From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Keep on walking!   
      
       You ask, "What does walking mean?" I'll tell you very briefly; it   
   means forging ahead, in case you should possibly not understand, and   
   start walking sluggishly. Forge ahead, always examine yourself without   
   self-deception, without flattery, without buttering yourself up. After   
   all, there's nobody inside you before whom you need feel ashamed, or   
   whom you need to impress. There is someone there, but one who is   
   pleased with humility; let him test you, and you, too, test yourself.   
   Always be dissatisfied with what you are, if you want to arrive at   
   what you are not yet. Because wherever you are satisfied with   
   yourself, there you have stuck. If, though, you say, "That's enough,   
   that's the lot," then you've even perished. Always add some more,   
   always keep on walking, always forge ahead. Don't stop on the road,   
   don't turn round and go back, don't wander off the road. You stop, if   
   you don't forge ahead; you go back, if you turn back to what you have   
   already left behind; you wander off the road, if you apostatize. The   
   lame person on the road goes better than the sprinter off the road.   
    Augustine of Hippo   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   November 3rd – Bl. Rupert Mayer, SJ   
   (1876-1946)   
      
   It is easy but unjust to blame the whole German nation, as some have   
   done, for the rise of Hitler’s Nazism. As we move farther away from   
   World War II, we begin to learn that there were many in Nazi Germany   
   who strove heroically, if not at the time effectively, to counter   
   their insane dictator. One of these, a truly prophetic man, was a John   
   the Baptist to Hitler’s Herod. He was the German Jesuit priest, Father   
   Rupert Mayer. Like St. John, Mayer laid his life on the line to rebuke   
   the errors of Nazism. Like him, also, he triumphed after death.   
      
   Rupert, a native of Stuttgart, was the son of a prosperous merchant.   
   He was well educated, having attended the universities of Fribourg,   
   Munich, and Tubingen. Then, feeling called to the priesthood, he   
   entered the seminary at Rottenburg. He was ordained a diocesan priest   
   in 1899, but in 1900 entered the Jesuits and went on to further   
   studies. When his flair as a preacher was discovered, he was assigned   
   to preach parish missions in Germany, Switzerland, and the   
   Netherlands.   
      
   Father Mayer’s principal center was Munich. Appointed there in 1912,   
   he was soon faced by the welfare problems occasioned by the migration   
   into the city of countless country people searching for a better life   
   but finding only poverty. Mayer at once began to forage for food,   
   lodgings, and jobs. He helped hundreds of families to survive, and to   
   be strong in hope and concern for each other.   
      
   World War I broke out in 1914. True to his character, Fr. Mayer   
   volunteered as a military chaplain. He served the Catholic troops in   
   the front lines of France, Poland, and Romania. Such was his bravery   
   in assisting the dying that he was awarded the Iron Cross military   
   decoration for courage. A month later he was badly wounded, and his   
   leg had to be amputated.   
      
   Retired now from military service, Mayer returned to Munich. The   
   German people suffered much in the aftermath of the struggle, so the   
   Jesuit found much to keep him busy. In 1921 he was appointed chaplain   
   of the Men’s Sodality, a Jesuit-backed Catholic Action group. He   
   co-founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, a community dedicated to   
   helping the very poor. He also established “Bahnhofsmission”,   
   (Railroad Station Mission) to give assistance to travelers. All Munich   
   came to know and respect this compassionate priest.   
      
   Still a good theologian and powerful preacher, Father Mayer was one of   
   the first to recognize that Nazism and Christianity were incompatible,   
   and Hitler’s racist rejection of the Old Testament and of anything   
   “Jewish” in the New Testament was “hysterical”. He did not hesitate to   
   condemn these notions from the pulpit.   
      
   When Hitler assumed national power in 1933, the Ministry of Justice   
   warned Mayer against denouncing Nazist ideology. Since he did not   
   obey, in 1936 he was forbidden by the government to preach anywhere in   
   Germany. Later he was arrested, but released when he promised, under   
   duress, to cease preaching, on the condition that his priestly and   
   social ministrations would not be interfered with. Nevertheless, he   
   was again arrested in 1939, and sent to the concentration camp at   
   Sachsenhausen. During his seven months there, his health began to   
   fail. Fearing that this popular priest might die and be held a martyr,   
   the government transferred him to house imprisonment at the   
   Benedictine monastery of Ettal, near Oberammergau.   
      
   When the war ended in 1945 and he was released, Father Mayer returned   
   to Munich, to the pulpit of St. Michael’s Church, and to his beloved   
   works of charity. But his health did not mend, and he died on November   
   1, 1945, while he was preaching about the saints of God.   
      
   Rupert Mayer was entombed in the Sodality Chapel in downtown Munich.   
   His tomb quickly became a center of loving pilgrimage. (I well   
   remember witnessing this devotion in 1950.)   
      
   Pope John Paul II beatified Father Rupert on May 3, 1987. The ceremony   
   was held in the Olympic Stadium of Munich. An appropriate place to   
   honor an “athlete for Christ”!   
      
      
   Quote:   
   The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud   
   are envy and frequent anger   
   --Imitation of Christ   
      
   Bible Quote   
    "For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ; let us keep   
   the feast then with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and   
   wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."  [1   
   Corinthians 5:7]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer to St. Francis of Assisi    
      
   St Francis of Assisi, Seraphic Father who assists all souls who invoke   
   you, intercede for me in these difficult times of spiritual hunger and   
   emptiness.  Pray to Our Lady of Good Success so that I may increase in   
   virtue, bless and support me so that I may finally be found worthy to   
   enter into Eternal Happiness.   
   Amen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)