From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Spirit of Love     
      
   "Excellent guest that he is, the Spirit finds you empty and fills you;   
   he finds you hungry and thirsty and satisfies you abundantly.   
   God the Holy Spirit, who comes from God, when he enters into people,   
   draws them to the love of God and neighbor. Indeed, he is love   
   itself."   
   --St. Augustine--Sermon 225, 4   
      
   Prayer: Cling to the Lord with love, that your life may grow in the   
   last days. Hold fast as well to the faithful, great, certain, and   
   everlasting promises of God, and to the unshakeable and ineffable gift   
   of his forbearance.   
   --St. Augustine--Letter 248, 1   
      
   ===============   
   August 30th - Saint Jeanne Jugan, Foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor   
   (1792-1842)    
      
   "Go and find him when your patience and strength run out and you feel   
   alone and helpless. Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel. Say to   
   him, ‘Jesus, you know exactly what is going on. You are all I have,   
   and you know all things. Come to my help.’ And then go, and don’t   
   worry about how you are going to manage. That you have told God about   
   it is enough. He has a good memory."   
      
   Saint Jeanne Jugan was known as Sister Mary of the Cross, and   
   foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Saint Jeanne devoted   
   herself to caring for the less fortunate, specifically the elderly and   
   forgotten. While she experienced significant disappointments and   
   difficulties in her life, Saint Jeanne modeled humility and joy in   
   service, not in worldly recognition or acclaim. In his homily at her   
   beatification, Pope John Paul II praised "the quiet but eloquent   
   radiance of her life." He stated, "In our day, pride, the pursuit of   
   efficacy, the temptation to use power all run rampant in the world,   
   and sometimes, unfortunately, even in the Church. They become an   
   obstacle to the coming of the Kingdom of God. This is why the   
   spirituality of Jeanne Jugan can attract the followers of Christ and   
   fill their hearts with simplicity and humility, with hope and   
   evangelical joy, having their source in God and in   
   self-forgetfulness."   
      
   Jeanne was born in Cancale (Ille-et-Vilaine), France, in the village   
   of Petites Croix. She was baptized on the same day. Her father, a   
   fisherman, died when she was just four years old, lost at sea, and her   
   mother was forced to raise Jeanne and her three siblings alone.   
   Jeanne, her brother and two sisters learned from their mother how to   
   live in poverty, honestly and courageously with faith and love in God.   
   Given the family’s financial state, Jeanne went to work at the age of   
   16 as a kitchen maid in a manor outside the village.   
      
   Jeanne worked at the manner from 16 until the age of 25, and then left   
   home, moving to Saint Servan. There, she was employed in a hospital,   
   where she worked as a nurse’s aide. In her work, she encountered many   
   who were in desperate need, and Jeanne felt the call to assist them.   
   She spurned the advances of suitors, preferring to devote herself to   
   the suffering around her. When a young sailor asked her to marry him,   
   she replied, "God wants me for himself. He is keeping me for a work   
   which is not yet founded."   
      
   At 25, Jeanne joined the Third Order of the Admirable mother, an   
   association influenced by the teachings of Saint John Eudes. In her   
   contemplation and prayer, Jeanne sought only to serve the Lord,   
   becoming more like Jesus through imitation and intercession of Mary,   
   Our Blessed Mother. She sought out the most destitute, weak, and sick,   
   giving what little she had to their care.   
      
   When Jeanne was 47, her life was to be influenced in a profound manner   
   by an unexpected visitor to her home. On a bitterly cold winter’s   
   evening, she opened her door to a blind and semi-paralyzed elderly   
   woman who had been left alone. Jeanne opened her heart to his poor   
   woman, giving up her own bed. Soon, word spread, and a second elderly   
   woman followed, and then more after her. By 1943, over forty were   
   being cared for by Jeanne and her three young companions. Jeanne acted   
   as superior of the developing religious order, offering guidance and   
   structure to those who wished to assist her in her work.   
      
   Mother Marie of the Cross, as Jeanne was now known, founded six more   
   houses for the elderly by the end of 1849, all staffed by members of   
   her association--the Little Sisters of the Poor. By 1853 the   
   association numbered 500 and had houses as far away as England.   
   However, difficult times lay in store for Jeanne. Politics outside the   
   order led to Jeanne being “demoted” from superior to a simple alms   
   collector. This hard task had been one she began herself, early in her   
   life, encouraged in charity by the Brothers of Saint John of God.   
   Despite her advancing age and the years of work she had taken to build   
   the order, Jeanne suffered this insult and injustice in silence. She   
   remained gentle and kind, caring and compassionate, never complaining.   
   Instead, she relied on her faith and love of the Lord, building up the   
   other members of her order in any way she could.   
      
   As the years passed by, Mother Marie was more and more shrouded in   
   obscurity. Those who had seen to her demotion also insured that her   
   contribution to the founding of the order was also erased. She was   
   kept in the background for twenty-seven years (1852 to 1879), four at   
   the Home in Rennes, and the last twenty-three years of her long life   
   at La Tour Saint Joseph, the Motherhouse of the Congregation of the   
   Little Sisters of the Poor since 1856.   
      
   Saint Jeanne died at the age of 86. Her last words were, "O Mary, my   
   dear Mother, come to me. You know I love you and how I long to see   
   You!" Few of her sisters knew that she was the foundress of the Order,   
   but all recognized her gentle spirit and great influence on the   
   charity and work of all she came in contact with. It was not until 23   
   years after her death that she was revealed as the founders of the   
   Little Sisters of the Poor. Her tomb, in the crypt of the chapel of   
   the Motherhouse, in La Tour St. Joseph (Saint Pern), attracts many   
   pilgrims, as do her birthplace in the hamlet of Les Petites Croix, in   
   Cancale, and the foundation’s house in Saint Servan where she labored   
   for many years.   
      
   On July 13, 1979, the Church officially acknowledged the heroic nature   
   of Jeanne Jugan’s virtues. Her example continues to inspire the Little   
   Sisters of the Poor today as they continue her work of humble service   
   to the poor.   
      
      
   Selected Quotations of Saint Jeanne Jugan:   
      
   “Refuse God nothing … We must do all through love.”   
      
      
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