From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   June 2nd - St.Erasmus of Formiae   
      
   Saint Erasmus of Formiae (died about 303), also known as Saint Elmo, is the   
   patron saint of sailors. St. Elmo's Fire is named after him. Erasmus or Elmo   
   is also one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, shadowy figures of Christian   
   mythology who were venerated especially in Central Europe as intercessors.   
      
   The Acts of Saint Elmo were partly compiled from legends that confuse him   
   with a Syrian bishop Erasmus of Antioch. Jacobus de Voragine in the Golden   
   Legend credited him as a bishop at Formia over all the Italian Campania, as   
   a hermit on Mount Lebanon, and a martyr in the persecutions under Eastern   
   Roman Emperor Diocletian.   
      
   According to his legend, when the persecutions of Diocletian began, Erasmus   
   was called before a judge, beaten around the head, spat upon and   
   "besprinkled [...] with foulness". He was then beaten with leaden mauls   
   until his veins broke and burst. Erasmus suffered all of these punishments   
   with tremendous willingness. Erasmus was then thrown into a pit of snakes   
   and worms, and boiling oil and sulfur were poured on him but "he lay therein   
   as he had lain in cold water, thanking and loving God". Then thunder and   
   lightning came and electrocuted everyone around save Erasmus. Thus the saint   
   was protected from the lightning. Diocletian had him thrown in another pit,   
   but an angel came and slew all the vipers and worms.   
      
   Then, came the Western Roman Emperor Maximian, who according to Voragine,   
   "[...] was much worse than was Diocletian". Erasmus would not cease   
   preaching the Gospel, even though he was "put into a pan seething with   
   rosin, pitch, brimstone lead, and oil, [which were] pour[ed] [...] into his   
   mouth, [from] [...] which he never shrieked". A searing hot cloak and metal   
   coat were both tried on him, to no effect, and an angel eventually carried   
   him away to safety. "And when this holy man came before the false gods" to   
   which he was to be forced to sacrifice, they "fell down and broke all in   
   pieces, and consumed into ashes or dust". That made the emperor so angry he   
   had Erasmus enclosed in a barrel full of protruding spikes, and the barrel   
   was rolled down a hill. But an angel healed him. Further tortures ensued:   
      
      
   " [H]is teeth [were] [...] plucked out of his head with iron pincers. And   
   after that they bound him to a pillar and carded his skin with iron cards,   
   and then they roasted him upon a gridiron...and did smite sharp nails of   
   iron in his fingers, and after, they put out his eyes of his head with their   
   fingers, and after that they laid this holy bishop upon the ground naked and   
   stretched him with strong winches bound to horses about his blessed neck,   
   arms, and legs, so that all his veins and sinews that he had in his body   
   burst. "   
      
      
   The version of the Golden Legend did not relate how Erasmus fled to Mount   
   Lebanon and survived on what ravens brought him to eat, an interesting   
   pre-Christian mytheme*. When he was recaptured, he was brought before the   
   emperor and beaten and whipped, then coated with pitch and set alight (as   
   Christians had been in Nero's games), and still he survived. Thrown into   
   prison with the intention of letting him die of starvation, Erasmus managed   
   to escape.   
      
   He was recaptured and tortured some more in the Roman province of Illyricum,   
   after boldly preaching and converting numerous pagans to Christianity.   
   Finally, according to the legend, his stomach was slit open and his   
   intestines wound around a windlass. This late legend may have developed from   
   interpreting an icon that showed him with a windlass, signifying his   
   patronage of sailors.   
      
   Erasmus may have become the patron of sailors because he is said to have   
   continued preaching even after a thunderbolt struck the ground beside him.   
   This prompted sailors, who were in danger from sudden storms and lightning   
   to claim his prayers. The electrical discharges at the mastheads of ships   
   were read as a sign of his protection and came to be called "Saint Elmo's   
   Fire."   
      
   Gregory the Great recorded in the 6th century that his relics were preserved   
   in the cathedral of Formia. When the old Formiae was razed by the Saracens   
   in 842, the cult of Erasmus was translated to Gaeta. He is currently the   
   patron of both Gaeta and Formia.   
      
   Besides mariners, Erasmus is invoked against colic in children, intestinal   
   ailments and diseases, cramps and the pain of women in labor, as well as   
   cattle pest.   
      
   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   
      
      
   *Mytheme   
   In the study of mythology, a mytheme is an irreducible nugget of myth, an   
   unchanging element, not unlike a cultural meme, one that is always found   
   shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various   
   ways-"bundled" was Claude Lévi-Strauss's image- or linked in more   
   complicated relationships, like a molecule in a compound. For example, the   
   myths of Adonis and Osiris share several elements, leading some scholars to   
   conclude that they share a source.   
      
   The cataloguer of folk tales Vladimir Propp considered that the unit of   
   analysis was the individual tale: the unitary mytheme by contrast is the   
   equivalent in myth of the phonemes, morphemes and sememes into which   
   structural linguistics divides language: the smallest possible units of   
   meaning within a language system.   
      
   In the 1950s Claude Lévi-Strauss first adapted this technique of language   
   analysis to analytic myth criticism. In his work on the myth systems of   
   primitive tribes, working from the analogy of language structure, he adopted   
   the term mythème, with the assertion that the system of meaning within   
   mythic utterances parallels closely that of a language system [1]. This idea   
   is somewhat disputed by Roman Jakobson, who takes the mytheme to be a   
   concept or phoneme which is without significance in itself but whose   
   significance might be shown by sociological analysis.   
      
   Lev Manovich also uses the terms seme and mytheme in his book, The Language   
   of New Media to describe aspects of culture that computer images enter into   
   dialog with.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Anxiety proceeds from an ill-regulated desire to be delivered from the evil   
   we experience, or to acquire the good to which we aspire; nevertheless,   
   nothing aggravates evil and hinders good so much as anxiety and worry.   
   -St Francis de Sales   
      
   Bible quote:   
   Unless you do penance, you will all perish. (St. Luke 13:3)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   PRAYER OF ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX   
      
   Jesus, Who in Thy bitter passion did become "the reproach of   
   men and the Man of Sorrows", I venerate Thy Holy Face on   
   which shone the beauty and gentleness of Divinity. In those   
   disfigured features I recognize Thine infinite love, and I long   
   to love Thee and to make Thee loved. May I behold Thy   
   glorious Face in Heaven! Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)