From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Trust and yield to God's grace   
      
   God gives us grace and he expects us to respond with the same   
   willingness, obedience, and heartfelt trust as Mary did. When God   
   commands he also gives the help, strength, and means to respond. We   
   can either yield to his grace or resist and go our own way. Do you   
   believe in God's promises and do you yield to his grace?   
      
   "Heavenly Father, you offer us abundant grace, mercy, and forgiveness   
   through your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Help me to live a   
   grace-filled life as Mary did by believing in your promises and by   
   giving you my unqualified 'yes' to your will and plan for my life."   
      
      
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   May 17th - St. Paschal Baylon   
   (1540 – 1592)   
      
   What better saint to talk about than the simple, devout Spanish   
   Franciscan, St. Paschal Baylon? Basically, the Christian name Paschal   
   (Pascual in Spanish, Pasquale in Italian, Pascal in French) means   
   “Easter man.” Paschal Baylon was furthermore a great devotee of the   
   Holy Eucharist, appropriately called “this Easter sacrament.”   
      
   Paschal came of peasant stock. He spent the first 24 years of his life   
   as a shepherd. Devout by nature, he took advantage of the silences of   
   his task to teaching himself how to read and write so that he could   
   recite the prayers of a popular prayer book. He had an early instinct   
   for self-denial, and the Mass had for him a magnetic appeal. When he   
   was able to attend weekday Mass, he did so. When he was unable to, he   
   would turn in the pasture towards a church where Mass was being   
   celebrated and join in spirit with the holy sacrifice. (A handy   
   practice for busy people of our own day!)   
      
   Precise, but friendly, young Paschal early won the respect of his   
   peasant associates. When he was about 19, he asked to be received into   
   a convent of Franciscans of the strict observance. The friars put him   
   off then, but when he applied again five years later, they accepted   
   him.   
      
   He was admitted as a lay brother, since the superiors saw clearly that   
   he did not have the intellectual gifts required for priestly studies.   
   But they soon perceived that in acquiring Paschal they had acquired a   
   jewel of a man. He found himself completely at home with their austere   
   ideals. Indeed, he went them one better in living up to the rule and   
   accepting the graces of the moment. His prayerfulness, his concern for   
   the poor, his utter conscientiousness were admirable aspects of a   
   well-rounded personality. As his companion and biographer later wrote   
   of him: “In no single case do I remember to have noted the least fault   
   in him though I lived with him in several of our houses and was his   
   companion on two long journeys.” This was indeed high praise.   
      
   But the most striking characteristic of Fray Pascual was his   
   unremitting devotion to the Holy Eucharist, both as sacrifice and as   
   sacrament. He spent long hours kneeling without support before the   
   Eucharistic tabernacle. Whenever he had a free moment, he sped to the   
   chapel to do honor to the Blessed Sacrament. In those days before   
   concelebration was restored, each priest in a monastery celebrated   
   Mass separately. Paschal delighted to serve as many of theses Masses   
   as he could. After early morning prayer, he would linger before the   
   Eucharistic Christ as long as his other duties permitted. Once he   
   almost died for this holy sacrament. While on a journey into France,   
   Paschal was set upon by a group of radical Huguenots (French   
   Calvinistic Protestants). These stoned the friar and demanded that he   
   deny his belief in the Blessed Sacrament. He refused, of course.   
   Luckily, he escaped with his life.   
      
   Brother Pascual passed away at the age of 52, just as the bell in the   
   convent chapel was announcing the Consecration of the mass. He died   
   with a reputation for miracle-working. This reputation hastened his   
   beatification in 1608, only 16 years after his death. He was canonized   
   a saint in 1690. In 1897 Pope Leo XIII named him patron saint of all   
   Eucharistic societies and Eucharistic congresses.   
      
   We celebrate the great festal Mass of Easter, “calling to mind,” as   
   the 3rd Eucharistic prayer says, “the death Your Son endured for our   
   salvation, his glorious resurrection and ascension into Heaven.” But   
   don’t we call to mind the redemption every time we offer Mass? Yes,   
   every Mass is a celebration of the “Paschal mystery” of our salvation.   
   St. Paschal Baylon, therefore, reminds us by his life-long devotion to   
   the Eucharist, how easily we can commemorate Easter every moment of   
   every day of the year.   
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   We are convinced, that this sin [willful ignorance] alone causes the   
   loss of more souls than all the other sins together, because he who is   
   ignorant does not realize the harm he does by his sin, nor the great   
   good he thus forfeits.   
   --St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   49 But he who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a   
   house on the ground without a foundation; against which the stream   
   broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”   
    (Luke 6:49)   RSVCE   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Adoro Te Devote   
   I adore You my hidden God truly present beneath the form and   
   appearance of bread and wine. My mind cannot grasp this Mystery but   
   my heart can understand. My senses fail me but I believe for You   
   have said it. You are the Word of truth that lasts forever. Only   
   listening to You is my trust secure. On the Cross You hid Your   
   Divinity but in the Holy Eucharist You have hid Your Humanity too.   
   Unto both alike I profess my belief like the Good Thief who   
   professed it to You.   
      
   Though I do not see Your Wounds like Thomas yet I profess You my   
   Lord and my God. Help me believe in You, hope in You and love You   
   more and more. You left this Sacrament not only as a reminder of   
   Your Saving Death but as a Living Bread which gives me Your life to   
   share. Enable me to taste Your sweetness here on earth.   
      
   O Jesus, grant me, a sinner, to be washed in Your Precious Blood.   
   That Blood of which a single Drop could save all the world.   
   Contemplating Your hidden Presence in the Holy Eucharist grant me   
   what my soul hungers and thirsts for, to behold Your Divinity and   
   Glory in Heaven both now and forevermore. Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)