From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Lord fills all things with blessing from above   
      
   "So that by every means the Lord might be known to be God by nature,   
   he multiplies what is little, and he looks up to heaven as though   
   asking for the blessing from above. Now he does this out of the divine   
   economy, for our sakes. For he himself is the one who fills all   
   things, the true blessing from above and from the Father. But, so that   
   we might learn that when we are in charge of the table and are   
   preparing to break the loaves, we ought to bring them to God with   
   hands upraised and bring down upon them the blessing from above, he   
   became for us the beginning and pattern and way."   
    by Cyril of Alexandria (excerpt from FRAGMENT 177)Mt 14:13-21   
      
      
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   March 21st - Saint Serapion the Scholastic   
   (Also known as Serapion of Thmuis, Serapion the Scholar)   
      
   SURNAMED “the Scholastic” on account of his learning both in sacred   
   and in secular knowledge, St. Serapion for some time presided over the   
   catechetical school of Alexandria; he afterwards retired into the   
   desert, where he became a monk and formed a friendship with St Antony,   
   who at his death left him one of his tunics. Serapion was drawn from   
   his retreat to be placed in the episcopal seat of Thmuis, a city of   
   Lower Egypt near Diospolis. He took part in the Council of Sardica in   
   347, was closely associated with St. Athanasius in defence of the   
   Catholic faith, and is said by St. Jerome to have been banished by the   
   Emperor Constantius.   
      
   He informed Athanasius about the new Macedonian heresy which was being   
   propagated and the four letters which Athanasius, from the desert   
   where he lay concealed, wrote to Serapion were the first express   
   confutation of that error to be published. St. Serapion laboured with   
   great success against the Arians and the Macedonians, and he also   
   compiled an excellent book against the Manicheans. He wrote several   
   learned letters and a treatise on the titles of the Psalms, which are   
   lost, but for us his most important work is the Euchologion,   
   discovered and published at the end of last century.   
      
   Socrates says that St. Serapion made a short epigram or summary of   
   Christian perfection which he often repeated “The mind is purified by   
   spiritual knowledge (or by holy meditation and prayer), the spiritual   
   passions of the soul by charity, and the irregular appetites by   
   abstinence and penance.” He is thought to have died in banishment, but   
   the exact date of his death is not known.   
      
   See the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. iii; DCB., vol. iv, p. 613 and   
   CMII., pp. 154-155. There has been much confusion in the martyrology   
   entries. There is a short account of Serapion’s career in the preface   
   to Bishop John Wordsworth’s booklet Bishop Serapion’s Prayerbook   
   (1910), being a translation of the prayers of his Euchologion.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Prayer is a wine which makes glad the heart of man.   
   --St. Bernard of Clairvaux   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   5 For even his brethren did not believe in him. 6 Jesus said to them,   
   “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. 7 The world   
   cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its   
   works are evil.  RSVCE   
      
      
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   Prayer In Sorrow   
      
   God of all consolation,   
   in your unending love and mercy for us,   
   you turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life.   
   Show compassion to your people in sorrow.   
   Be our refuge and our strength to lift us   
   from the darkness of this grief   
   to peace and joy in your presence.   
   We ask this through Christ, our Lord.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)