From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Beauty of Singing:   
      
    Indeed, Lord, the days were not long enough as I found   
   wonderful delight in meditating upon the depth of your design for the   
   salvation   
   of the human   
   race. I wept at the beauty of your hymns, and I was powerfully moved at the   
   sweet sound of   
   your Church's singing.   
   Those sounds flowed into my ears, and the truth streamed into my heart. My   
   feeling of devotion   
   overflowed, and the tears ran from my eyes, and I was happy in them.   
   -Augustine--Confessions 9, 6   
      
   Meditation for troubled times:   
   Rest now until life, eternal life, flowing through your veins   
   and heart and mind, bids you to bestir yourself. Then glad work will follow.   
   Tired work is never   
   effective. The strength of God's spirit is always available to the tired   
   mind   
   and body. He is   
   your physician and your healer. Look to these quiet times of communion with   
   God   
   for rest, for   
   peace, for cure. Then rise refreshed in spirit and go out to work, knowing   
   that   
   your strength   
   is able to meet any problems because it is reinforced by God's power.   
   I pray that the peace I have found will make me effective. I pray that I may   
   be   
   relieved of   
   all strain during this day.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   January 7th - St. Aldric, Bishop of Le Mans   
   (Also known as Aldericus, Audry)   
      
   THIS saint was born of a noble family, partly of Saxon and partly Bavarian   
   extraction, about the year 800. At twelve years of age he was sent by his   
   father   
   to the court of Charlemagne where, in the household of Louis the Pious, he   
   gained the esteem of the whole court. About the year 821 he retired from   
   Aix-la-Chapelle to Metz, where he entered the bishop's school and received   
   clerical tonsure. After his ordination the Emperor Louis called him again to   
   court, and made him his chaplain and confessor. In 832 St Aldric was chosen   
   bishop of Le Mans. He employed his patrimony and his whole interest in   
   relieving   
   the poor, providing public services, establishing churches and monasteries,   
   and   
   promoting religion. In the civil wars which divided the empire his fidelity   
   to   
   Louis and to his successor, Charles the Bald, was inviolable. For almost a   
   year   
   he was expelled by a faction from his see, Aldric having antagonized the   
   monks   
   of Saint-Calais by claiming that they were under his jurisdiction. The claim   
   was   
   not upheld, though supported by forged documents, for which the bishop   
   himself   
   is not known to have been personally responsible.   
   Some fragments have reached us of the regulations which Aldric made for his   
   cathedral, in which he orders ten wax candles and ninety lamps to be lighted   
   on   
   all great festivals. We have three testaments of this holy prelate extant.   
   The   
   last is an edifying monument of his piety: in the first two, he bequeaths   
   lands   
   and possessions to many churches of his diocese, adding prudent advice and   
   regulations for maintaining good order and a spirit of charity. The last two   
   years of St. Aldric's life he was paralysed and confined to bed, during   
   which   
   time he redoubled his fervour and assiduity in prayer. He died January 7,   
   856,   
   and was buried in the church of St. Vincent, of which, and of the monastery   
   to   
   which it belonged, he had been a great benefactor.   
      
   The medieval Latin life of St. Aldric has been re-edited by Charles and   
   Froger,   
   Gesta domini Aldrici (1890). No scholar now regards it as fully reliable,   
   but   
   the first forty-four chapters seem to be older and more trustworthy than the   
   rest. Some attempts have been made to connect St. Aldric with the   
   compilation of   
   the Forged Decretals, but this idea has not found much favour, though Paul   
   Fournier has shown good reason for believing that they first took shape in   
   the   
   neighbourhood of Le Mans during his episcopate. On the other hand, Julien   
   Havet   
   has argued that the first forty-four chapters of the Gesta were written as a   
   piece of autobiography by Aidric himself. In any case Havet seems to have   
   proved   
   that in contrast to the chapters in the later portion of the Gesta and those   
   in   
   the Actus pontificum Ceno­mannis...the nineteen documents incorporated in   
   the   
   first forty-four chapters are all authentic. See J. Havet, Oeuvres, vol. i,   
   pp.   
   287-292, 317 seq., and Analecta Bollandiana (1895), vol. xiv, p.446 cf. also   
   Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux, vol. ii, pp. 313-317, 327-328, 342-343; M.   
   Besson   
   in DHG., vol. ii, cc. 68-69.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "Believe me, he who does not think of the wants of the poor is not a   
   member of the Body of Christ. For, if one member suffers all suffer."   
   -St. Alphege of Canterbury   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Fight the good fight of faith.  Lay hold on eternal life,   
   whereunto thou art called and be it confessed a good confession before   
   many witnesses. I charge thee before God who quickeneth all things, and   
   before   
   Christ Jesus who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate, a good   
   confession:  (1 Tim. 6:12-13)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Sursum Corda: Lift Up Your Hearts   
      
    "Lift up your hearts!" This is the exhortation of the Church to her   
   children in   
   the Preface of the Mass. Lift up your hearts by means of meditation and   
   prayer   
   in the midst of the allurements and entanglements of the world, in order   
   that   
   you may so pass through things temporal as not to lose the things that are   
   eternal.   
      
   Lift up your hearts in your work. "All whatsoever you do in word or in work,   
   do   
   all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the   
   Father by   
   Him" (Col. Iii.17). "Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatsoever else   
   you   
   do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor.x.31). Lift up your hearts in daily   
   supplication that you may live and die in the love and grace of God.   
      
   "By two wings," says the Imitation, "is many lifted above earthly things";   
   namely, by simplicity of intention and by purity of affection; hence the   
   watchword:   
      
   For God Alone! And My God and My All!   
      
   "Aspire to God," says St. Francis de Sales, "with short but frequent   
   outpourings   
      
   of the heart." And St. Philip Neri encourages us likewise, saying: "It is an   
   old   
   custom with the servant of God always to have some little prayers ready, and   
   to   
   be darting them up to heaven frequently during the day, lifting their minds   
   to   
   God from out of the filth of this world. He who adopts this plan will derive   
   great fruit with little pains."   
      
    Lift up your hearts to Mount Olivet, where Jesus is writhing in His awful   
   agony,   
      
   Up to Mount Calvary, where Jesus is dying on the cross; up to heaven, where   
   Jesus is enthroned in His glory. If with mortal eyes you are not able to   
   behold   
   the full glory of this abode of the blessed, and if you cannot draw near to   
   Him,   
   the Eternal One, because He dwells "in the light inaccessible," do not be   
   discouraged, lift up your hearts! For in the light of the bright ray which   
   God   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)