From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   May 8th- St. Magdalen of Canossa.   
      
   Born in Verona, Italy, March 1, 1774; died there on April 10, 1835; declared   
   venerable on January 6, 1927; beatified December 7, 1941, by Pope Pius XII;   
   canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 2, 1988; feast day formerly on May   
   14. Saint Magdalen was only five years old when her father, the marquis of   
   Canossa, died. Two years later her mother remarried and abandoned her four   
   children to the care of their uncles. Although they treated the children   
   well enough, their French governess was harsh. Perhaps as a result of this   
   ill treatment, Magdalen suffered a painful illness when she was fifteen.   
   Upon her recovery, she was determined to become a nun. In October 1791, she   
   entered the Carmel for a short time before returning home to manage her   
   father's estate until she was 33.   
      
   During the Napoleonic wars, her family took refuge in Venice. There she had   
   a dream in which she saw the Blessed Mother surrounded by six religious   
   dressed in brown. Our Lady led them two by two into a church filled with   
   women and girls, into a hospital, and into a hall filled with bedraggled   
   children. She admonished the religious to serve all three, but especially to   
   help the poor children. Almost immediately she began tending the sick in the   
   city's hospitals and working with children.   
      
   The family returned to Verona, where they were visited by Napoleon himself.   
   Magdalen requested from him the empty convent of Saint Joseph, which she   
   intended to use for the poor. Several women had already joined her in her   
   charitable work and with the gift of the convent, they opened the first   
   house of her institute, the Daughters of Charity. Its mission followed her   
   vision: the education of poor girls, the service of the sick in hospitals,   
   and the teaching of the catechism in parishes.   
      
   The doors of the house in the San Zeno district were opened to poor girls on   
   May 8, 1808. Thereafter the community prospered and its fame spread. The   
   Canossians were invited to open a house in Venice, then in Milan, Bergamo,   
   Trent, and elsewhere in northern Italy. Since Saint Magdalen's death, well   
   over 400 have been established throughout the world.   
      
   Saint Magdalen drew up the rule in Venice. The congregation received formal   
   papal approval from Pope Pius VII in 1816 and definitive approval from Pope   
   Leo XII in an apostolic brief dated December 23, 1828. When she was declared   
   venerable by Pope Pius XI in 1927, he wrote that "many are charitable enough   
   to help and even to serve the poor, but few are able deliberately to become   
   poor with the poor."   
      
   But that is exactly what the marchioness did. She herself tended the poorest   
   and dirtiest children. Although the congregation's primary concern was poor   
   and neglected children, she also founded high schools and colleges,   
   especially for the deaf and dumb. Magdalen organized closed retreats for   
   females. In Venice, she even launched a small congregation of men to carry   
   on similar work with boys. Following her death, the Daughters of Charity   
   entered the mission field.   
      
   Despite, or perhaps because of, the hectic pace of her life, Saint Magdalen   
   developed enormous powers of recollection and prayer. She attained   
   remarkable levels of contemplation. On several occasions, witnesses observed   
   her rapt in ecstasy, and once she was seen levitating.   
      
   Towards the end of her life, Magdalen was bent almost double and could sleep   
   only in a sitting position. She became seriously ill in Bergamo at the end   
   of 1834 and was taken back to the motherhouse in Verona. By Holy Week 1835,   
   she knew she was dying, though none of her doctors agreed with her. She   
   asked for the last rites, then died suddenly (Benedictines, Walsh).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Envy is a sadness which we feel on account of the good that happens to our   
   neighbour.   
      
   Envy, my children, follows pride; whoever is envious is proud. See, envy   
   comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also   
   through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness   
   and the goods of others? Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole   
   possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world! We   
   hate our equals, because they are our equals; our inferiors, from the fear   
   that they may equal us; our superiors, because they are above us. In the   
   same way, my children, that the devil after his fall felt, and still feels,   
   extreme anger at seeing us the heirs of the glory of the good God, so the   
   envious man feels sadness at seeing the spiritual and temporal prosperity of   
   his neighbour.   
      
   We walk, my children, in the footsteps of the devil; like him, we are vexed   
   at good, and rejoice at evil. If our neighbour loses anything, if his   
   affairs go wrong, if he is humbled, if he is unfortunate, we are joyful. . .   
   we triumph! The devil, too, is full of joy and triumph when we fall, when he   
   can make us fall as low as himself. What does he gain by it? Nothing. Shall   
   we be richer, because our neighbour is poorer? Shall we be greater, because   
   he is less? Shall we be happier, because he is more unhappy? O my children!   
   how much we are to be pitied for being like this! St. Cyprian said that   
   other evils had limits, but that envy had none. In fact, my children, the   
   envious man invents all sorts of wickedness; he has recourse to evil   
   speaking, to calumny, to cunning, in order to blacken his neighbour; he   
   repeats what he knows, and what he does not know he invents, he exaggerates.   
   . . .   
      
   Through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world; and also   
   through envy we kill our neighbour; by dint of malice, of falsehood, we make   
   him lose his reputation, his place. . . . Good Christians, my children, do   
   not do so; they envy no one; they love their neighbour; they rejoice at the   
   good that happens to him, and they weep with him if any misfortune comes   
   upon him. How happy should we be if we were good Christians. Ah! my   
   children, let us, then, be good Christians and we shall no more envy the   
   good fortune of our neighbour; we shall never speak evil of him; we shall   
   enjoy a sweet peace; our soul will be calm; we shall find paradise on earth.   
   --Saint John Vianney on Envy   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For   
   he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he   
   shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you.   
   (John 16:13)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   A morning offering:   
      
   O my God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary   
   (here kiss your woolen Brown Scapular as a sign of your   
   consecration), I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Jesus from   
   all the altars throughout the world, joining with It the offering   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)