From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Secrets of the kingdom   
      
       Why does Jesus say that the secrets of the kingdom of God will be   
   revealed to some while others will not be able to recognize nor   
   understand the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11-12)? Origen (185-254  AD), an   
   early church Bible scholar, comments on why Jesus makes a distinction   
   between those who are ready to hear and understand his message with   
   those who are not ready to hear nor understand:   
       Sometimes it does not turn out to be an advantage for one to be   
   healed quickly or superficially, especially if the disease by this   
   means becomes even more shut up in the internal organs where it rages   
   more fiercely. Therefore God, who perceives secret things and who   
   knows all things before they come to be, in his great goodness delays   
   the healing of such persons and defers the remedy to a later time. If   
   I may speak paradoxically, God heals them by not healing them, lest a   
   premature recovery of health should render them incurable. This   
   pertains to those whom our Lord and Savior addressed as 'those   
   outside,' whose hearts and reins he searches out. Jesus covered up the   
   deeper mysteries of the faith in veiled speech to those who were not   
   yet ready to receive his teaching in straightforward terms. The Lord   
   wanted to prevent the unready from being too speedily converted and   
   only cosmetically healed. If the forgiveness of their sins were too   
   easily obtained, they would soon fall again into the same disorder of   
   sin which they imagined could be cured without any difficulty.   
   (ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.1.7)   
      
      
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   December 15th - St. Maximin or Mesmin of Verdun   
   Abbot of Micy (died ca. 520)   
      
   Saint Maximin was a native of Verdun. A priest named Euspicius, uncle   
   of Maximin, brought about a reconciliation between the French monarch   
   Clovis and his subjects of that city, after the latter had engaged in   
   a revolt. Clovis, appreciating the virtues of the good priest,   
   persuaded Euspicius to take up his residence at the court in Orleans;   
   and the servant of God took Saint Maximin, his nephew, with him.   
   Maximin was ordained a deacon by the bishop of Orleans, and then a   
   priest.   
      
   A site about two leagues from the city was given by Clovis to   
   Euspicius for a monastery. He with Maximin and several disciples built   
   there the large monastery, of which he then took charge. His young   
   assistant knew well how to attract many young men of admirable piety   
   and fervor to the religious state.   
      
   At the death of the Abbot two years later, the young priest was   
   appointed to replace him. Solitaries left their cells to come and   
   place themselves under his direction, and soon the gift of miracles   
   was bestowed upon the abbot. He multiplied wine and grain during a   
   famine, to assist the afflicted people; he delivered a possessed man   
   and cured two blind men, though he knew one of them had become blind   
   only after he maliciously cut down a tree belonging to the monastery.   
   Through his prayers he brought about so many other prodigies that he   
   was called the thaumaturge (wonderworker) of his century.   
      
   His soul was soon ripe for the beatitude he had earned, and after   
   having governed his monastery for ten years, he died as he had lived,   
   in the odor of sanctity, and in the arms of his spiritual sons, on the   
   15th of December in about the year 520.   
      
   Reflection: Few are called to serve God by great actions, but all are   
   bound to strive for perfection in the ordinary actions of their daily   
   lives. “This is the Will of God -- that you be saints.” (Saint Paul, I   
   Thes. 4:3)   
      
   Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on   
   Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources, by John Gilmary Shea   
   (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Would we wish that our own hidden sins should be divulged? We ought,   
   then, to be silent regarding those of others.   
   -- Saint John Baptist de la Salle   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus   
   Christ, and him crucified."  (St. Paul, 1 Cor. 2:2)   
      
      
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   EVIL REPORTS   
      
   NOTHING is more opposite to charity, or more fatal to salvation, than   
   the evil reports we make of one another, whether they be true or   
   false; because they irritate the mind, disorder the heart, foment   
   divisions, and embitter hatreds, and because we cannot obtain God's   
   pardon for them, unless we resolve, in our confessions, to repair the   
   evil we have done and to reconcile those we may have set at variance.   
   We should, therefore, neither spread evil reports of others, nor   
   listen to them and if we do hear anything against our neighbor we   
   should be careful not to repeat it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)