From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How we should Bless God in all Trouble [I]   
      
   THE DISCIPLE.   
      Blessed be Thy holy Name forever, O Lord.(I Peter 1:3) I know that   
   it is by Thy will that temptation and trouble come upon me. I cannot   
   escape it, but must needs come to Thee for help, that it may be turned   
   to my good. Lord, I am tormented and uneasy in mind, and my present   
   troubles weigh heavy on me. Most loving Father, what may I say? I am   
   in dire straits. Save me from this hour. (John 12:27) Yet it is for   
   Thy glory that I have been brought to this hour, and that I may learn   
   that Thee alone can deliver me from the depths of my humiliation. Of   
   Thy goodness, deliver me, O Lord (Ps. 37:40) For what can I do,   
   helpless as I am; and where can I go without Thine aid? Give me   
   patience, Lord, even in this trial. Grant me help, and I shall fear   
   nothing, however hard pressed I may be.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ, Bk 3, Ch 29   
      
      
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   October 15th - St. Teresa of Avila   
      
   Teresa Sanchez of Avila, born in 1565, learned to read by reading the   
   lives of the saints. When she was seven, therefore, she talked her   
   little brother, Rodrigo, into running off to Africa with her to be   
   martyred by the Muslims. Fortunately, the runaways encountered their   
   uncle, who promptly brought them back home.   
      
   So Teresa was a saint already at seven? Not at all. Just a good girl   
   with a lively imagination.   
      
   At the age of 20 she ran away again, this time to join the Carmelites   
   in their nearby monastery. Her aristocratic father had opposed that   
   idea thus far, but now he consented.   
      
   So Teresa was a saint by 20? Not at all, First came three years of   
   illness. Then, when her body recovered, she began to take care of her   
   soul. With proper spiritual guidance she reached those heights of   
   prayer that you and I can never really understand because God has   
   chosen not to raise us to that level.   
      
   Only when she had been 25 years a nun did St. Teresa’s task as a   
   reformer begin. Having first reformed herself, she was now ready to   
   help others to become holier.   
      
   One of the reasons why the Protestant Reformation had made such   
   headway was that many members of Catholic religious orders had been   
   setting bad example rather than good example. So Catholic reformers   
   now had to jack up, first of all, the ideals and practice of men and   
   women religious. Teresa began by establishing a stricter life in her   
   own Carmelite monastery in Avila. After that, she set up, all in all,   
   about a dozen convents in which poverty was really poverty and prayer   
   was really prayer. No half-measures. She also established two reformed   
   monasteries of Carmelite men, and then let the Spanish Carmelite   
   mystic, St. John of the Cross, take over the men’s reform from there.   
   This more austere branch of the Carmelites, men and women alike, was   
   called the “Discalced Carmelites” because the members wore open   
   sandals rather than shoes.   
      
   A brief sketch of St. Teresa of Avila like the above can only hint at   
   her greatness, for great she was.   
      
   She was so great as a spiritual writer that in 1970 Pope Paul VI   
   proclaimed her a “doctor of the Church” – the first woman ever given   
   that title.   
      
   She was a great reformer. What she did for the Carmelites had much   
   wider repercussions. It set an example for other religious orders, and   
   the spiritual revival of all these orders quickly percolated down to   
   the Catholic faithful whom they served, and to the Church in general.   
      
   She was a great person. Do you picture her as a languishing neurotic?   
   She was anything but! Teresa was plump, pleasant, forthright and had a   
   delightful common sense of humor. A few stories will illustrate.   
      
   One night when Teresa was sleeping in the same room as another nun,   
   the nun said, “I was just wondering. If I should die now, what would   
   you do alone with a corpse?” Teresa, though a bit startled, answered,   
   “I will think about that when it happens, sister. Now, let’s go to   
   sleep.”   
      
   When she was about to found a monastery at Toledo she discovered she   
   had no cash but five ducats. Somebody asked how she could open a   
   convent with such small funds. “Teresa and five ducats are nothing”,   
   she replied; “but God, Teresa and five ducats, that’s everything!”   
      
   In accepting candidates for her order, she looked for intelligence   
   first, piety second, she said; but “God preserve us from stupid nuns!”   
      
   These three are true stories. Perhaps the last one is just a legend,   
   but it is still typical.   
      
   One day, they say, Teresa was riding a donkey from one of her convents   
   to another. When they came to a big mud-puddle, the sassy donkey   
   balked and threw the saint right into the muck. St. Teresa, always in   
   touch with God, said, “Lord, why this?” He answered, “That is the way   
   I treat my friends.” Teresa came back, “Then no wonder You have so   
   few!”   
      
   St. Teresa, help us not to take ourselves too seriously…   
      
      
   Bible Quote   
   Now when the apostles, who were in Jerusalem, had heard that Samaria   
   had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John. 15   
   Who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the   
   Holy Ghost. 16 For he was not as yet come upon any of them; but they   
   were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then they laid   
   their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost.  (Acts   
   8:14-17) DRB   
      
      
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   Learn daily the lesson of trust and calm:   
      
      Learn daily the lesson of trust and calm in the midst of the storms   
   of life. Whatever sorrow or difficulty the day may bring, God's   
   command to you is the same. Be grateful, humble, calm, and loving to   
   all people. Leave each soul the better for having met you or heard   
   you. For all kinds of people, this should be your attitude:   
      a loving desire to help and an infectious spirit of calmness and   
   trust in God. You have the answer to loneliness and fear, which is   
   calm faith in the goodness and purpose in the universe. I pray that I   
   may be calm in the midst of storms. I pray that I may pass on this   
   calmness to others who are lonely and full of fear.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)