From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How Christ Speaks Inwardly to a Faithful Soul  [II]   
      
   Your Beloved says: `I am your Salvation, (Ps. 35:3) your Peace, and   
   your Life; keep close to Me, and you shall find peace.' Set aside the   
   things of time, and seek those of eternity; for what are the things of   
   time but deceits? And how can any creature help you, if your Creator   
   abandon you? Set aside, therefore, all else, and make yourself   
   acceptable to your Creator, and be faithful to Him, that you may lay   
   hold on true blessedness.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 1   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   September 4th - St. Rosalia   
   Also known as La Santuzza (the little saint)   
      
   (Died 1160? Born c.1130 at Palermo, Sicily)   
      
   Holy people have a fondness for breaking away from the crowd to be   
   alone with God. Our Lord himself set the example of temporary retreats   
   into the silence of the desert, or even into such quiet places as the   
   garden of Gethsemane.   
      
   In the fourth century there was a great upsurge of interest in what   
   came to be known as the religious life. The trend began in Egypt,   
   spread through the Mideast, and thereafter into western Europe.   
   Although the great religious orders, eastern and western alike, sprang   
   from this drive, it began as a movement of individual “anchorites” or   
   hermits. Experience would prove, however, that it was wiser for monks   
   and nuns to have a community religious experience before they started   
   “hermiting”. So even in later centuries a religious man or woman who   
   has received basic training in the contemplative life can be given   
   permission to live apart from his or her community in a private   
   hermitage.   
      
   St. Rosalia was a medieval Sicilian hermitess or ancress, (i.e., a   
   female hermit or anchorite). Churches dedicated to her in Sicily date   
   from as early as the 13th century; unfortunately, what we know of her   
   actual life is based mostly on legends. Even the legends tell us   
   precious little. For example, if the tradition that she was the   
   daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Quisquina, hints at her family’s social   
   background, the inscription on which it is based is not considered   
   trustworthy.   
      
   We can only say, therefore, that this young Sicilian woman decided at   
   a critical period in her life to become a hermit. Most likely it was   
   after she had first lived as a nun in a Greek-rite convent, of which   
   there were many in Sicily. The initial hermitage she occupied was at   
   Mount Coscina, near Bivona, Sicily. After spending some time there,   
   she moved to another cave in Mount Pellegrino. Mount Pellegrino is an   
   eye-catching dome of limestone, three miles north of Palermo. Our   
   hermitess passed the rest of her life at this seaside promontory.   
      
   When she died, around 1160, she was even buried in the cave. Buried   
   with her were some devotional items, including a primitive sort of   
   rosary. As the centuries passed thereafter, water dripping through and   
   dissolving the limestone gradually formed a stalagmite, which   
   completely covered and concealed her tomb.   
      
   If the cave’s saintly occupant had been known at all at the time of   
   her death, by 1624 she seems to have been long forgotten. That year   
   the plague became violently epidemic in Palermo. This plague was   
   probably the “Black Death”, the bubonic or pneumonic pestilence.   
   According to the story, Rosalia appeared in a dream to one of the sick   
   citizens, urging her to persuade the authorities to break open her   
   calcified grave and carry her relics to Palermo. Following through,   
   the citizens of Palermo unearthed her relics and bore them in solemn   
   procession to Palermo. Upon their arrival, the plague promptly ceased.   
      
   The Panormitans, grateful for the intercession of Rosalia, voted her   
   as their municipal patron saint. Pope Urban VIII confirmed their   
   choice in 1630 when he added the name of Saint Rosalia to the Roman   
   Martyrology, the Holy See’s official catalogue of saints.   
      
   Palermo’s enthusiasm for Santa Rosalia has not ceased since then. Both   
   of her hermit caves have been turned into devotional chapels. The   
   relics themselves repose in the Chapel of Saint Rosalia in the Palermo   
   cathedral. Her sarcophagus is surely richer than the ancress herself   
   would have chosen! It is made of pure silver, 1400 pounds in weight.   
   Understandably, it is exposed to public view on only three liturgical   
   occasions during the year.   
      
   In the past century thousands of Sicilians have emigrated to other   
   continents in search of a better living. One thing they have taken   
   with them is devotion to their beloved hermitess. They have often   
   given their daughters and granddaughters her name at baptism. People   
   of other national backgrounds, although they knew nothing of St.   
   Rosalia herself, have also found her name lilting and musical, and   
   appropriated it for their own daughters. May the holy hermitess   
   remember all of them in her prayers.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Our true worth does not consist in what human beings think of us. What   
   we really are consists in what God knows us to be.   
   --Saint John Berchmans   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "I hate, I scorn your festivals, I take no pleasure in your solemn   
   assemblies.  Whey you bring me burnt offerings...your oblations, I do   
   not accept them and I do not look at your communion sacrifices of fat   
   cattle.  Spare me the din of your chanting; let me hear none of your   
   strumming on lyres, but let justice flow like water and uprightness   
   like a never-failing stream!" [Amos 5:21-24]  RSVCE   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   A Prayer of Petition   
      
   Let us adore and give thanks to God the Father everlasting, Who, of   
   the great love He bore us, was pleased to send His only-begotten Son   
   into the world to suffer and die on the gibbet of the Cross; and let   
   us beseech Him, for the sake of His passion and death and by the   
   intercession of Saint Gabriel, that most loving follower of our   
   crucified Lord, to grant us the favor for which We pray [here mention   
   your request].   
      
   Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.   
      
   Let us adore and give thanks to God the eternal Son, Who, becoming man   
   and dying for us upon the Cross, left us Mary most holy to be our   
   Mother; and let us beseech Him, by the merits of this sorrowful Virgin   
   Mother and by the intercession of Saint Gabriel, who was her most   
   devoted servant, to grant us the favor for which we pray [here mention   
   your request].   
      
   Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)