From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Easter Alleluia   
      
      "Because there are these two periods of time--the one that now is,   
   beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to   
   come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy--we are given two   
   liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season   
   before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now,   
   while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present   
   signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we   
   commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we   
   celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This   
   is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the   
   fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the   
   meaning of the Alleluia we sing."   
   --St. Augustine--(excerpt from commentary on Psalm 148, 1-2)   
      
      
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   April 4th – St Isidore of Seville   
   (560-636)   
    Patron of The Internet, Father & Doctor of the Church   
      
   Even saints run away, at first.  Peter, all of them, ran away, at   
   first.  Isidore ran away, too.  Isidore served as Archbishop of   
   Seville for more than three decades as the classical world was fading   
   away and the Dark Ages loomed on every side.  He is considered, “The   
   last scholar of the ancient world”.   
      
   Once, when Isidore was a boy, he ran away from home and from school.   
   His brother Leander, some twenty years older than he, was his teacher,   
   and a very strict and demanding one. Isidore despaired of ever   
   pleasing his brother in his studies.  While Isidore sat by himself out   
   in the woods, loafing and feeling sorry for himself, he watched some   
   drops of water falling on a rock. Then he noticed that the dripping   
   water had worn a hole in the hard rock! The thought came to him that   
   he could do what the little drops of water did. Little by little, by   
   sticking to it, he could learn all his brother demanded, and maybe   
   even more.   
      
   Isidore realized that if he kept working at his studies, his seemingly   
   small efforts would eventually pay off in great learning. He also may   
   have hoped that his efforts would also wear down the rock of his   
   brother’s heart.  When he returned home, however, his brother in   
   exasperation confined him to a cell (probably in a monastery) to   
   complete his studies, not believing that he wouldn’t run away again.   
   Either there must have been a loving side to this relationship or   
   Isidore was remarkably forgiving, even for a saint, because later he   
   would work side by side with his brother and after Leander’s death,   
   Isidore would complete many of the projects he began including a   
   missal and breviary.   
      
   In a time where it’s fashionable to blame the past for our present and   
   future problems, Isidore was able to separate the abusive way he was   
   taught from the joy of learning. He didn’t run from learning after he   
   left his brother but embraced education and made it his life’s work.   
   Isidore rose above his past to become known as the greatest teacher in   
   Spain.  His love of learning made him promote the establishment of a   
   seminary in every diocese of Spain. He didn’t limit his own studies   
   and didn’t want others to as well. In a unique move, he made sure that   
   all branches of knowledge including the arts and medicine were taught   
   in the seminaries.   
      
   His encyclopedia of knowledge, the Etymologies, was a popular textbook   
   for nine centuries. He also wrote books on grammar, astronomy,   
   geography, history, and biography as well as theology. When the Arabs   
   brought study of Aristotle back to Europe, this was nothing new to   
   Spain because Isidore’s open mind had already reintroduced the   
   philosopher to students there.   
      
   Still trying to wear away rock with water, he helped convert the   
   barbarian Visigoths from Arianism, which denies the divinity of   
   Christ, to Catholicism.  By the time of his death, the light of his   
   learning caught fire in Spanish minds and held back the Dark Ages of   
   barbarism from Spain. But even greater than his outstanding mind must   
   have been the genius of his heart that allowed him to see beyond   
   rejection and discouragement to joy and possibility.  Many of his   
   remains are interred in the cathedral of Murcia, Spain.   
   -by José Alcoverro, 1892, outside the Biblioteca Nacional de España, in   
   Madrid.   
      
      
   St. Isidore Quotes   
   “Heresy is from the Greek word meaning ‘choice’…. But we are not   
   permitted to believe whatever we choose, nor to choose whatever   
   someone else has believed. We have the Apostles of God as authorities,   
   who did not…choose what they would believe but faithfully transmitted   
   the teachings of Christ. So, even if an angel from heaven should   
   preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema.”   
   --Saint Isidore   
      
   “Indeed, just as we must love God in contemplation, so we must love   
   our neighbor with action,” he declared. “It is therefore impossible to   
   live without the presence of both the one and the other form of life,   
   nor can we live without experiencing both the one and the other.”   
   --Saint Isidore   
      
   “In confession there is mercy. Believe it firmly, do not doubt, do not   
   hesitate, never despair of the mercy of God.”   
   --St. Isidore of Seville   
      
      
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   Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thy image and bade us to   
   seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the   
   divine person of Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant   
   we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore,   
   bishop and doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will   
   direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and   
   treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.   
   Through Christ our Lord. Amen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)