From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Love is watchful   
      
   “Love is watchful.   
   Sleeping – it does not slumber.   
   Wearied – it is not tired.   
   Pressed – it is not straitened.   
   Alarmed – it is not confused   
   but like a living flame,   
   a burning torch,   
   it forces its way upward   
   and passes unharmed,   
   through every obstacle.”   
   --Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) The Imitation of Christ   
      
      
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   April 16th - Eighteen Martyrs of Saragossa   
   A.D. 304.   
      
   Saint Optatus, and 17 other holy men, received the crown of martyrdom   
   on the same day, at Saragossa, under the cruel governor Dacian, in the   
   persecution of Dioclesian, in 304. Two others, Caius and Crementius,   
   died of their torments after a second conflict, as Prudentius relates.   
      
   The same venerable author describes, in no less elegant verse, the   
   triumph of Saint Encratis, or Engratia, Virgin. She was a native of   
   Portugal. Her father had promised her in marriage to a man of quality   
   in Rousillon: but, fearing the dangers, and despising the vanities of   
   the world, and resolving to preserve her virginity, in order to appear   
   more agreeable to her heavenly spouse, and serve him without   
   hindrance, she fled privately to Saragossa, where the persecution was   
   hottest, under the eyes of Dacian. She even reproached him with his   
   barbarities, upon which he ordered her to be long tormented in the   
   most inhuman manner: her sides were torn with iron hooks, and one of   
   her breasts was cut off, so that the inner parts of her chest were   
   exposed to view, and part of her liver pulled out. In this condition   
   she was sent back to prison, being still alive, and died by the   
   mortifying of her wounds, in 304. The relics of all these martyrs were   
   found at Saragossa in 1389. Prudentius recommended himself to their   
   intercession, and exhorts the city, through their prayers, to implore   
   the pardon of their sins, with him, that they might follow them to   
   glory.   
      
   The martyrs, by a singular happiness and grace, were made perfect   
   holocausts of divine love. Every Christian must offer himself a   
   perpetual sacrifice to God, and by an entire submission to his will, a   
   constant fidelity to his law, and a total consecration of all his   
   affections, devote to him all the faculties of his soul and body, all   
   the motions of his heart, all the actions and moments of his life, and   
   this with the most ardent unabated love, and the most vehement desire   
   of being altogether his. Can we consider that our most amiable and   
   loving God, after having conferred upon us numberless other benefits,   
   has with infinite love given us himself by becoming man, making   
   himself a bleeding victim for our redemption, and in the holy   
   eucharist remaining always with us, to be our constant sacrifice of   
   adoration and propitiation, and to be our spiritual food, comfort, and   
   strength; lastly, by being the eternal spouse of our souls? Can we, I   
   say, consider that our infinite God has so many ways, out of love,   
   made himself all ours, and not be transported with admiration and   
   love, and cry out with inexpressible ardour: “My beloved is mine, and   
   I am his.” Yes, I will from this moment dedicate myself entirely to   
   him. Why am not I ready to die of grief and compunction that I ever   
   lived one moment not wholly to him! Oh, my soul! base, mean, sinful,   
   and unworthy as thou art, the return which, by thy love and sacrifice   
   thou makest to thy infinite God, bears no proportion, and is on   
   innumerable other titles a debt, and thy sovereign exaltation and   
   happiness. It is an effect of his boundless mercy that he accepts thy   
   oblation, and so earnestly sues for it by bidding thee give him thy   
   heart. Set at least no bounds to the ardour with which thou makest it   
   the only desire of thy heart, and thy only endeavour to be wholly his,   
   by faithfully corresponding to his grace, and by making thy heart an   
   altar on which thou never ceasest to offer all thy affections and   
   powers to him, and to his greater glory, and to become a pure victim   
   to burn and be entirely consumed with the fire of divine love. In   
   union with the divine victim, the spotless lamb, who offers himself on   
   our altars and in heaven for us, our sacrifice, however unworthy and   
   imperfect, will find acceptance; but for it to be presented with, and   
   by, what is so holy, what is sanctity itself, with what purity, with   
   what fervour ought it to be made!   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Try to fulfil each day’s task   
   steadily and cheerfully.   
   The life of a true Christian   
   should be a perpetual jubilee,   
   a prelude to the festivals of eternity.   
   --St Théophane Vénard   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Blessed is the man   
   who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,   
   nor stands in the way of sinners,   
       nor sits in the seat of scoffers;  [Psalm 1:1]  RSVCE   
      
      
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   Hail To Thee! True Body Sprung   
   (By St. Thomas Aquinas)   
      
   Hail to Thee! True body sprung   
   From the Virgin Mary’s womb!   
   The same that on the cross was hung   
   And bore for man the bitter doom.   
   Thou Whose side was pierced and flowed   
   Both with water and with blood;   
   Suffer us to taste of Thee   
   In our life’s last agony.   
   O kind, O loving One!   
   O Jesus, Mary’s Son!   
      
   Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)