From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Angels--Their Present Sinlessness   
      
   Can the Angels sin? No, it is impossible for them to sin, because they   
   behold the face of God. They continually contemplate His infinite   
   goodness, and derive thence a perfect happiness which satisfies every   
   portion of their nature. Outside God there is nothing which has any   
   attraction for them. There is no good possible for them except in   
   doing His will; hence they cannot sin. Whenever I sin it is because I   
   grasp at some temporal good instead of God, and this though I know in   
   the end it will bring me misery.   
      
   Are the Angels free if they cannot sin? Yes, perfectly free. He who   
   freely chooses evil instead of good abuses his freedom. He does his   
   best to make himself a slave instead of free. Perfect freedom is the   
   freedom of those who choose only out of various ends all leading to   
   God. God is the end at which the angels always aim, but they are free   
   to choose the means which lead to that end. We do not always choose   
   God, but our own pleasure, as the end at which we aim. Hence we are   
   always impairing our freedom. How can we choose right means when our   
   end is not rightly chosen?   
      
   Hence the Angels are far more free than we are in their choice. They   
   always choose means which lead to God. We get in a state of confusion   
   because our intention is not pure. We seek self, not God; this hampers   
   us and ties us down. We are conscious of something that hinders our   
   liberty; this is nothing but self-will preventing us from always   
   seeking God.   
      
      
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   November 14th – Bl. John Liccio, Seer of Angels   
      
   Born in Sicily in 1400; died 1511; beatified in 1733.The man who holds   
   the all-time record for wearing the Dominican habit--96 years--was   
   also a person about whom some delightful stories are told. Perhaps   
   only in Sicily could so many wonderful things have happened to one   
   man.   
      
   John was born to a poor family. His mother died at his birth and his   
   father, too poor to hire a nurse for the baby, fed him on crushed   
   pomegranates and other odds and ends. He was obliged to leave the baby   
   alone when he went out to work in the fields, and a neighbor women,   
   who heard the child crying, took the baby over to her house and fed   
   him properly. She laid the baby in bed beside her sick husband, who   
   had been paralyzed for a long time. Her husband rose up--cured, and   
   the woman began to proclaim the saintly quality of the baby she had   
   taken in. When John's father came home, however, he was not only   
   unimpressed by her pious remarks, he was downright furious that she   
   had interfered in his household. He took the baby home again and fed   
   it more pomegranates.   
      
   At this point, the sick man next door fell ill again, and his wife   
   came to John's father and begged to be allowed to care for the child.   
   Begrudgingly, the father let the wonderful child go. The good woman   
   took care of him for several years, and never ceased to marvel that   
   her husband had been cured a second time--and that he remained well.   
      
   Even as a tiny baby, John gave every evidence that he was an unusual   
   person. At an age when most children are just beginning to read, he   
   was already reciting the daily Office of the Blessed Virgin, the   
   Office of the Dead, and the Penitential Psalms. He was frequently in   
   ecstasy, and was what might be called an "easy weeper"; any strong   
   emotion caused him to dissolve in floods of tears.   
      
   At the age of 15, John went to Palermo on a business trip for his   
   father, and he happened to go to confession to Blessed Peter Geremia,   
   at the church of Saint Zita. The friar suggested that he become a   
   religious. John believed himself quite unworthy, but the priest   
   managed to convince him to give it a try. The habit, which he put on   
   for the first time in 1415, he was to wear with distinction for nearly   
   a century.   
      
   Humble, pure, and a model of every observance, Brother John finished   
   his studies and was ordained. He and two brothers were sent to Caccamo   
   to found a convent, and John resumed his career of miracle-working,   
   which was to bring fame to the order, and to the convent of Saint   
   Zita.   
      
   As the three friars walked along the road, a group of young men began   
   ridiculing them and finally attacked them with daggers. One boy   
   attempted to stab John, but his hand withered and refused to move.   
   After the friars had gone on, the boys huddled together and decided   
   that they had better ask pardon. They ran after the Dominicans and   
   begged their forgiveness. John made the Sign of the Cross, and the   
   withered hand was made whole.   
      
   The story of the building at Caccamo reads like a fairy tale. There   
   was, first of all, no money. Since the friars never had any, that did   
   not deter John Liccio, but he knew it would be necessary to get enough   
   to pay the workmen to begin the foundations.   
      
   John went into the parish church at Caccamo and prayed. An angel told   
   him to "build on the foundations that were already built." All he had   
   to do was to find them. The next day, he went into the woods with a   
   party of young woodcutters and found the place the angel had   
   described: foundations, strongly and beautifully laid out, for a large   
   church and convent. It had been designed for a church called Saint   
   Mary of the Angels, but was never finished. John moved his base of   
   operations to the woods where the angel had furnished him with the   
   foundations. One day, in the course of the construction, the workmen   
   ran out of materials. They pointed this out to John, who told them to   
   come back tomorrow anyway. The next day at dawn a large wagon, drawn   
   by two oxen, appeared with a load of stone, lime, and sand. The driver   
   politely inquired where the fathers would like the material put; he   
   capably unloaded the wagon, and disappeared, leaving John with a fine   
   team of oxen--and giving us a fascinating story of an angel   
   truck-driver.   
      
   These oxen figured at least once more in the legends of John Liccio.   
   Near Christmas time, when there was little fodder, a neighbor insisted   
   on taking the oxen home with him "because they were too much care for   
   the fathers." John refused, saying that they were not too heavy a   
   burden, and that they had come a long way. The man took them anyway,   
   and put them into a pasture with his own oxen. They promptly   
   disappeared, and, when he went shamefacedly to report to the fathers,   
   the man found the team contentedly munching on practically nothing in   
   the fathers' yard. "You see, it takes very little to feed them," John   
   said.   
      
   During the construction, John blessed a well and dried it up, until   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)