From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   -- 1 Timothy 6:6-8 --   
      
   But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing   
   into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food   
   and clothing, we will be content with that.   
   __________________________   
   It is often helpful to distinguish between needs and wants. We may   
   have all we need to live but let ourselves become anxious and   
   discontented over what we merely want. Like Paul, we can choose to be   
   content without having all that we want. The only alternative is to be   
   a slave to our desires.   
      
      
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   September 1st - Bl. Gabra Michael, Martyr   
   Also known as Ghébre Michael, Mikael Gabra   
   d. 1855   
      
   Ethiopia, a mountainous land in Eastern Africa, has an unusual ethnic   
   mixture of Black and Semite. It is one of the oldest Christian lands   
   in Africa and to this day the population is one half Christian. But   
   the ancient Christian Church in Ethiopia has been separated from the   
   bishops of Rome since the fifth century. The division was on the basis   
   of the apparent denial by Ethiopian Christians that there were in   
   Christ incarnate two natures, that of God and that of man. Only one   
   nature, they said.   
      
   Attempts were made by Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th   
   century to win these Ethiopian Christians back to union with Rome.   
   They failed largely because the Portuguese Christian missionaries   
   tried to impose upon them the liturgy and legal practices customary   
   among Latin Rite Catholics.   
      
   A later effort, in the 19th century, was more respectful of local   
   customs and achieved some success. In 1839 a Vincentian priest from   
   Italy, Justin De Jacobis (now Blessed Justin), was sent to Ethiopia to   
   head a mission. He soon met Abba Gabra Michael, an Ethiopian of   
   Portuguese Semitic and black ancestry, but a monk of the non-Catholic   
   Ethiopian church. Gabra was not a priest, but a very learned   
   theologian. Father Justin invited him to accompany him to Rome along   
   with a delegation of the Ethiopians to meet the pope. The visit   
   convinced Gabra that he should become a Catholic himself. He did so,   
   in 1844, when aged over fifty. Gabra was a great help to Father Justin   
   in the latter’s effort to found a seminary, and he accepted charge of   
   it. With Father Justin, Gabra composed a catechism adapted to   
   Ethiopian needs, and translated a work of moral theology into the   
   local language. Fr. Justin, banished for a while, was secretly   
   consecrated a bishop. When he returned, he ordained Gabra as his first   
   priest. Later he received him into the Vincentian order.   
      
   Although Bishop Justin’s apostolate was now permitted to a certain   
   extent, a reaction occurred against this European “intrusion”,   
   especially after a man named Kassa rebelled and usurped the crown,   
   becoming Theodore II.   
      
   Theodore launched a persecution of Roman Catholics. He arrested Gabra   
   and four of his fellow-Ethiopians, and threatened them with torture if   
   they would not give up their allegiance to the Pope. For nine months   
   they were imprisoned, being brought out at intervals and urged now   
   gently, now brutally, to renounce the Pope. When they refused, they   
   were tortured and whipped with a giraffe’s tail – an instrument like a   
   steel cable in its cutting effect. Abuna Salama, the head of the   
   dissident Ethiopian church, was behind this persecution, despite the   
   fact that Gabra had saved his life some years before.   
      
   In March, 1855, when Theodore was about to set out on a military   
   expedition, he asked Gabra once more to give in. Gabra would not, so   
   the Emperor condemned him to death. At this point, however, the   
   British consul intervened, and the king commuted the sentence to life   
   imprisonment.   
      
   Gabra now sent word to his fellow Catholic Ethiopians still in prison:   
   “Be steadfast to death for your faith. I have no hope of seeing you   
   again on this earth. If they kill me, I shall die testifying to my   
   faith; if they spare me, I shall go on preaching it.”   
      
   The Emperor, always on the move, continued to drag Father Gabra along   
   as a prisoner wherever he went. Now in his mid-sixties, the priest was   
   loaded with chains and treated with studied neglect. He caught   
   cholera, but survived it, though weakened. The small rations he was   
   given he shared with other prisoners. Even his guards held Gabra in   
   esteem.   
      
   Finally, on August 28, 1855, Father Michael could walk no farther. He   
   just lay down at the side of the road and died. The guards gently   
   removed his chains and buried him.   
      
   In 1926 Pope Pius XI beatified this Ethiopian priest. Gabra had proved   
   once more that faith and love are stronger than death.   
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Remember to care for the soul more than the body, since the former   
   remains, the latter perishes.   
   Blessed Alcuin of York   
      
   Bible Quote   
   "Let us keep firm in the hope we profess, because the one who made the   
   promise is trustworthy.  Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a   
   response in love and good works."  [Hebrews 10:23-24]   
      
      
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   Daily Prayer to the Sacred Heart   
      
   Sacred Heart of Jesus, today I wish   
   to live in You, in Your Grace, in which   
   I desire at all costs to persevere. Keep   
   me from sin and strengthen my will by   
   helping me to keep watch over my   
   senses, my imagination, and my heart.   
   Help me to correct my faults which are   
   the source of sin. I beg You to do this,   
   O Jesus, through Mary,   
   Your Immaculate Mother.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)