From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Forgive and give    
      
      There are two works of mercy which will set us free. They are   
   briefly set down in the gospel in the Lord's own words: Forgive and   
   you will be forgiven, and Give and you will receive. The former   
   concerns pardon, the latter generosity. As regards pardon he says:   
   "Just as you want to be forgiven, so someone is in need of your   
   forgiveness." Again, as regards generosity, consider when a beggar   
   asks you for something that you are a beggar too in relation to God.   
   When we pray we are all beggars before God. We are standing at the   
   door of a great householder, or rather, lying prostrate, and begging   
   with tears. We are longing to receive a gift--the gift of God himself.   
       What does a beggar ask of you? Bread. And you, what do you ask of   
   God, if not Christ who said: I am the living bread that has come down   
   from heaven? Do you want to be pardoned? Then pardon others. Forgive   
   and you will be forgiven. Do you want to receive? Give and you will   
   receive.   
   --Augustine of Hippo   
      
      
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   August 15th -St. Tarsicius   
   (Third Century)   
      
   I suppose that all children in the past few generations have been   
   told, during their preparation for first Holy Communion, about St.   
   Tarsicius, who died rather than hand over the Holy Eucharist to a   
   pagan mob.   
      
   Here is the story as traditionally recounted in the Roman Martyrology,   
   the Church’s calendar of saints for the record and for devotional   
   reading.   
      
   “At Rome, on the Appian Way, the passion of St. Tarsicius the acolyte,   
   whom the heathen met bearing the sacrament of the Body of Christ and   
   asked him what it was he carried. He judged it a shameful thing to   
   cast pearls before swine, and so was attacked by them for a long time   
   with sticks and stones, until he gave up the ghost. When they turned   
   over his body, the sacrilegious assailants could find no trace of   
   Christ’s sacrament, either in his hands or among his clothing.”   
      
   Because this account calls Tarsicius an “acolyte,” many have pictured   
   him as an altar boy, and called him the “boy martyr of the Eucharist.”   
   Actually, an acolyte, even those early days, was not a boy mass   
   server, but a man who belonged to one of the minor orders of the   
   clergy.   
      
   Indeed, the whole account I have just given is based on a story   
   written as long as three centuries after Tarsicius’ death; hence not   
   very dependable for details. It presents the martyr as a youth   
   entrusted with the duty of taking the Holy Eucharist to Christians   
   imprisoned during the persecution of the Roman Emperor Valerian.   
      
   The earliest and most dependable account of the saint is the   
   inscription in his honor placed by Pope St. Damasus (366-384 AD) in   
   the Roman catacomb of St. Calixtus, in which Tarsicius was buried. In   
   this inscription Damasus compares two martyrs, the deacon St. Stephen,   
   who was stoned to death in Jerusalem, and Tarsicius, who was killed by   
   a pagan mob in Rome. Here is what he says of Tarsicius: “When a raving   
   gang demanded that holy Tarsicius, who was carrying the Sacrament of   
   Christ, show it to their profane eyes, he chose to be beaten to death   
   rather than hand over to mad dogs the sacred Body.”   
      
   Since Pope St. Damasus, in this handsomely carved tribute, compares   
   the martyr to St. Stephen the Deacon, it seems more likely that   
   Tarsicius was a deacon rather than an acolyte. Roman deacons had the   
   duty of carrying a portion of the sacred Host from the pope’s Mass to   
   Masses being celebrated in other churches, so that it could be put   
   into the chalices there, thus symbolizing the unity of all other   
   Masses with that of the bishop of Rome.   
      
   But whether Tarsicius was bearing the Eucharist to another church or   
   to the imprisoned faithful, he is obviously the perfect patron saint   
   of all eucharistic ministers who are not priests. Throughout the   
   history of the Church, non-priests among the clergy, nuns, and lay   
   people, have been permitted to carry and administer the Blessed   
   Sacrament in times of need. Since Vatican II, particularly because of   
   the decline in the number of priests and other ordinary ministers of   
   the Eucharist, the Holy See has allowed lay persons to perform certain   
   rites, including the role of Eucharistic ministers to the sick, etc.   
      
   To be selected for this duty is a privilege and a high honor. It   
   demands great and humble reverence on the part of the delegated   
   ministers towards the sacred Body and Blood. What better saint can   
   such ministers turn to, then, for aid in their task, than St.   
   Tarsicius, who preferred to die rather than suffer the Holy Eucharist   
   to be subjected to the least disrespect?   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.   
   --Francis of Assisi   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Holy Father, keep in Thy Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they   
   may be one even as We are.   (John 17:11)   
      
      
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    August  2014  A sermon on the Assumption:   
      
   “Never was there a death more precious in the sight of God than that   
   of the Virgin, because there was never a life more filled with merits   
   than Hers. The death of the Blessed Virgin was precious not only by   
   the merits which preceded it, but also by the graces and favors which   
   accompanied it. But what made it precious in God’s sight is above all   
   the dispositions of mind and heart with which She received it... What   
   then was Her disposition of mind? She envisaged death in the light of   
   the purest faith, as the fulfillment of her wishes, as the means of   
   being promptly reunited with Her Son and Her God, whose absence had   
   for so long been a source of sorrow for Her. Her disposition of heart?   
   Seeing death in this light, She desired it with all the ardor of the   
   most fervent charity. Far more fervently than Saint Paul She longed to   
   be disengaged from the bonds of the flesh, to live with Jesus   
   Christ...”   
   --Father Bourdaloue, a famous preacher of the 17th century French court   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)