From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Allow God's love to purify your mind, heart, and speech   
      
   Prayer flows from the love of God; and the personal love we show to   
   our neighbor is fueled by the love that God has poured into our hearts   
   through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). Jesus concludes his discourse on   
   prayer with the reminder that we must treat our neighbor in the same   
   way we wish to be treated by God. We must not just avoid doing harm to   
   our neighbor, we must actively seek his or her welfare. In doing so,   
   we fulfill the scriptural teaching from the "law and the prophets,"   
   namely what God requires of us--loving God with all that we have and   
   are and loving our neighbor as ourselves. The Holy Spirit is ever   
   ready to change our hearts and transform our lives in Jesus' way of   
   love and merciful kindness towards all. Do you thirst for holiness and   
   for the fire of God's purifying love?   
      
      
   =============   
   March 8th – Saint Veremundus of Irache   
   Also known as Veremund, Veremondo, Veremundo, Vermund   
   d. 1092   
      
   OF the religious houses in the kingdom of Navarre in the 11th century   
   the chief in importance was the Benedictine abbey of Hyrache, which   
   under the direction of St. became second to none in all Spain. He had   
   entered the monastery as a mere boy under his uncle, Abbot Munius,   
   from whom he afterwards received the habit. He grew up an exemplary   
   monk, distinguished especially for his boundless love of the poor. In   
   illustration of this, a story appears amongst the chronicles of the   
   abbey. When serving as doorkeeper Veremundus was sometimes carried   
   away by his zeal to distribute to the poor more than the prescribed   
   allowance of food, and the abbot, meeting him one day as he was going   
   to the door with a great number of pieces of bread gathered up in his   
   tunic, asked him what he was carrying. “Chips”, replied the young   
   man--“pieces of bread being, as it were, like chips for warming the   
   poor within”, explains the chronicler. When, at the abbot’s command,   
   Veremundus opened out his tunic the bread had been changed into   
   chips--“God thus showing through this miracle”, to quote the words of   
   the narrative, “that the liberality of Veremundus to the poor was   
   pleasing in His eyes and that his ambiguity was not a lie but a   
   mystery.”   
      
   Upon the death of Munius, St. Veremundus succeeded him as abbot and   
   led his brethren on by precept and example to ever higher degrees of   
   perfection. He appears to have possessed the gift of healing the sick,   
   and is said to have arrested in a marvellous way a fire which was   
   about to destroy the crops of the abbey. His care for the reverent and   
   accurate recitation of the Divine Office won for him high approval and   
   praise from Rome, and he was an upholder of the particular Spanish   
   usages, called Mozarabic. The kings of Navarre made grants to his   
   abbey, and the rise of the town of Estella was due to one of these   
   donations. One night shepherds watching their flocks were amazed to   
   see a shower of stars fall on a hill which was afterwards known in the   
   local dialect as Yricarra, “Starry”. A search at the spot where the   
   meteorites had fallen was rewarded by the find of a remarkable statue   
   of our Lady with the Holy Child, and King Sancho Ramirez was so much   
   impressed that he started to build a city to be called Estella upon   
   the same spot. He presented the site to Veremundus, with the request   
   that he would dedicate the new town to the Mother of God. Thus it came   
   to pass that practically every building in Estella paid rent or   
   tribute to the abbey.   
      
   At one time there arose a great famine in Navarre, and the poor   
   flocked to their good friend the abbot, and the numbers were increased   
   by pilgrims on their way to or from Compostela. The monks’ granaries   
   and store-houses were bare, but 3000 persons had collected and their   
   wailing rent the air. Veremundus had gone up to the altar to celebrate   
   Mass, and when he reached that part where the priest prays for the   
   people, he made intercession with tears for the starving crowd.   
   Suddenly there appeared a white dove, which flew down low over the   
   heads of the people, seeming to touch them in its passage, and then   
   disappeared as sud­denly as it had come. Meanwhile the people   
   experienced a wonderful feeling of contentment: not only was their   
   hunger appeased, but their mouths were filled with a delicious taste,   
   as though they had been regaled with some heavenly and invigorating   
   food. In their joy and relief they cried aloud and gave thanks and   
   glory to God for His goodness.   
      
   See the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. i, and Mabillon.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Labor without stopping; do all the good works you can while you still   
   have the time.   
   --Saint John of God   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go through them, And I   
   will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, Through which the   
   righteous shall enter.  [Psalm 118:19-20]   
      
      
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   PRAYER FOR THE GIFT TO SEEK GOD AND LIVE IN HIM.   
      
   Father, in your goodness   
   grant me the intellect to comprehend you,   
   the perception to discern you,   
   and the reason to appreciate you.   
   In your kindness endow me   
   with the diligence to look for you,   
   the wisdom to discover you,   
   and the spirit to apprehend you.   
   In your graciousness   
   bestow on me a heart to contemplate you,   
   ears to hear you,   
   eyes to see you,   
   and a tongue to speak of you.   
   In your mercy confer on me a conversation pleasing to you,   
   the patience to wait for you,   
   and the perseverance to long for you.   
   Grant me a perfect end,   
   your holy presence.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)