From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   -- Psalm 66:16-20 --   
      
   Come and listen, all you who fear God;   
   let me tell you what he has done for me.   
   I cried out to him with my mouth;   
   his praise was on my tongue.   
   If I had cherished sin in my heart,   
   the Lord would not have listened;   
   but God has surely listened   
   and heard my voice in prayer.   
   Praise be to God,   
   who has not rejected my prayer   
   or withheld his love from me!   
   =====================   
   God is always faithful. He is willing to give you what you need and to   
   bless you richly besides. But this is no something-for-nothing offer.   
   The Lord demands righteous living from His followers. Those who live   
   according to God's will can trust Him for anything they ask in His   
   Son's name. But the Lord will not overlook spiritual laziness to give   
   us what we want. We must approach Him in complete dependence on   
   Christ's merits. God responds because His Son sits at His right hand,   
   interceding for us. And we must approach Him in holiness, with an   
   attitude of confession and repentance, turning away from wrongdoing   
   before making requests.   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   October 7th - Our Lady of the Rosary   
      
   The Muslims captured the Holy Land in 637 and in 711 invaded Spain.   
   From those days on, Islam sought to gain political and religious   
   control of Europe, East and West, through its policy of “Holy War”.   
   European Christianity resisted this religious war, first by the   
   medieval crusades and later by its campaigns against the Muslim Turks;   
   but it was only in the 19th century that Islamic political power in   
   Europe seemed at last contained. If we want to understand the mood of   
   this 1200-year battle of the Cross against the Crescent, it’s helpful   
   to consider a more recent parallel, the defense of Christian nations   
   against international communism.   
      
   The popes naturally became leaders in this long struggle. Pope St.   
   Pius V played a special role in one of the most notable battles waged   
   against the Turks, the great sea battle fought off Lepanto in Greece   
   on October 7,1571. The pope had been largely responsible for   
   assembling the international fleet of 200 ships that sailed forth with   
   his blessing under the generalship of the imperial prince, Don John of   
   Austria.   
      
   As the time for battle in the Adriatic Sea drew near, the pope ordered   
   public prayers in Rome for the success of the Christian fleet.   
   Particularly did he urge the Rosary confraternities in Rome to pray   
   the rosary of Mary for victory over the Islamic forces. To their   
   prayers he added his own.   
      
   On the actual day of the battle, Pius was engaged in a business   
   meeting in Rome, hundreds of miles away from Lepanto, with a number of   
   cardinals. Suddenly he broke off the conversation, opened a window and   
   looked up into the sky. Then he turned back jubilantly to his   
   companions. “A truce to business!” he exclaimed. “Our great task at   
   present is to thank God for the victory that He has just given the   
   Christian army.” God had revealed to him the defeat of the Muslims at   
   the moment it happened. It was a crucial victory, in that it broke the   
   Turkish dominance of the Mediterranean, thus protecting European   
   Christianity from Muslim enslavement. As poet Gilbert K. Chesterton   
   put it in his stirring poem “Lepanto”: “Don John of Austria has set   
   his people free!”   
      
   A year later, to commemorate the Christian triumph, St. Pius   
   established the feast of Our Lady of Victory, to be celebrated   
   annually on the date of Lepanto, October 7. His successor changed the   
   name of the feast to “Holy Rosary”. Later on all October was dedicated   
   to Mary, “Help of Christians”, and to recitation of the powerful   
   devotion of Our Lady’s rosary.   
      
   It was long believed that St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican   
   friars, had originated the rosary in the 13th century. This is no   
   longer held. What the Dominicans did (and St. Pius V was also a   
   Dominican) was to consolidate a devotion that had been forming for   
   several centuries. Earlier, this devotion consisted of 150 Our Fathers   
   – the number paralleling the 150 psalms recited in choir. The strings   
   of beads (like those used by Muslims, Buddhists, and other peoples)   
   were merely counters to keep track of the number of prayers recited.   
   (Since the early rosaries were to count Our Fathers – in Latin, Pater   
   Noster – the beads were originally called Paternosters, and rosary   
   manufacturers, Paternosterers.) By the year 1500, however, the Hail   
   Mary (Ave Maria) had largely replaced the Our Fathers. Meanwhile a   
   special mystery of Christ’s life had been associated with each of the   
   15 decades.   
      
   Thus the rosary evolved into a rich devotion that combined vocal   
   prayer to God and Mary with meditation on the great events of the   
   Redemption. It has been a prayer most pleasing to Our Lady, especially   
   when her intercession is invoked to defend Christianity against error.   
      
   The beauty of the rosary is that it can be prayed with equal devotion   
   by the most scholarly and the most unlettered Catholic. With good   
   reason has Mary, in her apparitions at Lourdes and Fatima, urged all   
   of us to use faithfully this magnificent method of prayer.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave   
   behind all self-will; these are the instruments for the work of the   
   soul.   
   --St. Poemen   
      
   Bible Quote   
    Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and   
   they also that pierced him. And all the tribes of the earth shall   
   bewail themselves because of him. Even so. Amen. 8 I am Alpha and   
   Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who   
   was, and who is to come, the Almighty.  (Apoc. 1:7-8)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Seek ye first the Kingdom of God:   
      
   "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these   
   things shall be added unto you." We should not seek material things   
   first, but seek spiritual things first and material things will come   
   to us, as we honestly work for them. Many people seek material things   
   first and think they can then grow into knowledge of spiritual things.   
   You cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. The first requisites   
   of an abundant life are the spiritual things: honesty, purity,   
   unselfishness, and love. Until you have these qualities, quantities of   
   material things are of little real use to you. I pray that I may put   
   much effort into acquiring spiritual things. I pray that I may not   
   expect good things until I am right spiritually.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)