From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   God gives us his strength to resist sinful thoughts and desires   
      
       When Cain became jealous of his brother Abel, God warned him to   
   guard his own heart: "Sin is couching at the door; it's desire is for   
   you, but you must master it" (Genesis 4:7). Cain unfortunately did not   
   take God's warning to heart. He allowed his jealousy to grow into   
   spite and hatred for his brother, and he began to look for an   
   opportunity to eliminate his brother all together. When jealously and   
   other sinful desires come knocking at the door of your heart, how do   
   you respond? Do you entertain them and allow them to overtake you?   
   Fortunately God does not leave us alone in our struggle with hurtful   
   desires and sinful tendencies. He gives us the grace and strength we   
   need to resist and overcome sin when it couches at the door of our   
   heart.   
      
   ==============   
   May 26th - Mariana de Paredes   
   (Also known as Lily of Quito, Mariana de Paredes y Flores, Mariana of   
   Jesus, Mariana of Quito)   
   (1618-1645)   
      
   As Lima, Peru, boasts of its hermitess St. Rose, so Quito, Ecuador, is   
   proud of its own saintly solitary, St. Mariana of Jesus. There is,   
   indeed, a connection between the two, in that Mariana took Rose (d.   
   1617) as one of her models.   
      
   Mariana’s parents were of noble descent. She was the eighth child of   
   Jeronimo Zenei Paredes y Flores and his wife Mariana Jaramillo de   
   Granobles. When the father and mother died untimely young, Mariana,   
   her sister Jeronima, and her brother-in-law Cosme de Caso, undertook   
   to raise her.   
      
   As a small child, Mariana had already set out on a program of prayer   
   and self-denial. Jeronima and Cosme wisely entrusted that part of her   
   development to what became a series of Jesuit counselors. While   
   attracted to a contemplative life, Mariana apparently did not   
   seriously consider becoming a member of a religious order, although   
   she did become a tertiary of the Franciscan Order at 21. Normally, she   
   wore no religious habit, only a black dress modeled on the Jesuit   
   cassock.   
      
   Her dwelling place was an austerely-furnished room in the upstairs of   
   her sister’s house. Here she passed long hours in meditation and   
   prayer. Her practices of self-denial, if correctly reported, were   
   eyebrow-raising: brief sleep, ever-diminishing food and drink, chains   
   and other penitential instruments. One wonders why her spiritual   
   directors did not command her to temper these well-meant but   
   immoderate measures. Perhaps it was because in the Spanish tradition   
   of spirituality, they were more commonplace than in some other   
   ascetical traditions. The late Mother Teresa of Calcutta would have   
   agreed equally on the need of interior mortification; she called them   
   “a sharing in Christ’s passion.” But I fancy she would advise   
   modulating them and accepting them with the joy of Christ’s   
   resurrection.   
      
   Of course, God must have been pleased with St. Mariana’s utter   
   generosity of spirit. By no means did she devote herself solely to   
   prayer and penance. She welcomed the poor, hungry and ill to come to   
   her for help. Thus her sister’s house became a sort of free clinic for   
   the sickly and a schoolroom for poor Indian children. In connection   
   with this ministry, she was reported to have spoken prophecies and   
   performed miracles.   
      
   In 1645 Quito experienced a series of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,   
   and epidemics that carried off very many residents. On the fourth   
   Sunday of Lent, Mariana’s confessor preached an eloquent sermon on   
   these disasters in the Jesuit church. Mariana, particularly moved by   
   his words, made a public offering of her life for the sins of citizens   
   if the temblors and the epidemic might possibly cease. God evidently   
   accepted her gift.   
      
   The earthquakes did cease, and at once. The epidemic also ebbed, if   
   more gradually. But as the plague lessened, the volunteer victim was   
   stricken with a series of maladies that resulted in her death on May   
   26, 1645. Only 27 at the time, Mariana de Jesu de Paredes was   
   gratefully hailed by the people of Quito as the savior of their city.   
      
   Within the generation after her death, Rome inaugurated the process of   
   her beatification.   
      
   Unfortunately, various mishaps befell both the sponsors of the cause   
   and the necessary documentation, so that she was finally declared   
   “blessed” only in 1854. Pope Pius XII canonized the “Lily of Quito” on   
   July 9, 1950, one of the 8 persons declared saints during the Holy   
   Year of 1950. As Paris has St. Genevieve for protectress, Quito has   
   its St. Mariana.   
   –Father Bob   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   The greatest security we can have in this world that we are in the   
   grace of God, does not consist in the feelings that we have of love to   
   Him, but rather in an irrevocable abandonment of our whole being into   
   His hands, and in a firm resolution never to consent to any sin great   
   or small.   
   ---St. Francis of Sales   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Today if you shall hear the voice of God, do not harden your hearts.   
   (Heb. 3:7-8)   
      
      
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   Follow the way of the Spirit   
      
   When you seek to follow the way of the spirit, it frequently means a   
   complete reversal of the way of the world, which you had previously   
   followed. But it is a reversal that leads to happiness and peace. Do the   
   aims and ambitions that a person usually strives for bring peace? Do the   
   world's awards bring heart-rest and happiness? Or do they turn to ashes in   
   the mouth?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)