From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   ~A Warning Against Mysticism~   
      
   Col 2:18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and   
   worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen,   
   vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,   
      
   In our verse we find that Mysticism was disqualifying the Colossian's daily   
   walk with Christ, and was robbing them of their future reward with Christ   
   (3:24). The false teachers probably intimidated the Colossians into   
   believing they would be disqualified if they didn't follow their prescribed   
   course. Mysticism is professing to have direct contact with God or direct   
   insight into truth by some special means. In our verse we find four of the   
   special means that were used.   
      
   The first was a voluntary or self-imposed humility, which could include   
   asceticism. We can accept ourselves in Christ, but this rigid self-denial   
   will only work toward self-occupation (vs. 23). The second was the worship   
   of angels. Angels are ministering spirits, but they never were to be   
   worshipped! This would be Demonism. It denies the union of the believer with   
   the Head, Christ in Glory. The third intruding into the unseen. This would   
   be visionary dreaming and Spiritism. This could also include Demonism. What   
   a wide scope this covers! The last one was being vainly puffed up by the   
   fleshly mind. God called it "the wisdom of this world" (1 Cor. 3:19); today   
   it is called "Humanism." It could include: Rationalism, Intellectualism;   
   Higher Criticism; Liberalism; Neo-Evangelicalism; Situation Ethics; etc. It   
   is the mind of the sin nature and can only produce death (Rom 8: 6).   
      
   In verse 19 Christ as the Head of the Body, is not so much an issue of   
   authority, as it is an issue that as the Head, He is the origin and source   
   of the Body's nourishment. Therefore, we are to hold fast to Him "in Whom   
   are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (vs 3). As the Body holds   
   to the Head, we may experience "the increase of God!"   
      
      
   <><><><><>   
   June 7th - St. Robert of Newminster, Abbot   
      
   (died 1159)   
      
   In 1132 Robert was a monk at Whitby, England, when news arrived that   
   thirteen   
   religious had been violently expelled from the Abbey of Saint Mary in York,   
   for   
   having proposed to restore the strict Benedictine rule. He at once set out   
   to   
   join them, and found them on the banks of the Skeld near Ripon, living, in   
   the   
   midst of winter, in a hut made of woven branches and roofed with turf. In   
   the   
   spring they affiliated with Saint Bernard's reform at Clairvaux, and for two   
   years struggled on in extreme poverty.   
      
   Eventually the fame of their sanctity brought another novice, Hugh, Dean of   
   York, who endowed the community with all his wealth, and thus laid the   
   foundation of Fountains Abbey. In 1137 Raynulph, Baron of Morpeth, was so   
   edified by the example of the monks at Fountains that he built them a   
   monastery   
   in Northumberland, called Newminster, of which Saint Robert became Abbot.   
   The   
   holiness of his life and his instructions guided his brethren to perfection,   
   and   
   within the next ten years three new communities migrated from this one   
   house, to   
   become centers of holiness in other parts.   
      
   The abstinence of Saint Robert at table sufficed to maintain the mortified   
   spirit of the community. One Easter Day his stomach, weakened by the fast of   
   Lent, could take no food, but he finally consented to try to eat some bread   
   sweetened with honey. Before it was brought, however, he felt this   
   relaxation   
   would be a dangerous example for his monks, and sent the food untouched to   
   the   
   poor at the gate. The plate was received by a young man of shining   
   countenance,   
   who straightway disappeared. What the Saint had sacrificed for his brethren   
   had   
   been accepted by Christ.   
      
   At the moment of Saint Robert's death in 1159, Saint Godric, a hermit of   
   Finchale, saw his soul like a globe of fire, borne up by the Angels in a   
   pathway   
   of light, while the gates of heaven opened before them.   
      
   Reflection. Reason and authority prove that virtue ought to be practiced.   
   But   
   facts alone prove that it is practiced, and this is why our individual   
   actions   
   are of such grave importance for others as well as for ourselves.   
      
   Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on   
   Butler's   
   Lives of the Saints, and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger   
   Brothers:   
   New York, 1894).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   It behooves us unanimously and inviolably to observe the ecclesiastical   
   traditions, whether codified or simply retained by the customary practice of   
   the   
   Church.   
   -St. Peter Canisius   
      
   Bible Quotes:   
    And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our   
   hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.  (Romans 5:5)   
      
   Let my mouth be filled with praise, that I may sing thy glory; thy greatness   
   all   
   the day long.  (Psalms 70:8)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer to Saint Raphael   
      
   O Raphael, lead us toward those we are waiting for, those who are waiting   
   for   
   us: Raphael, Angel of happy meeting, lead us by the hand toward those we are   
   looking for. May all our movements be guided by your Light and transfigured   
   with your joy.   
      
   Angel, guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you at the feet of   
   Him on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze. Lonely and tired,   
   crushed by the separations and sorrows of life, we feel the need of calling   
   you and   
   of pleading for the protection of your wings, so that we may not be as   
   strangers in the province of joy, all ignorant of the concerns of our   
   country.   
   Remember the weak, you who are strong, you whose home lies beyond the region   
   of   
   thunder, in a land that is always peaceful, always serene and bright with   
   the   
   resplendent glory of God.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)