From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   If we resist God's will   
      
   Now the soul cannot be too attentive to the light it thus receives   
   from God, and His secret reproaches: it is of the greatest importance   
   to pay them every regard. For in the first place, if we resist God's   
   will, we at once arrest the progress of our own perfection. We place a   
   stumbling-block in our own way, and make no advance until we have   
   surmounted it. Not only shall we not advance, but we shall fall back;   
   for it is an axiom of the spiritual life that we must either go   
   forward or fall back. In the second place, one grace rightly used   
   attracts a second, the second brings a third, and so on, for graces   
   are linked together; they form a chain which ends in holiness and   
   final perseverance. In the same way, a grace rejected deprives us of   
   the next, and therefore of those which should follow. And this may be   
   carried so far as to prove fatal in the long run.  --SPIRITUAL MAXIMS   
   by John Nicholas Grou, S.J.   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 11th – St. Mamertus of Vienne   
    (Also known as Mamertius, Mammertus)   
   † 475.   
      
    Mamertus of Vienne was responsible for the litanies and processions   
   that once marked the Rogation days of spring, the 3 days before   
   Ascension Day when solemn intercession was made for God's blessing on   
   the crops and other fruit of the earth. "Bless all farmers in all   
   their labors, and grant such seasonable weather that they may gather   
   the fruits of the earth and ever rejoice in Your goodness, to the   
   praise of Your holy Name."   
      
   Mamertus, the elder brother of the poet Claudian, lived in France, was   
   known for his erudition, and was bishop of Vienne from 461 to 475. In   
   463, he was censured by Rome for consecrating, without the authority   
   to do so, a new bishop of Die, which had been transferred to the   
   jurisdiction of Arles; but no papal action seems to have been taken in   
   the matter.   
      
   During his episcopate the Goths invaded Gaul. The countryside never   
   seemed free from the perils of the enemy, as well as from natural   
   dangers of pestilence, forest fires, and prowling wolves and bears,   
   and when every night brought its unknown fears and each day was   
   threatened with calamity.   
      
   During this period of catastrophe, Mamertus spent his days prostrate   
   before the altar beseeching God to help his stricken people and   
   tirelessly visiting his flock to comfort them in their distress. As a   
   result of his prolonged vigils, he conceived the idea of an annual   
   procession and litany, called a Rogation, to take place every spring,   
   in which the whole community would together intercede with God to have   
   mercy on His people and to bless their crops throughout the year.   
      
   He made this decision one Easter night as he watched before the altar,   
   when there came through the windows of the darkened church the lurid   
   reflection of flames from a fresh fire threatening to overwhelm   
   Vienne. In that hour of fearful conflagration, for it was the worst of   
   all the fires the village had known, he prayed to God to have pity.   
   When he next preached to his flock, he set forth his plan. "We shall   
   pray to God," he said, "that He will turn away the plagues from us,   
   and preserve us from all ill, from hail and drought, fire and   
   pestilence, and from the fury of our enemies; to give us favorable   
   seasons, that our land may be fertile, good weather and good health,   
   and that we may have peace and tranquility, and obtain pardon for our   
   sins." Thus, out of that night of fire and storm came the custom of   
   Rogationtide (Benedictines, Delaney, Gill).   
      
   In art, Saint Mamertius is shown as an archbishop walking in a   
   procession with a lighted candle because he was the originator of   
   Rogation Days (Roeder).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "The heart can change several times in one moment--to good or evil, to   
   faith or unbelief, to simplicity or cunning, to love or hatred, to   
   benevolence or envy, to generosity or avarice, to chastity or   
   fornication. O, what inconstancy! O, how many dangers! |O, how sober   
   and watchful we must be!"   
   --St. John of Kronstadt.   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Paul beautifully expressed the gift of God's grace and the faith that   
   leads to salvation in his letters to the churches of Galatia and   
   Ephesus when he wrote,   
      
   "We are led by the Spirit to wait in the confident hope of saving   
   justice [justification] through faith, since in Christ Jesus it is not   
   being circumcised or being uncircumcised that can effect   
   anything--only faith working through love." Galatians 5:5-6.   
   "But God, being rich in faithful love, through the great love with   
   which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, brought us to   
   life with Christ--it is through grace that you have been saved--and   
   raised up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ   
   Jesus.  This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness   
   towards us in Christ Jesus, how extraordinarily rich he is in grace.   
   Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by   
   anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you   
   have done, so that nobody can claim the credit.  We are God's work of   
   art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already   
   designed to make up our way of life." Ephesians 2:4-10   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   “Let us not imagine that we obscure   
   the glory of the Son by the great praise   
   we lavish on the Mother;   
   for the more she is honoured,   
   the greater is the glory of her Son.   
   There can be no doubt that whatever we say   
   in praise of the Mother gives equal praise to the Son.”   
   --Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) – Doctor of the Church   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)