From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Love of Solitude and Silence  (8)   
      
      It is better for a man to be obscure and to attend to his salvation   
   than to neglect it and work miracles. It is praiseworthy for a   
   religious seldom to go abroad, to flee the sight of men and have no   
   wish to see them.  Why wish to see what you are not permitted to have?   
   “The world passes away and the concupiscence thereof.” Sensual craving   
   sometimes entices you to wander around, but when the moment is past,   
   what do you bring back with you save a disturbed conscience and heavy   
   heart? A happy going often leads to a sad return, a merry evening to a   
   mournful dawn. Thus, all carnal joy begins sweetly but in the end   
   brings remorse and death.  What can you find elsewhere that you cannot   
   find here in your cell? Behold heaven and earth and all the elements,   
   for of these all things are made. What can you see anywhere under the   
   sun that will remain long? Perhaps you think you will completely   
   satisfy yourself, but you cannot do so, for if you should see all   
   existing things, what would they be but an empty vision?   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 20   
      
   ================   
   June 28th - St. Paul I, Pope   
   (A.D. 767)   
      
   THE immediate successor of Pope Stephen III in the chair of St. Peter   
   was his younger brother Paul. They had been educated together at the   
   Lateran school, they had been made deacons together by Pope St.   
   Zachary, and Paul remained closely associated with his brother, whom   
   he tenderly nursed in his last illness and whose policy he continued   
   to pursue. A contemporary, writing in the Liber Pontificalis, pays an   
   eloquent tribute to Paul's personal character, emphasizing his   
   kindness, his clemency and his magnanimity. He was always ready to   
   help those in distress and never did he return evil for evil. Often,   
   under cover of the night, he would visit the sick poor in their homes   
   or in hospitals. Sometimes he would enter the prisons and redeem poor   
   debtors: occasionally he would release prisoners under sentence of   
   death. If he erred, it was always on the side of leniency.   
      
   Paul's pontificate of ten years was relatively peaceful abroad, owing   
   to his good relations with King Pepin, and peaceful at home owing to   
   his own firm government: "firm" is hardly a strong enough word-the   
   severity of Paul's administration is in marked contrast with the   
   kindness of character attributed to him by the Liber Pontificalis. At   
   the same time the record of his pontificate is chiefly one long tale   
   of political diplomacy; in the words of Monsignor Mann: "By unceasing   
   diplomatic effort Paul prevented the Lombards on the one hand and the   
   Greeks on the other from effecting anything of moment against the   
   newly acquired temporal power of the supreme pontiff; he caused great   
   events never to get beyond the eve of happening." He kept on the best   
   of terms with Pepin, sending him exceedingly polite letters, presents   
   (including an organ) and relics of the martyrs. In Rome itself the   
   pope's activities took a more concrete form. From catacombs, reduced   
   to ruin by the ravages of time or of the barbarians, he transferred   
   the relics of many saints to churches in the City. Amongst others the   
   remains of St. Petronilla, the supposed daughter of St. Peter, were   
   brought to a restored mausoleum which became known as the Chapel of   
   the Kings of France. He built or rebuilt a church of SS. Peter and   
   Paul; he also erected in St. Peter's an oratory in honour of our Lady.   
   In his paternal mansion, which he converted into a monastery under the   
   dedication of the popes St. Stephen I and St. Silvester, he placed   
   Greek monks, refugees from the iconoclast persecution. The adjoining   
   church, entirely rebuilt by him for them, received the name of San   
   Silvestro in Capite, from the head, reputed to be that of St. John   
   Baptist, which the monks had brought from the East. 1100 years later   
   that same church (but long since again rebuilt) was given by Pope Leo   
   XIII to the Catholics of England.   
      
   Pope Paul was staying at St. Paul's outside the Walls, whither he had   
   gone to escape the summer heat in Rome, when he was seized with a   
   fever which proved fatal. He died on June 28, 767.   
      
   The Liber Pontificalis, in Duchesne's edition (vol. i, pp. 463-467),   
   is the most reliable source for an estimate of the pope's personal   
   character. The letters of Paul I may be studied in MGH., Epistolae,   
   vol. iii, in the edition of Gundlach. For English readers, the   
   painstaking account given in Mgr Mann's Lives of the Popes (vol. i,   
   part II, pp. 331-360) is the most satisfactory, and easily accessible.   
   See also the Acta Sanctorum, June; vol. vii; Duchesne, Les premiers   
   temps de l’État Pontifical (1904), pp. 79-94; M. Baumont in Mélanges   
   d’archéologie et d'histoire, 1930, pp. 7-24; F. H. Seppelt, Das   
   Papsttum im Früh-Mittelalter (1934), pp. 137-146; Fliche and Martin,   
   Histoire de l'Église, t. vi (1937), pp. 17-31.   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our   
   weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are,   
   yet without sin. Heb 4:15  RSVCE   
      
   <><><><>   
   MARY, GUARDIAN OF THE FLOWERS   
      
   In a garden of souls stands a Lady so fair,   
   She caresses each petal growing weak from despair,   
   Breathes the strength down upon them,   
   Brings the waters of life,   
   Feeds the plants that have weakened   
   From the earth's constant strife.   
   The flowers spread out in colors profuse,   
   Each a bud a fair promise of heavenly use.   
   Tender hands take the bent stalk   
   Grown weak from the flight,   
   From the darkness of soil that has shut out the light.   
   Turned the blossoming petal with soft  tender hands,   
   To face up to the Light that shines down from His land   
   Sprinkles stardust to cover the flowers with grace   
   As they grow on the path   
   That leads straight to the place.   
   Where the fairest of Flowers sits next to Her Son,   
   As She welcomes you all   
   From a mission well done!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)