From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Sign of the gathering eagles and vultures   
      
   What's the point of this analogy? When the day of God's final judgment   
   and vindication comes, the scene and location will be obvious to all.   
   Those who have rejected God and refused to believe in his Son the Lord   
   Jesus Christ will perish on the day of judgment - just like the beasts   
   of prey who are cut off from the land of the living. The Lord Jesus   
   will vindicate those who have believed in him and he will reward them   
   with everlasting joy and happiness in his kingdom. The return of the   
   Lord Jesus at the close of this present age is certain, but the time   
   is unknown. The Day of the Lord's judgment and final verdict will come   
   swiftly and unexpectedly. Jesus warns his listeners to not be caught   
   off guard when that day arrives. It will surely come in God's good   
   time!   
      
      
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   November 23rd – Pope St. Clement I, Martyr   
   Died c. 100.   
      
   Details of Saint Clement's life are unknown. He may have been an   
   ex-slave to the family of T. Flavius Clemens, the cousin of Emperor   
   Domitian, and he may have been of Jewish descent. He is said to have   
   been baptized by Saint Peter. Clement was the third successor of Saint   
   Peter (following Cletus) and governed the Church for about ten years   
   (AD 88-97). Origen and others refer to him as the Clement whom Paul   
   calls a fellow laborer (Phil. 4:3), but this is uncertain. Saint   
   Irenaeus (c. 125-c. 203) says that Clement "had seen and consorted   
   with the blessed apostles."   
      
   His acta states that, after converting a patrician named Theodora and   
   her husband Sisinnius and 423 others, the people raised an opposition   
   against him. He was banished by Emperor Trajan to the Crimea where he   
   was made to work in the quarries. The nearest drinking water was six   
   miles away, but Clement found a nearer spring for the use of the   
   Christian captives. It is said that he preached so zealously among the   
   prisoners working in the mines, that soon 75 churches were needed to   
   serve the converts.  Unfortunately, his success drew further unwonted   
   attention causing him to be condemned for his faith.    He was said to   
   have been thrown into the Black Sea with an anchor tied around his   
   neck, and that angels came and built him a tomb beneath the waves,   
   which once a year became visible by a miraculous ebbing of the waves.   
   It was Clement's Epistle to the fractious Corinthians that made him so   
   famous. "Under this Clement," says St. Irenaeus, "no small sedition   
   took place among the brethren at Corinth, and the church of Rome sent   
   a most sufficient letter to the Corinthians, establishing them in   
   peace and renewing their faith, and announcing the tradition it had   
   recently received from the apostles."   
      
   In the letter Clement wrote:   
      
   "Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of   
   the church were persecuted and contended unto death. Look to the   
   heroic apostles: Peter through unrighteous jealousy endured not one or   
   two, but many labors, and having thus borne witness went on to his   
   true place of glory. Paul through jealousy and strife, displayed the   
   prize of endurance: seven times in bonds, driven into exile, stoned, a   
   herald for the faith in east and west. . . . Associated with these   
   great men of holy life is a great multitude of believers, suffering   
   many tortures because of jealousy, some of them women who, though weak   
   in body, completed the race of faith."   
      
   Clement's constant references to jealousy are to rebuke the church at   
   Corinth, where hotheads had overthrown the lawful Christian leaders   
   and unbelievers were mocking the Christian faith. Written in AD 95,   
   the letter is even older than some parts of the New Testament. Using   
   Old Testament stories he demonstrates the evil resulting from   
   jealousy. He begs the Christians to show mutual tolerance and love and   
   to respect those set in authority over them. He said that peace must   
   be the aim of all who follow Jesus. The letter is important not only   
   for its eloquence, historical allusions, and its evidence of Roman   
   prestige and authority at the end of the first century, but also as a   
   model of the pastoral letter and a homily on Christian life. It   
   established the instance of the bishop of Rome intervening   
   authoritatively this early in the life of the Church as the   
   pre-eminent authority in the affairs of another apostolic church to   
   settle a dispute. It also provides evidence for the residence and   
   martyrdom of Peter and Paul at Rome.   
      
   The letter was well-received by the Corinthians, who for many years   
   used to have it read out in their religious assemblies. Another letter   
   (really a sermon) and other writings bore Clement's name, but it is   
   now known that they are not his. On the strength of the authentic   
   letter to the Corinthians, Clement is accounted the first of the   
   Apostolic Fathers.   
      
   Nothing of his martyrdom or place of death are known. His death may   
   have occurred in exile in the Crimea, but the relics that Saint Cyril   
   brought from there to Rome, after having supposedly miraculously   
   recovered them piece by piece, with the anchor, are unlikely to have   
   been his. These were deposited below the altar of San Clemente on the   
   Coelian.   
      
   He is the patron saint of the Guild, Fraternity, and Brotherhood of   
   the Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity of London, i.e., "Trinity   
   House," which was formerly called St. Clement's, and is the authority   
   responsible for lighthouses and lightships. The legend of his watery   
   martyrdom has also led to such marine dedications as St. Clement's   
   Isle in Mount's Bay (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney,   
   Encyclopedia, White).   
      
      
   Saint Quotes:   
   "O God, make us children of quietness, and heirs of peace"   
   —Saint Clement.   
      
   "The strong must make sure that they care for the weak. The rich must   
   be certain to give enough to supply all the needs of the poor. The   
   poor must thank God for supplying their needs . . . We all need each   
   other: the great need the small, the small need the great. In our   
   body, the head is useless without the feet and the feet without the   
   head. The tiniest limbs of our body are useful and necessary to the   
   whole"   
   —St. Clement.   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   "Measure"   
      
   Count your garden by the flowers   
   Never by the leaves that fall;   
   Count your days by golden hours   
   Don't remember clouds at all,   
   Count your nights by stars, not shadows,   
   Count your life by smiles, not tears;   
   And with joy on every birthday   
   count your age by friends, not years.   
     By Dixie Wilson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)