From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On the Corruption of Nature and the Power of Grace  [VI]     
      
   Your grace is my strength, my counsel, and my help. It is more   
   powerful than all my enemies, and wiser than all the wise. It is the   
   teacher of truth, the instructor of doctrine, the light of the heart,   
   the consoler of affliction. It banishes sorrow, drives away fear,   
   fosters devotion, and moves to contrition. Without grace, I am nothing   
   but a dry tree, a barren stock (Ecclus.6:3) fit only for destruction.   
   Therefore, O Lord, let Your grace always lead and follow me,   
   (Collect,Trinity 17) and keep me ever intent on good works, through   
   Your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 55   
      
      
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   January 16th - Saint Honoratus of Arles   
   Also known as Honorat, Honore   
      
   (1829-1916)   
      
    Honoratus was born at Biala Podlaska, Poland, and baptized Florence   
   Wenceslaus John Kozminski. His parents were in comfortable   
   circumstances, and during his early years were a strong religious and   
   cultural influence on him.   
      
   Attracted to the career of an architect, which was his father’s   
   calling, young Kozminski in 1844 entered the School of Fine Arts in   
   Warsaw, his father’s Alma Mater. However, after the father’s death a   
   year later, Wenceslaus fell victim to antireligious currents at the   
   school, and not only ceased to practice Catholicism but became its   
   declared enemy, trying to convert his Catholic companions to his   
   altered religious views.   
      
   In 1846, he was accused of having taken part in a conspiracy against   
   the Russians. The accusation was false, but the Russians, who then   
   ruled Poland, clapped him into a frightful jail, and seemed ready to   
   condemn him to death for treason.   
      
   Prison became the battlefield of his soul. On the one hand, he caught   
   a serious disease, probably typhus; on the other, he suffered a   
   grievous spiritual temptation to abandon all religion. However, on the   
   feast of the Assumption, 1846, Kozminski suddenly recovered his   
   religious faith. When released from jail a year later, he made a   
   public confession of his apostasy. His conversion he attributed to the   
   grace obtained for him by Our Lady and to the faithful prayers of his   
   mother.   
      
   Nor did his change of heart cease with recovery of faith. In December   
   1848 Wenceslaus joined the Capuchin Franciscans, taking the religious   
   name Honoratus. Ordained a priest four years later, he began pastoral   
   work in and around Warsaw as a confessor, preacher and prison   
   chaplain. He also helped Maria Angela Truszkowska to found the   
   Congregation of the Felician Sisters; and to increase the piety of the   
   faithful he founded a number of “Circles of the Living Rosary”.   
      
   But the spies of imperial Russia were still on the alert. After   
   Poland’s unsuccessful revolt for independence in 1863, Russia   
   suppressed the Capuchin house in Warsaw. Honoratus and his fellow   
   friars had to move to Zakroczym. There they lived under constant   
   surveillance by the secret police, forbidden to leave the monastery or   
   move elsewhere. Kozminski meanwhile kept busy at his religious duties.   
   Each week he spent hours in the confessional and in spiritual   
   direction. He focused particularly on young people who, like himself,   
   had strayed from the church.   
      
   In making these contacts with people who sought his advice, he found   
   that many were considering emigrating to some place where they could   
   enter the religious life, which the Russians were trying to discourage   
   in Poland. Friar Honoratus thought that such aspirants might be   
   satisfied if there were available some type of religious association   
   that might satisfy them and at the same time permit them to stay at   
   home. What he did was to set up a new type of congregation based on   
   the Third Order of St. Francis. Like tertiaries, the members could   
   take simple vows and live in community without being required to   
   identify themselves outwardly as members of a religious order.   
      
   The plan worked, and he set up, in all, 26 of these congregations.   
   Members continued at their daily occupations while engaged in a secret   
   apostolate to fellow workers. Certain of the centers had more specific   
   apostolates. Some specialized in preaching, others in various social   
   projects. In other words, the Congregations were an early form of our   
   present-day secular religious institutes.   
      
   Eventually Honoratus wanted to put the organization under the control   
   of the bishops. At first, the hierarchy feared what Russia would do if   
   they became involved in this new form of religious life. However, when   
   the Russian overlords became a bit more tolerant in 1905, the   
   episcopate accepted jurisdiction over the Congregations, and with the   
   approval of Rome, began to change their mode of operation. Father   
   Honoratus, although deeply disappointed by the alterations, accepted   
   the deal. Thenceforth he had no further connection with the novel type   
   of religious institute that he had invented.   
      
   Friar Honoratus continued his own work as a confessor and spiritual   
   director to the end of his life; still working under oppressive   
   political conditions. He also served as commissary general of the   
   Capuchins in Poland and published a number of religious writings.   
   Stricken by a painful illness, Honoratus of Biala Podlaska died on   
   December 16, 1916.   
      
   Canonized   
   Pre-Congregation   
      
   Reflection. The soul cannot truly serve God while it is involved in   
   the distractions and pleasures of the world. Saint Honoratus knew   
   this, and chose to be a servant of Christ his Lord. Resolve, in   
   whatever state you are, to live absolutely detached from the world in   
   spirit, and to separate yourself corporeally as much as possible from   
   it.   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "There is a way which seemeth just to a man, but the ends thereof lead   
   to death."  (Prov. 14:12)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Are you troubled? think but of Jesus, speak but the name of Jesus, the   
   clouds disperse, and peace descends anew from heaven. Have you fallen   
   into sin? so that you fear death? invoke the name of Jesus, and you   
   will soon feel life returning. No obduracy of the soul, no weakness,   
   no coldness of heart can resist this holy name; there is no heart   
   which will not soften and open in tears at this holy name.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)