From: hildegard8@excite.com   
      
   July 23rd - St. Bridget of Sweden   
      
   St. Bridget (1303-1373) was a noble of royal blood from Sweden. In obedience   
   to her father, she married Prince Ulfo of Nercia in 1316. She was the mother   
   of eight children, including St. Catherine of Sweden. After Ulfo's death in   
   1344, she dedicated her life to religion. In 1345 she founded the Order of   
   the Most Holy Savior (the Bridgettines) at Vadstena.   
      
      
   Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)   
      
   I remember only one episode from the life of St. Bridget. Therefore, since   
   we don't have a biographical selection properly speaking, I will comment on   
   it.   
      
   She was a person with a very bad temperament with a propensity to irritation   
   and explosions. She married a bad-tempered man who was also difficult to   
   deal with. In her relations with her husband, she had to learn to dominate   
   herself. After a great deal of effort, she reached that point. Then she made   
   pilgrimages, sanctified herself, had meetings with Popes to report the   
   visions she had received from Our Lord and Our Lady. She also became a nun   
   and founded a religious congregation.   
      
   Because St. Bridget had learned to control her impulsive temperament, she   
   thought she had entirely dominated it. But toward the end of her life, that   
   strong passion in her temperament returned completely, just as it was when   
   she was very young. This was a great trial for her, because she thought that   
   the great fight she had made throughout her life had been lost for some   
   infidelity to God, and that she would have to restart from the beginning   
   again.   
      
   So with this sense that everything before had been in vain, she restarted   
   the fight, tamed her temperament once again, and died at peace with God.   
      
   Her biographers tell us that this trial was not a punishment for any   
   spiritual failing, but rather a design of Divine Providence to make her even   
   more perfect. So, God let her think that the great spiritual progress she   
   had achieved was futile in order to test her love for Him, to see if she   
   would become impatient and revolt or humbly recommence her efforts from the   
   very beginning in obedience to His will.   
      
   This trial was an invitation for her, without her knowledge, to reach the   
   apex of her spiritual life. We should realize this and be prepared should   
   something similar happen in our lives.   
      
   Divine Providence very often asks us - either in our spiritual lives or in   
   our works of apostolate - to face analogous situations that seem to make no   
   sense to us. We have to walk toward walls without doors; we have to dive   
   into oceans without bottoms. But when we walk with the spirit of true   
   obedience to the will of God, at the last moment the doors appear and we can   
   touch the bottom of the ocean with our feet, so that we can continue with   
   the work we are called to do.   
      
   Our Lady does this with souls that she is preparing for the highest ends.   
   She asks the person to walk through what makes no sense as a proof of love   
   for her. How is this demonstration of love? It is blind faith in what Divine   
   Providence has asked from one. After passing through that trial, Our Lady   
   and Our Lord give great graces to that person.   
      
   Sara, the wife of Abraham, was unable to have children. Notwithstanding,   
   Abraham trusted God's promise that a great people would come from him.   
   Finally, in their old age a son was born - Isaac, the son of the promise.   
   Then, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. It made no sense. But Abraham   
   prepared to carry out the will of God. You know the rest. God did not want   
   the immolation of Isaac; what He wanted was to test Abraham's love for Him.   
   In the Old and New Covenants we find many other men of God who faced similar   
   spiritual trials, even though they were men specially chosen by God.   
      
   Since our vocation is a great vocation to fight against the Revolution,   
   especially the Revolution inside the Church, we should be prepared to face   
   great tribulations in this specific point. All the efforts we made   
   throughout our lives may at one point seem useless and futile. Our Lord and   
   Our Lady - who called us to carry out this vocation - will be preparing us   
   for greater things. We should not be surprised if this will happen.   
      
   Let us ask St. Bridget, who suffered this trial at the end of her life, to   
   prepare us to accept such tests without revolt, protest or complaint. And   
   may Our Lady find us worthy to receive similar tribulations.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   What a great benefit it would be to us if God would plant in our hearts a   
   holy aversion to our own satisfaction, to which nature attaches us so   
   strongly that we desire that others would adapt themselves to us/ and all   
   succeed well with us. Let us ask Him to teach us to place all our happiness   
   in Him, to love all that He loves, and to be pleased only with what pleases   
   Him.   
   --St. Vincent de Paul   
      
   Bible Quote   
   12 And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.   
   (2 Timothy 3:12)   
      
      
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   O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire you with a whole heart,   
   so that desiring you we may seek you with a whole heart,   
   so that desiring you we may seek and find you;   
   and so finding you, may love you; and loving you,   
   may hate those sins which separate us from you,   
   for the sake of Jesus Christ.   
   -St. Anselm (1033-1109)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)