From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Meditation for troubled times(2)   
   Look at the world as your Father's house. Think of all people   
   you meet as guests in your Father's house, to be treated with love and   
   consideration. Look at   
   yourself as a servant in your Father's house, as a servant of all. Think of   
   no work as beneath   
   you. Be ever ready to do all you can for others who need your help. There is   
   gladness in God's   
   service. There is much satisfaction in serving the highest that you know.   
   Express your love for   
   God in service to all who are living with you in your Father's house.   
   I pray that I may serve others out of gratitude to God. I pray that my work   
   may be a small   
   repayment for His grace so freely given me.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
      
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   October 3rd - St. Gerard of Brogne, Abbot   
      
   THE county of Namur Belgium gave birth to this saint, towards the end of the   
   ninth century. An engaging sweetness of temper gained him the esteem and   
   affection of everyone, and his courtesy and beneficence gave charm to his   
   virtue and made it shine. One day as Gerard returned from hunting, whilst   
   the rest went to take refreshment, he stole into a retired chapel at Brogne,   
   which was part of his own estate, and remained there a long time in prayer.   
   He found so much sweetness therein that he rose from it with sadness and   
   said to himself, How happy are they who have no other obligation but to   
   praise the Lord night and day, and who live always in His presence". To   
   procure this happiness for others and their incessant tribute and honour to   
   the supreme majesty of God was to be the work of his life. He is alleged   
   told by Saint Peter , in a vision, to bring to Brogne the relics of St.   
   Eugenius, a companion of St. Dionysius of Paris.  Later the monks of   
   Saint-Denis gave him what purported to be the relics of this martyr and St.   
   Gerard enshrined them at Brogne. Thereupon he was accused to the bishop of   
   Liege of promoting the veneration of relics of doubtful authenticity. But   
   the bishop was satisfied by the miraculous intervention of St. Eugenius, and   
   Gerard himself became a monk at Saint-Denis.   
      
      Gerard after his profession laboured every day with greater fervour to   
   carry Christian virtues to their noblest heights, and in due course he   
   received priestly orders, though his humility was not overcome in his   
   promotion without difficulty. When he had lived eleven years in this   
   monastery he was allowed in 919 to found an abbey of monks upon his estate   
   at Brogne. This done, and finding the charge of a numerous community break   
   in too much upon his retirement, he built himself a cell near the church and   
   lived in it as a recluse. God some time after called him to an active life,   
   and Gerard was obliged to undertake the reformation of the abbey of   
   Saint-Ghislain, six miles from Mons, in which house he established the Rule   
   of St. Benedict and the most admirable discipline the religious had been in   
   the habit of carrying the relics of their holy founder about the   
   countryside, and exposing them for money which they put to bad uses. St.   
   Gerard carried out this difficult work with such prudence that the count of   
   Flanders, Arnulf, whom the saint had miraculously cured of the stone and   
   whom he had engaged to take up a better life, committed to him the general   
   inspection and reformation of all the abbeys in Flanders. In the course of   
   the next twenty years or so he introduced new and exact discipline in   
   numerous monasteries, including some in Normandy, his reforms being carried   
   out on the lines of the work of St. Benedict of Aniane. But though St.   
   Gerard was widely honoured as a restorer of monastic discipline, not all   
   monks were amenable to his efforts. Some of those of Saint-Bertin, for   
   instance, migrated to England rather than follow a more austere life they   
   were welcomed by King Edmund, who in 944 accommodated them at the abbey of   
   Bath.   
   No fatigues made the saint abate anything of his own austerities or   
   interrupt the communication of his soul with God. When he had spent almost   
   twenty years in these trying labours and was broken with age, he made a   
   general visitation of all the monasteries that were under his direction, and   
   when he had finished shut himself up in his cell at Brogne to prepare his   
   soul to go to receive the reward of his labours, to which he was called on   
   October 3 in 959.   
      
   The life (compiled a century after the death of St. Gerard and printed by   
   Mabillon and in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. ii), which Alban Butler   
   summarized, has been the subject of much discussion. It depends no doubt   
   upon some earlier account, which has perished, but it is in many respects   
   untrustworthy e.g. it is doubtful if he was ever a monk at Saint -Denis. But   
   see Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, vol. (1892), pp. 366-368 and, more especially,   
   U. Berlière in the Revue Bénédictine, vol. ix (1892), pp. 157-172. Cf. also   
   the Analecta Bollandiana, vols. iii, pp. 29-57, and v, pp. 385-395 and M.   
   Guérard, Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Bertin, p. 145.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   As without faith it is impossible to please God, so without mildness it is   
   impossible to please men and to govern them well.   
   --St. Bernard   
      
   Bible Quote   
   His disciples say to him: Behold, now thou speakest plainly, and speakest no   
   proverb. Now we know that thou knowest all things, and thou needest not that   
   any man should ask thee. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God.   
   (John 16:29-30)   
      
      
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   To Our Lady, Queen of Angels   
      
   A Bernardine Sister was shown in spirit the vast desolation   
   caused by the devil throughout the world, and at the same   
   time she heard the Blessed Virgin telling her that it was true,   
   hell had been let loose upon the earth; and that the time had   
   come to pray to her as Queen of the Angels and to ask of her   
   the assistance of the heavenly legions to fight against these   
   deadly foes of God and of men.   
      
   "But my good Mother," she replied, "you who are so kind, could   
   you not send them without our asking?" "No," Our Lady   
   answered, "because prayer is one of the conditions required   
   by God Himself in obtaining favors." Then the Blessed Virgin   
   communicated the following prayer, bidding the Sister to have   
   it printed and distributed:   
      
   August Queen of Heaven! Sovereign Mistress of the angels!   
   Thou who from the beginning hast received from God the   
   power and mission to crush the head of Satan, we humbly   
   beseech thee to send thy holy Legions, that, under thy   
   command and by thy power, they may pursue the evil spirits,   
   encounter them on every side, resist their bold attacks and   
   drive them hence into the abyss of eternal woe. Amen.   
      
      
   · Most Holy Mother, send thy angels to defend us and   
   drive the cruel enemy from us. Amen.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)