From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Listen with reverence and faith   
      
   God can only reveal the secrets of his kingdom to the humble and   
   trusting person who acknowledges their need for God and for his truth.   
   The parables of Jesus will enlighten us if we approach them with an   
   open mind and heart, ready to let them challenge us. If we approach   
   God's word with indifference, skepticism, and disbelief, then we, too,   
   may "hear but not understand" and "see but not perceive." God's word   
   can only take root in a receptive heart that is ready to believe and   
   willing to submit. If we want to hear and to understand God's word, we   
   must listen with reverence and faith. Do you believe God's word and do   
   you submit to it with trust and reverence?   
      
   Jerome, an early church bible scholar who lived between 342-419 AD,   
   wrote: "You are reading [the Scriptures]? No. Your betrothed is   
   talking to you. It is your betrothed, that is, Christ, who is united   
   with you. He tears you away from the solitude of the desert and brings   
   you into his home, saying to you, 'Enter into the joy of your   
   Master.'"   
      
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   August 4th - Saint Lua of Limerick   
   (also known as Molua, Luanus, Lugid, Lughaidh)   
      
   Memorial   
   4 August   
   25 June (Scotland)   
   d. 608   
      
   Lua was the son of Carthach, of the Hy Fidhgente of Limerick county,   
   and his mother came from Ossory. When a lad he was employed as a   
   herdboy till, as his late vita tells us, having distinguished himself   
   by miracles, he was sent to be a monk under St. Comgall at Bangor. He   
   was ordained priest and in time sent by his abbot to establish   
   monasteries elsewhere. The most important of them was at   
   Clonfertmulloe, now called Kyle, in the Slievebloom mountains between   
   Leix and Offaly, which had a very large community. He is said to have   
   gone to Rome (“Unless I see Rome I shall soon die”), and taken the   
   opportunity to submit to Pope St. Gregory the Great the rule he had   
   drawn up for his monasteries; it was, like all Celtic monastic rules,   
   extremely arduous and the pope said of it that, “The holy man who drew   
   up this rule has laid a hedge round his family which reaches to   
   Heaven”.   
      
   St. Lua's Well   
      
   St. Lua is one of the patron saints of Ardagh, there is a well   
   dedicated to him in his honour. It has been said that in older times   
   people used to wash their clothes at this well. A woman washed clothes   
   in the well and it dried up for three years. The parish priest of   
   Ardagh brought the water back there again. White thorn trees grow   
   longside the well, the water remained fresh there for many years. It   
   has been said that years ago that St. Patrick when passing through   
   Ardagh had put a curse on the well, and who ever would drink from the   
   well would die. St. Lua changed the curse and to this day people visit   
   the well on his feast day on the 4th of August.   
      
    On his death-bed St. Lua addressed his monks and said, “Dearest   
   brethren, cultivate your land industriously, that you may have a   
   sufficiency of food, drink and clothing; for where there is   
   sufficient, there is stability; where is stability, there is true   
   religion; and the end of true religion is life everlasting”: “Rerum   
   Novarum” and “ Quadragesimo anno” in a nut-shell. Lua, we are told,   
   never killed any living thing, and when he died the birds wept.   
      
   There is some confusion between this Lua and other saints of the same   
   name. Killaloe (Cill da Lua) may get its name from this Lua or from   
   another who was called “the Leper”, or they may both be the same   
   person.   
      
   There are three Latin recensions of the Life of St. Lua; one has been   
   printed in the Acta Sanctorum, August, vol. i; another in De Smedt’s   
   edition of the Codex Salmanticensis, and the third by C. Plummer in   
   VSH., vol. ii, pp. 206-225. A. P. Forbes in KSS. (pp. 409-411)   
   repudiates any identity between St. Moloc (June 25) and St. Lua.   
      
      
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   Troparion of St. Lugid Tone 4   
      
   Renowned for thy virtuous life/   
   and thy zeal as a founder of monasteries,/   
   pray O Father Lugid, that God will raise up monastics in our day/   
   to instruct and guide the faithful in their struggles/   
   that many souls may be saved.   
      
      
   Quote:   
   Why do we talk and gossip so continually, seeing that we so rarely   
   resume our silence without some hurt done to our conscience? ...   
   Devout conversation on spiritual things helpeth not a little to   
   spiritual progress, most of all where those of kindred mind and spirit   
   find their ground of fellowship in God.   
   --Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you,   
   that you should go and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should   
   remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may   
   give it you.  (John 15:16)  DRB   
      
      
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   I love You, O my God   
      
   I love You, O my God.   
   My only desire is to love You, until the last breath of my life.   
   I love You, O infinitely loveable God   
   and I prefer to die loving You,   
   rather than to live for an instant without You.   
   I love You, O my God   
   and I desire only to go to heaven,   
   to have the happiness of loving You perfectly.   
   I love You, O my God   
   and my only fear is to go to hell   
   because one will never have the sweet solace of loving You there.   
   O my God, if my tongue cannot say at all times that I love You,   
   at least I want my heart to repeat it to You as many times as I breathe.   
   Ah! Do me the grace: to suffer while loving You,   
   to love You while suffering.   
   And, that when I die: I not only will love You   
   but experience it in my heart.   
   I beg You that the closer I come to my final end,   
   You will increase and perfect my love for You. Amen   
   --St John Vianney (1786-1859)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)