From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   October 21st - Saint Hilarion   
   Patriarch of the Solitaries of Palestine   
   (d. 372)   
      
   Saint Hilarion was born of pagan parents near Gaza, and was converted while   
   studying grammar in Alexandria. He renounced games, the theater and all the   
   vain   
   amusements of young people, to attend the reunions of his fellow Christians.   
   He   
   desired to see the great Saint Anthony in the desert and went to Egypt,   
   where he   
   remained near him for two months. He carefully observed everything in his   
   life   
   and conduct  his affability, his gentleness towards others and his severity   
   towards himself, then returned to Palestine with a few solitaries to settle   
   his   
   affairs. His father and mother had both died, and he kept nothing of his   
   heritage for himself. At this time he was only fifteen years old.   
      
   Despite his youth and delicate health, he retired to a desert; he practiced   
   severe mortification, tempted continually by the demons expending all their   
   efforts to make him abandon this life of total renouncement. He redoubled   
   his   
   austerities, tilled the ground and, following the example of the Egyptian   
   monks,   
   made baskets of reeds and willow branches. He lived first in a cabin of   
   reeds,   
   then in one of clay, so low and narrow that it seemed more like a tomb than   
   a   
   lodging for a young man. He learned all of Holy Scripture by heart and   
   repeated   
   it with admirable devotion. When thieves approached him one day he told them   
   he   
   did not fear them, because he had nothing to lose, and death did not alarm   
   him   
   since he was ready to die. They were so touched by his answers they promised   
   him   
   to abandon their life of pillage.   
      
   He soon began to work miracles by his prayers, and visitors made their way   
   to   
   his former solitude. Several remained nearby to become his disciples, and   
   thus   
   gave rise to the monastic life in Palestine, of which Hilarion is regarded   
   as   
   the founder. Saint Anthony esteemed him highly, sometimes wrote him letters,   
   and   
   sent to him the sick persons who came to him from Syria, telling them they   
   had   
   no need to make so long a journey. Saint Hilarion was a master exorcist and   
   healer of all illnesses, but he refused all remuneration for his assistance,   
   saying to his visitors from the city that they were better placed than he to   
   distribute in alms the money they were offering him. Frequently the   
   scattered   
   solitaries of Palestine came to him to listen to his instructions, and he   
   also   
   visited them. The pagans too gathered around him. His exhortations to   
   abandon   
   idolatry were so powerful that on one occasion a group of Saracens promised   
   to   
   convert, asking him to send them a priest to baptize them and establish a   
   church. One day, accompanied by three thousand persons who were following   
   him,   
   he blessed the vine of a solitary who received him. The vine furnished a   
   triple   
   harvest and all in the crowd were well nourished.   
      
   Saint Hilarion found his solitude transformed into a city, and decided at   
   the   
   age of sixty-five to go elsewhere. His Palestinian disciples attempted to   
   change   
   his mind without success, and taking with him only forty monks, he set out   
   for   
   Egypt on foot. Saint Anthony had recently died, and he wished to visit the   
   places where he had dwelt. After spending some time in Egypt, he went with   
   only   
   two religious to a village a few days' distance from Babylon. He remained   
   only a   
   short time there also, afterwards going elsewhere, and everywhere assisting   
   those who had recourse to his prayers. In Sicily he delivered a demoniac,   
   and   
   then a crowd came to surround him once again. In Dalmatia he worked still   
   more   
   miracles, and saved a city from being engulfed by tidal waves raised by an   
   earthquake. These traditions are still alive in the regions where he passed.   
   He   
   tried many times to live unknown but never could succeed.   
      
   Saint Hilarion died in 372 on the island of Cyprus, at the age of seventy   
   years.   
   His last words were: "Go forth, my soul; why dost thou doubt? Nigh seventy   
   years   
   hast thou served God, and dost thou fear death?" His body was found   
   incorrupt   
   some time afterwards, and was transported to Palestine to his original   
   monastery. Saint Jerome was his original biographer.   
      
   Source: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin   
   (Bloud et   
   Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   The man who burns with the fire of divine love is a son of the Immaculate   
   Heart   
   of Mary, and wherever he goes, he enkindles that flame; he desires and works   
   with all his strength to inflame all men with the fire of God's love.   
   Nothing   
   deters him: he rejoices in poverty; he labours strenuously; he welcomes   
   hardships; he laughs off false accusations; he rejoices in anguish. He   
   thinks   
   only of how he might follow Jesus Christ and imitate him by his prayers, his   
   labours, his sufferings, and by caring always and only for the glory of God   
   and   
   the salvation of souls.   
   -St Anthony Mary Claret   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,   
   and   
   with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. 38 This is the greatest and   
   the   
   first commandment. 39 And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy   
   neighbor as thyself.  (Matthew 22:37-39)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Antiphon, Versicle   
   and Prayer in honor of Immaculate Mary:   
      
   Ant. This is the rod in which was neither knot of original sin, nor rind of   
   actual guilt.   
      
   V. In thy conception, O Virgin! thou wast immaculate,   
   R. Pray for us to the Father, whose Son thou didst bring forth.   
      
   Let us pray:   
      
   O God, Who, by the immaculate conception of the Virgin,   
   didst prepare a worthy habitation for Thy Son;   
   we beseech Thee that, as in view of the death of that Son,   
   Thou didst preserve her from all stain of sin,   
   so thou wouldst enable us,   
   being made pure by her intercession,   
   to come unto Thee.   
   Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.   
      
   Pope Pius IX, on March 31, 1876, granted to the faithful for devout   
   recitation of the preceding, a traditional indulgence of 100 days.   
      
   Imprimatur: + John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York, Sept 19, 1908.   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   The fourteenth prayer of St. Bridget:   
      
   O Jesus, only-begotten Son of the most high Father, splendor and figure of   
   His substance, remember the commendation wherewith Thou didst commend Thy   
   Spirit to Thy Father, saying, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my   
   spirit"; and then, with lacerated body and broken heart, with a loud cry,   
   the bowels of thy mercy exposed, didst expire to redeem us. By this   
   precious death I beseech Thee, O king of saints, strengthen me to resist   
   the devil, the world, the flesh, and blood, that dead to the world I may   
   live to Thee; and in the last hour of my departure receive Thou my exiled,   
   wandering spirit returning to Thee. Amen.   
      
   Pater noster... Ave Maria...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)