From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Sing With Human Reason   
      
       "Dear friends, sing the Psalm with human reason, not like birds.   
   Thrushes, parrots, ravens, magpies, and the like are often taught to   
   say what they do not understand. However, to know what we are saying   
   was granted by God's will to human nature.   
       Hence, we who have learned in the Church to sing God's words   
   should be eager to do so. We should know and see with a clear mind   
   what we have all sung together with one voice."   
   --St. Augustine--Commentary on Psalm 18, 2   
      
    Prayer. As long as we are here, let us ask God not to deprive us of   
   our prayer and his mercy, so that we may pray with perseverance and he   
   may have mercy with his perseverance.   
   --Commentary on Psalm 65, 24   
      
      
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   February 15th - St. Claud La Colombiere   
   (1641-1682)   
      
   Certain male saints are noted for their apostolic collaboration with   
   certain female saints. Thus God saw fit to have St. Benedict and his   
   sister St. Scholastica work together; St. Francis and St. Clare of   
   Assisi; St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal.   
      
   Add to these St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. Claud La Colombiere.   
   She was the Visitandine visionary entrusted to spread devotion to the   
   Sacred Heart of Jesus; he was her spiritual director and co-propagator   
   of that devotion.   
      
   Claud, born near Lyons, France, of a good family, was exceptionally   
   talented. He was, for instance, highly informed about the fine arts.   
   But even more important than his broad culture was his interior   
   disposition to relate all things prayerfully to God.   
      
   Trained by the Jesuits, he did not feel attracted to the religious   
   life, yet he overcame that feeling and joined the Society of Jesus   
   himself. Assigned as a scholastic to Avignon, he was called on while   
   not yet ordained to preach in honor of St. Francis de Sales. His   
   sermon was so brilliant that his superiors sent him on to Paris to   
   study theology. While there, he was also named tutor to the sons of   
   John Colbert, the great French statesman. In France, Claud became   
   thoroughly acquainted with the doctrines of the Jansenists, whose   
   false piety made them think that God was harsh and vengeful.   
      
   After ordination and final vows, Father Colombiere, despite his youth,   
   was appointed superior of the Jesuit college at Paray-le Monial. He   
   had just made a private vow to practice to the last detail the rules   
   of the Society of Jesus; and now he consecrated himself totally to the   
   service of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devotion that he had decided   
   to be the best antidote to the chilling theology of the Jansenists.   
   The sermons he preached in and around Paray were classics. But the   
   providential reason for his appointment had been to guide Sister   
   Margaret Mary, who belonged to the Visitation Convent in that town.   
   The many visions she had had of Jesus and His Sacred Heart had puzzled   
   her. Claud calmed her fears, and made her realize that she should be   
   completely open to the task that our Lord was asking of her. Fr. Claud   
   was not long at Paray, but he had accomplished his mission. He had   
   also taken upon himself the vigorous promotion of the devotion to the   
   Sacred Heart, which Jesus had asked St Margaret Mary to spread.   
      
   In 1676 Fr. La Colombiere was assigned to England, to be chaplain to   
   Italian Princess Mary Beatrice d’Este, the Catholic duchess of York.   
   He took advantage of his 3-year stay in Britain to preach the Sacred   
   Heart and to win many converts to Catholicism.   
      
   But while he was in London a new persecution of Catholics arose. An   
   ecclesiastical adventurer named Titus Oates reported a (fictitious)   
   plot of the Jesuits and other Catholics to assassinate King Charles   
   II. Faced at that moment with the conversion to Catholicism of James,   
   the King’s brother and heir-apparent to the crown, the government   
   sought to prevent a Catholic succession by accepting Oates’s lies and   
   arresting and executing many Catholics as alleged participants in the   
   “Oates Plot”.   
      
   Of those arrested in this last great bloodletting of English   
   Catholics, 25 priests and laymen were martyred. 14 of these are now   
   Blessed, 7 canonized. Fr. La Colombiere himself was jailed for acting   
   as a priest and for making converts. But he was saved from execution   
   through an appeal by King Louis XIV, and simply exiled to France.   
      
   By then, Fr. Claud’s health was broken by the internment, and after   
   much suffering patiently borne, he died at Paray in 1682. It is said   
   that St. Margaret Mary received divine assurance on the day after his   
   death that her mentor was already in heaven.   
      
   This priest to whom we are so indebted for our present devotion to the   
   Sacred Heart of Jesus, also had an incidental connection with the   
   Church in America. Among the early cures attributed to St. Kateri   
   Tekakwitha was the healing of St. Claud’s brother, a priest serving on   
   the Canadian mission!   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "A single good word made the thief pure and holy, despite all his   
   previous crimes, and brought him into paradise (cf. Luke 23:42-43). A   
   single ill-advised word prevented Moses from entering the promised   
   land (cf. Num. 20:12). We should not suppose, then, that garrulity is   
   only a minor disease. Lovers of slander and gossip shut themselves out   
   of the kingdom of heaven."   
   --St. John of Karpathos.   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Wonder not at this: for the hour cometh wherein all that are in the   
   graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have done   
   good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life: but they   
   that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. [John 5:28,29   
   ] DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   PRAYER FOR A MATURE FAITH   
      
   Lord, I wish to believe in You.   
      
   Let my faith be full and unreserved,   
   and let it penetrate my thought,   
   my way of judging Divine things and human things.   
      
   Let my faith be free.   
   Let my faith be strong;   
   let it not fear the difficulties or the problems   
   of which the experience of our life,   
   eager for light, is full;   
   let it not fear the hostility of those who question it,   
   attack it, reject it, deny it,   
   but let it be strengthened in the intimate proof of Your truth;   
   let it resist the attack of criticism.   
      
   Let my faith be joyful and give peace and gladness to my spirit,   
   and dispose it for prayer with God and conversation with all.   
      
   Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)