From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Contempt for Worldly Honors  [I]   
      
   CHRIST.   
    My son, do not be discouraged if you see others given honors and   
   advancement, while you are overlooked and humiliated. Life up your   
   heart to Me in Heaven, and the contempt of men will not trouble you.   
      
   THE DISCIPLE.   
    Lord, we are blind and are easily deceived through vanity. If I   
   carefully examine my life, I find that no creature has ever done me   
   wrong and I have no right to complain.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 41   
      
   ============   
   October 4th – St. Francis of Assisi, Founder of the Franciscans   
   (1182-1226)   
      
   Saint Francis, the son of a merchant of Assisi, was born in the year   
   1182 in a poor stable, his birth already prophesying the Saint who   
   would preach poverty to a world seduced by luxury. Though chosen by   
   God to be for the world a living manifestation of Christ's poor and   
   suffering life on earth, in his youth he was generous, always of equal   
   humor, and much appreciated by his friends; he was fond of splendors,   
   fine clothing, and good company, and easily won the affection of all   
   who knew him. More than once various holy persons foretold for him a   
   future of glory, but in veiled terms. Francis did not understand these   
   predictions, and supposed he would become the leader of a large   
   militia.   
      
   His military life ended when Jesus told him he was destined to fight   
   another kind of combat, one against the demon and sin; that the   
   grandeurs predicted were spiritual, not temporal - and to return home.   
   He became inspired with a great esteem for poverty and humiliation.   
   The thought of the Man of Sorrows, who had nowhere to lay His Head,   
   filled him with holy envy of the poor, and constrained him to renounce   
   the wealth and the worldly station which he had come to abhor. And he   
   gave a farewell feast for his friends. One day, while on horseback, he   
   met a leper begging alms who inspired him with repugnance, and he took   
   a path to avoid him. Then, repenting, he turned his horse around and   
   returned to embrace him and give him generous alms, as was his custom   
   for all beggars. He continued on his way, but looked back once, and   
   nowhere on the plain could the stranger be seen, though there were no   
   trees, no refuges anywhere. He was from that day a completely   
   transformed person.   
      
   He decided to use his wealth to care for the poor and the sick, and   
   dedicate himself in person to the same works. When he prayed one day   
   in the little chapel to do only what God willed of him, the Saviour   
   spoke again to him, repeating three times the mysterious words: "Go,   
   Francis, and repair My house which is falling in ruin." He then   
   undertook to repair the old church of San Damiano where he had heard   
   these words, retiring for refuge to a grotto. He was regarded as a   
   fool by the people, when he returned to the city in the clothing of a   
   poor beggar. This was indeed the folly of the Cross.   
      
   Francis renounced his heritage definitively, to beg thereafter his   
   daily sustenance and what he needed for the repair of the church, and   
   left the city singing the praises of God. He repaired two other   
   churches. The love of God which was burning brightly in the poor man   
   of Assisi began to give light and warmth to many others also, and it   
   was not long before several came to join him. One of them was a very   
   wealthy man of Assisi, the second a Canon of the Assisi cathedral, and   
   the third the now Blessed Brother Gilles. They adopted the absolute   
   poverty of Francis, and the foundations of the Franciscan Order were   
   laid. They were first called the "penitents of Assisi." No counsels   
   could make Francis change his resolution to possess nothing at all.   
   God revealed to him then that he was to found a religious Order.   
      
   Pope Innocent III, when Francis with his first twelve companions   
   journeyed to Rome, after first rebuffing them, recognized him as the   
   monk God showed him in a vision, supporting on his shoulders the   
   Church of Saint John Latran, which was growing decrepit. He received   
   the profession of Francis and his twelve companions, and in 1215 they   
   were formally constituted as a religious Order, which then spread   
   rapidly throughout Christendom.   
      
   In 1216, Saint Francis after assembling his religious, sent them out   
   to preach in France, Spain, England and Germany, where they   
   established monasteries, lasting proofs of the efficacy of their   
   missions. A second general Chapter was held in 1219 on the feast of   
   Pentecost, and the little Brothers gathered from all over the world at   
   Saint Mary of the Angels, the church which Francis and his first   
   twelve disciples had received only nine years earlier. Cabins of reeds   
   and tents were put up all over the countryside. The Cardinal who   
   visited them exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, "O Brother, truly this   
   is the camp of the Lord!" They were more than 5,000 in number. Saint   
   Francis exhorted his brethren: "My Brothers, above all, let us love   
   the Holy Church; let us pray for her exaltation, and never abandon   
   poverty. Is it not written, 'Trust in the Lord, and He Himself will   
   sustain you' "?   
      
   Francis, after visiting the Orient in a vain quest for martyrdom,   
   spent his life like his Divine Master - now in preaching to the   
   multitudes, now amid the desert solitudes in fasting and   
   contemplation. His constant prayer was "My God and my All!" During one   
   of these retreats on Mount Alverno, he received on his hands, feet,   
   and side the imprints of the five wounds of Jesus. With the cry,   
   "Welcome, sister Death!" he passed to the glory of his God, October 4,   
   1226, at the age of 44 years.   
      
   Reflection: The prayer of Saint Francis, "My God and my All!" explains   
   both his poverty and his wealth.   
      
   Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul   
   Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882)   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Receive Lord, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole   
   will. You have given me all that I have, all that I am, and I   
   surrender all to your divine will, that you dispose of me as you will.   
   Give me only your love and your grace. With this I am rich enough, and   
   I have no more to ask.   
   --St. Ignatius Loyola   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of   
   God  (I Cor. 10:31)   
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer for protection against demons   
      
   O Mary, powerful Virgin,   
   You are the mighty and glorious Protector of the Church.   
   You are the Marvelous Help of Christians.   
   You are Terrible as an Army set in Battle Array.   
   You alone have destroyed every heresy in the entire Church.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)