From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Meditation for the Day   
       Fear is the curse of the world. Many are our fears. Fear is everywhere.   
   I   
   must fight fear as I would a plague. I must turn it out of my life. There is   
   no   
   room for fear in the heart in which God dwells. Fear cannot exist where true   
   love is or where faith abides. So I must have no fear. Fear is evil, but   
   "perfect love casteth out all fear." Fear destroys hope and hope is   
   necessary   
   for all of humanity.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
   The Love of Solitude and Silence(2)   
     No man appears in safety before the public eye unless he first relishes   
   obscurity. No man is safe in  speaking unless he loves to be silent. No man   
   rules safely unless he is willing to be ruled. No man commands safely unless   
   he   
   has learned well how to obey. No man rejoices safely unless he has within   
   him   
   the testimony of a good conscience.   More than this, the security of the   
   saints   
   was always enveloped in the fear of God, nor were they less cautious and   
   humble   
   because they were conspicuous for great virtues and graces. The security of   
   the   
   wicked, on the contrary, springs from pride and presumption, and will end in   
   their own deception.   
   --Thomas à Kempis, From the Imitation of Christ, Chapter 20   
      
      
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   March 11th - St. Sophronius the Sophist B (RM)   
    (Also known as Sophronius of Jerusalem)   
      
   Born in Damascus, Syria, c. 560; died in Alexandria, Egypt, c. 639. Saint   
   Sophronius traveled about the Near East with the mystic John Moschus, when   
   Moschus was collecting material for his famous ascetical work called "The   
   Spiritual Meadow." About 580 he and John Moschus entered the St. Sabas   
   monastery   
   in Egypt, then he continued his journey in faith at St. Theodosius   
   (Palestine).   
   He spent ten years in Alexandria under Patriarch Saint John the Almsgiver.   
   After making pilgrimages to monasteries and hermitages in Egypt and another   
   to   
   Rome (where John Moschus died about 620), reading philosophy and the   
   Scriptures,   
   and practicing austerities, Sophronius was elected patriarch of Jerusalem in   
   634. During his episcopacy he contended with two dangers to the Christian   
   faith:   
   one was heresy, the other the seemingly relentless advance of the Saracens.   
      
   The heresy, finally condemned in 649 by the Lateran Council, is called   
   Monothelitism-the denial that Jesus had two wills, one human and the other   
   divine. In these early centuries, Christians were trying to understand how   
   Jesus   
   could be both God and man. The question was debated for centuries after   
   Sophronius's death, but he was the most vigorous defender of the view that   
   eventually was accepted by the Church: that Jesus had a divine and a human   
   will.   
   He sent letters to the pope and to the patriarch of Constantinople, begging   
   them   
   to give their weight to his side. So important was the question of right   
   doctrine to Saint Sophronius that he made his assistant, Bishop Stephen of   
   Dor,   
   stay in Rome for ten years in order to defend orthodoxy.   
      
   His second problem caused much pain. In 636, the Saracens took Damascus.   
   They   
   reached Jerusalem two years later. At Christmas, Sophronius sadly comforted   
   his   
   flock, who were unable to leave the besieged city for their customary   
   celebration of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. When Khalif Omar took the   
   city,   
   Sophronius managed to win him to a greater tolerance of Christians by   
   personally   
   conducting him around the holy sites of the city. Nevertheless, Sophronius   
   was   
   banished and died soon after Omar conquered Jerusalem.   
      
   In all this activity, Saint Sophronius remained a disciplined monk. Among   
   his   
   writings is a panegyric of the Egyptian martyrs Cyrus and John. With John   
   Moschus he also wrote a biography of their friend Saint John the Almsgiver,   
   which has not survived. He also wrote several doctrinal theses, homilies,   
   and   
   poems (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   God loves our neighbors so much that He gave His life for them; and He is   
   glad   
   even to have us leave Him to do them good.  How grateful to Him, then, may   
   we   
   believe the services we render them!  Ah, if we understood well how   
   important is   
   this virtue of the love of our neighbor, we should give ourselves entirely   
   to   
   the pursuit of it.   
   --St. Teresa   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish: and that hath not   
   gone   
   after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures.   (Ecclesiasticus   
   31:8)   
      
      
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   To Christ in His Passion   
      
   Let us all with one voice cry, Lord, have mercy.   
   Thou who wert led as a sheep to be crucified, Lord, have mercy.   
   Thou who from the Cross didst look down upon Thy Mother and Thy disciple,   
   look with pity from heaven upon us, Lord, have mercy.   
   Thou who by shedding Thy blood hast redeemed the world, Lord, have mercy.   
   Thou who didst commend Thy spirit to the Father, Lord, have mercy.   
   Make us by Thy Cross to obtain forgiveness, Lord, have mercy.   
      
   Christ, the only-begotten Son of the unbegotten Father, who this day west   
   slain for us, the innocent for the ungodly, remember the price of Thy Blood   
   and blot out the sins of all Thy people; and as Thou west pleased to endure   
   for us reproaches, spitting, bonds, blows, the scourge, the Cross, the   
   nails, the bitter cup, death, the spear, and lastly burial, vouchsafe to us   
   wretched ones, for whom Thou didst suffer this, the infinite blessedness of   
   the heavenly kingdom, that we who bow down in reverence for Thy Passion may   
   be raised up to things heavenly in the joys of Thy resurrection. Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)