From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Prudence in Action   
      
   DO NOT yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things   
   carefully and patiently in the light of God's will. For very often,   
   sad to say, we are so weak that we believe and speak evil of others   
   rather than good. Perfect men, however, do not readily believe every   
   talebearer, because they know that human frailty is prone to evil and   
   is likely to appear in speech.  Not to act rashly or to cling   
   obstinately to one's opinion, not to believe everything people say or   
   to spread abroad the gossip one has heard, is great wisdom.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ --  book 1 Ch. 4   
      
      
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   May 5th – Bl. Edmund Ignatius Rice   
   (1762-1844)   
      
   Medieval Ireland was noted for its scholars. During the British   
   “occupation” of the Emerald Isle, everything was done to discourage   
   the education of Irish youth. In the 1800s Daniel O’Connell launched a   
   campaign to achieve political liberty for the Irish people. The “Great   
   Liberator,” as O’Connell was called, proudly hailed Edmund Ignatius   
   Rice, his contemporary as an educational liberator of the Gaels.   
      
   Edmund Rice did not plan to become an educator. Divine Providence   
   switched him into the triple role of intellectual liberator, religious   
   brother, and saint.   
      
   In a day in which most Irish families were poor, Edmund was born into   
   a fairly comfortable County Kilkenny family, the fourth of seven sons.   
   His parents could afford to send him to a one-room private school   
   where the instruction was in Gaelic. Afterwards he attended a business   
   school in Kilkenny. When 18 he went to Waterford to work for an uncle   
   who was a prosperous merchant. Thanks to a native talent for business,   
   Edmund himself soon became prosperous, and in 1785 he wedded Mary   
   Elliot, the daughter of another distinguished Waterfordian.   
      
   All went well until 1789, when Mary died while giving birth   
   prematurely. Their child survived, but was severally handicapped.   
   Shattered by the turn of events, Edmund found himself at a crossroads.   
   He finally decided to devote the rest of his life to God, leaving the   
   specific directions in the hands of the Creator. But first he provided   
   for his dear disabled child, arranging to have her raised by his   
   father’s family. Her expenses were payable from an endowment that he   
   established. Well cared for, she lived to be 70.   
      
   The young widower had always been a pious, intelligent, and   
   self-disciplined layman. Now, as he projected his future, he became   
   even more serious about his religious commitment. Ultimately he   
   decided that since there were no Catholic schools for boys in   
   Anglicized Ireland, the most valuable contribution he could make to   
   faith and freedom would be to establish a religious order of teaching   
   brothers, and with their assistance found and maintain a series of   
   schools. The tender father of a disabled daughter, he would become   
   surrogate father of countless Christian sons.   
      
   In 1802, with the encouragement of the pope and the permission of his   
   bishop, Rice and three other men formed an association, and in 1803   
   opened a school for Waterford’s unlettered and rambunctious boys. In   
   1809 the four took vows as a religious order of teaching brothers,   
   following a rule of life based on that of the Irish Presentation   
   Sisters. Edmund chose Ignatius as his religious name. In 1820, having   
   found that being under the supervision of local bishops presented   
   difficulties, the little community obtained the status of a pontifical   
   order, subject direct to the pope. Now they adopted the rule of the   
   “Brothers of the Christian Schools.” which had been founded by St.   
   John Baptist de la Salle in the seventeenth century. At that point,   
   one group of the Rice brothers broke off and declared its   
   independence; but these Presentation Brothers, a smaller congregation,   
   also acknowledge Rice as their originator. Up until 1966 the Rice   
   brotherhood was called “Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian   
   Schools of Ireland” (“Irish Christian Brothers” for short). In 1966   
   their title was changed to “Congregation of Christian Brothers” for by   
   that time they had schools around the world. In 1906 they made their   
   first American foundation, a parochial school in New York City Harlem.   
   In 1940 they founded Iona College at New Rochelle, N.Y. In 1962, when   
   Bishop Kearney High School was opened in Rochester, N.Y, the “Irish   
   Christian Brothers” were put in charge.   
      
   Brother Rice was the sole superior of the community until his   
   retirement in 1838. He was so self-effacing a man that he left few   
   personal papers to his would-be biographers. Enough is known, however,   
   of the spirituality and achievements of this   
   merchant-turned-schoolmaster to prove the heroism of his holiness.   
      
   On October 6, 1996, Pope John Paul II beatified Edmund Ignatius Rice,   
   “father” to many and an educator according to the finest traditions of   
   the Isle of Saints and Scholars.   
      
   –Saint Quote:   
   Only believe, and you have already found what you seek. In truth, what   
   does Faith not find? It reached the unapproachable, it discovers the   
   unknown, it comprehends the unsearchable, it has the secret of   
   arriving at the ends of things, and it has but to dilate its bosom to   
   hold even eternity in its embrace.   
   -- St. Bernard   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and   
   receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your   
   souls." [J]ames 1:21   
      
      
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   Prayer for Help against Oppressors   
      
   16 The LORD is King for ever and ever;   
   the nations will perish from his land.   
   17 You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;   
   you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,   
   18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,   
   in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more. (Psalm 10: 16-18)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)