation of their projected monastery. The three hermits therefore lived   
   in   
   cells near Oxford. The University of Oxford, by recourse to obedience,   
   prevailed   
   upon Simon's Superiors to allow him to teach theology there, but he did not   
   remain for long.   
      
   During a time of difficulty for England which resulted from the Britannic   
   king's   
   conflicts with the Pope, he composed the famous hymn, "Alma Redemptoris   
   Mater",   
   in honor of the Mother of God, to ask for the king's conversion; his prayers   
   were heard and suddenly the prince accepted all conditions of peace which a   
   papal legate proposed. Saint Simon was soon made Vicar General of his Order   
   for   
   all of Europe. But opposition to the spread of the ancient Order of the   
   Virgin   
   was raised up by the enemy of souls, until Pope Honorius III put an end to   
   it by   
   bulls approving, confirming and protecting the Order from its enemies. He   
   did   
   so, he said, to conform to a command of the Mother of God Herself.   
      
   When a General Chapter of the Order was assembled on Mount Carmel itself,   
   Saint   
   Simon attended it. The question of the flight of the monks from the   
   persecutions   
   of the infidels was debated; Saint Simon won out over another opinion by   
   saying   
   that it was a great evil to expose one's faith to the dangers of persecution   
   without a specific order from heaven, according to the Gospel: "When you are   
   persecuted in one city, flee to another." The Order had already lost many of   
   its   
   houses, burnt and desecrated. So the monks dispersed to join an army of   
   Crusaders, not without suffering the loss of the lives of several among them   
   at   
   the hands of the infidels. The Christian army, however, found its waters   
   were   
   poisoned by the hand of its enemies, and retired with Saint Simon and his   
   religious to the Mountain of Carmel once again; there the ancient fountain   
   of   
   Elias gave water in abundance, in answer to their prayers. For six years   
   Saint   
   Simon remained on Carmel before returning to Aylesford in England.   
      
   The Order afterwards multiplied its foundations, making several in France,   
   under   
   its pious king Saint Louis IX. So prodigiously did it multiply under Saint   
   Simon, that a few years after his death, towards the end of the 13th   
   century, it   
   numbered, according to William of Tyre, several thousand monasteries or   
   solitudes, which the same author estimated were peopled with some 125,000   
   religious. Saint Simon visited many of them in his extreme old age; he died   
   at   
   Bordeaux during his journeys in 1265.   
      
   Source: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin   
   (Bloud et   
   Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 5.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   What was God to do in the face of the dehumanizing of mankind-this universal   
   hiding of the knowledge of Himself? So burdened were men with their   
   wickedness   
   that they seemed rather to be brute beasts than reasonable men, reflecting   
   the   
   very likeness of the Word. What, then, was God to do? What else could He   
   possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it   
   men   
   might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the   
   coming   
   of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ?... Men had turned from   
   the   
   contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in two opposite   
   directions,   
   down among created things, and things of sense. The Savior of us all, the   
   Word   
   of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men,   
   meeting their senses, so to speak, half-way. He became Himself an object for   
   the   
   senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might   
   apprehend   
   the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body.   
   -St. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God   
      
   Bible Quote   
   1 And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all   
   together   
   in one place: 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty   
   wind   
   coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there   
   appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every   
   one of   
   them:   
   (Acts 2:1-3)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   ON THE VIRTUE OF CHASTITY   
   1. On the throne on which the chaste body of St. Catharine of Bologna is   
   honored, one reads the words in which the Holy Spirit pronounces the praise   
   of chastity: "O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory; for the   
   memory thereof is immortal. It triumphs, crowned for ever, winning the   
   reward of undefiled conflicts" (Wisdom 4:12). Undefiled purity requires a   
   struggle in every state of life, in every period of human life; but such a   
   reward is well worth the struggle. Have you fought faithfully for this   
   precious treasure?   
   2. Consider, on the other hand, what an abominable vice impurity is. While   
   chastity makes men similar to angels and sometimes preserves them from   
   corruption after death, impurity degrades them to the level of the beast and   
   sometimes produces corruption even before the soul has left the body. The   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)