From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The consequences of being unprepared to meet the Lord   
      
   Jesus warns us that there are consequences for being unprepared. There   
   are certain things you cannot obtain at the last moment. For example,   
   students cannot prepare for their exams when the day of testing is   
   already upon them. A person cannot get the right kind of character,   
   strength, and skill required for a task at hand unless they already   
   possess it, such as a captain with courage and nautical skills who   
   must steer a ship through a dangerous storm at sea.   
   When the Lord Jesus comes to lead you to his heavenly banquet will you   
   be ready to hear his voice and follow? Our eternal welfare depends on   
   our hearing, and many have trained themselves to not hear. We will not   
   be prepared to meet the Lord, face to face, when he calls us on the   
   day of judgment, unless we listen to him today. The Lord invites us to   
   feast at his heavenly banquet table. Are you ready?   
      
   "Lord Jesus, make me vigilant and attentive to your voice that I may   
   heed your call at all times. May I find joy in your presence and   
   delight in doing your will."   
      
      
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   November 17th - St. Hilda of Whitby   
   A.D. 614-680   
      
   St. Bede the Venerable, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English   
   Nation, gives us the fullest information about this remarkable   
   descendant of the earliest Anglo-Saxon settlers of Britain. Hilda’s   
   father, a nephew of St. Edwin, King of Northumbria, was living in   
   exile in what is now North Yorkshire. St. Paulinus, archbishop of   
   York, baptized her when she was 13, along with St. Edwin himself. For   
   the next 20 years she lived, as Bede puts it, “most nobly in the   
   secular state.” But then she decided to consecrate her life to God.   
   Her first plan was to go to a monastery in France, where her sister   
   was already a nun. However, St. Aidan, the bishop of Lindisfarne,   
   fortunately persuaded her to remain in Northumbria.   
      
   For a while Hilda lived alone on a small plot of land given her by   
   Bishop Aidan. Then she was elected abbess of a monastery at   
   Hartlepool.   
      
   Now, this abbey was a double monastery, with one wing for nuns and one   
   wing for monks. But each group led an independent existence except   
   when they gathered to sing the divine office and to attend Mass.   
   Abbess Hilda was thus the “boss” of both branches of the monastery in   
   all but strictly spiritual matters. Her task was to reorganize the   
   religious community she found at Hartlepool. Although inexperienced   
   herself when she began, she was apparently so gifted that she was able   
   to achieve the assigned task, adopting for the abbey a rule of life   
   based on Irish monastic traditions.   
      
   Success led to her promotion. In 657 she was elected abbess of the   
   monastery of Streaneshalch, later renamed “Whitby”. Whitby was also a   
   double monastery. Once more Hilda carried off the managerial task   
   effectively. She laid special stress on education. Her insistence on   
   reading and the study of Latin and biblical literature, and her   
   setting up of an extensive monastic library of manuscripts helped her   
   to train a good many of her monks for the priesthood. Several of them   
   eventually became bishops. But Hilda’s drive for education by no means   
   excluded the nonclergy of the abbey, men or women. Thus she encouraged   
   Caedmon, a cowherd of the monastery, to write religious poetry in   
   Anglo-Saxon. He became the first English Christian poet.   
      
   As Abbess Hilda’s name and fame spread throughout Britain, she was   
   consulted by many, including princes and kings, and the monastery   
   itself was an acknowledged religious and cultural center. A very   
   important synod was held there in 663-664 to decide whether the Celtic   
   portion of the Church in Britain should give up its divergent custom   
   of computing Easter and adopt the Roman computation. Representatives   
   of both the Roman Rite and the Celtic Rite gathered to discuss the   
   problem. Hilda’s monastery had followed the Celtic method; but when   
   the majority voted to adopt the Roman computation, the Abbess accepted   
   the decision, which ended a long-standing tension between the Celtic   
   Catholics and the Anglo-Saxon Catholics of Britannia.   
      
   Although Abbess Hilda was in poor health during the last seven years   
   of her life, she did not allow illness to interfere with her duties,   
   especially that of teaching.   
      
   St. Hilda died in November 680. St. Bede tells us that a nun named   
   Begu in a daughter house of Whitby Abbey at Hackness, 13 miles away,   
   had a dream in which she heard the tolling of the passing bell and saw   
   Hilda’s soul departing for heaven. She alerted the rest of her   
   sisters, and at dawn they were already in the Hackness chapel praying   
   for the soul of the deceased abbess when the monks from Whitby arrived   
   to announce the sad news.   
      
   The Danes invaded England around 875, armed to the teeth. They   
   destroyed Whitby Abbey. St. Hilda’s relics were removed, and   
   eventually lost. Devotion to her nevertheless remained strong,   
   especially in the north of England. There, fourteen churches bore her   
   name, including eleven in Yorkshire and two in Durham.   
      
   Biased historians have termed the era we are discussing, the “Dark   
   Ages”. Actually, there were many Christians during that period who   
   illuminated the “darkness” by their efforts to preserve Christian   
   culture, particularly people who had embraced the monastic life. Among   
   them were some remarkable women religious like St. Hilda, a very   
   “modern” educator indeed!   
   –   
      
   Saint Quote:   
    Prayer is a pasturage, a field, wherein all the virtues find their   
   nourishment, growth, and strength.   
   --St. Catherine of Siena   
      
   Bible Quote   
    "Then never let anyone criticize you for what you eat or drink, or   
   about observance of annual festivals, New Moons or Sabbaths. These are   
   only a shadow of what was coming: the reality is the body of Christ."   
   [Colossians 2:16-17 ]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   14. The measure of charity may be taken from the want of desires. As   
   desires diminish in a soul, charity increases in it; and when it no   
   longer feels any desire, then it possesses perfect charity.   
   --St. Augustine   
      
   St. Francis de Sales used to say of himself: "I wish for very few   
   things, and those few I wish for very little. I have almost no desire,   
   and if I were to begin life again, I should wish to have none at all."   
      
   St. Teresa was so fully persuaded of this truth that she exclaimed:   
   "Oh Love, that lovest me more than I love myself, and more than I can   
   understand! How shall I be able, O Lord, to desire more than Thou art   
   willing to give me?"   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)