From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Not on Your Own   
      
      "There are some people who consider themselves able to refine   
   themselves on their own, in order to contemplate and remain in God.   
      Accordingly, they look down upon the mass of Christians who live on   
   faith alone as not being able to do as they do."   
   --St. Augustine--The Trinity 4, 15   
      
   Prayer: Give me strength to seek you, Lord, for you have already   
   enabled me to find you and have given me hope of finding you ever more   
   fully.   
   --St. Augustine--The Trinity 15, 51   
      
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   January 7th - St. Raymund of Peñafort   
   Dominican, Archbishop (1175-1275)   
      
   THE family of Peñafort claimed descent from the counts of Barcelona,   
   and was allied to the kings of Aragon. Feast Day formally January   
   23rd. Raymund was born in 1175, at Peñafort in Catalonia, and made   
   such rapid progress in his studies that at the age of 20 he taught   
   philosophy at Barcelona. This he did gratis, and with great   
   reputation. When he was about thirty he went to Bologna to perfect   
   himself in Canon and civil law. He took the degree of doctor, and   
   taught with the same disinterestedness and charity as he had done in   
   his own country. In 1219 Berengarius, Bishop of Barcelona, made   
   Raymund his archdeacon and “official”. He was a perfect model to the   
   clergy by his zeal, devotion and boundless liberalities to the poor.   
   In 1222 he assumed the habit of St. Dominic at Barcelona, 8 months   
   after the death of the holy founder, and in the 47th year of his age.   
   No one of the young novices was more humble, obedient or fervent than   
   he. He begged of his superiors that they would enjoin him some severe   
   penance to expiate the complacency which he said he had sometimes   
   taken in his teaching. They, indeed, imposed on him a penance, but not   
   quite such as he expected. It was to write a collection of cases of   
   conscience for the convenience of confessors and moralists, This led   
   to the compilation of the Summa de casibus poenitentialibus and the   
   first work of its kind.   
      
   Raymund joined to the exercises of his solitude an apostolic life by   
   labouring without intermission in preaching, instructing, hearing   
   confessions, and converting heretics, Jews and Moors; and he was   
   commissioned to preach the war of the Spaniards against the   
   last-named. He acquitted himself of his new duties with much prudence,   
   zeal and charity, and in this indirect manner paved the way for the   
   ultimate overthrow of the infidel in Spain. His labours were no less   
   successful in the reformation of the morals of the Christians detained   
   in servitude under the Moors, which had been corrupted by their long   
   slavery and intercourse with these infidels. Raymund showed them that   
   to triumph over their political foes they must first conquer their   
   spiritual enemies, and subdue sin in themselves. Inculcating these and   
   the like spiritual lessons, he journeyed through Catalonia, Aragon,   
   Castile and other countries. So general a change was wrought hereby in   
   the manners of the people that it seemed incredible to all but those   
   who were witnesses of it....   
      
   Pope Gregory IX, having called St. Raymund to Rome in 1230, nominated   
   him to various offices and took him likewise for his confessor, in   
   which capacity Raymund enjoined the pope, for a penance, to receive,   
   hear and expedite immediately all petitions presented by the poor.   
   Gregory also ordered the saint to gather into one body all the   
   scattered decrees of popes and councils since the collection made by   
   Gratian in 1150. In 3 years Raymund completed his task, and the five   
   books of the “Decretals” were confirmed by the same Pope Gregory in   
   1234. Down to the publication of the new Codex Juris Canonici in 1917   
   this compilation of St. Raymund was looked upon as the best arranged   
   part of the body of canon law, on which account the canonists usually   
   chose it for the text of their commentaries. In 1235 the pope named   
   St. Raymund to the archbishopric of Tarragona, the capital of Aragon:   
   the humble religious was not able to avert the blow, as he called it,   
   by tears and entreaties; but the anxiety brought on a serious illness.   
   To restore him to health his Holiness was obliged to consent to excuse   
   him, but required that he should recommend a proper person.   
      
   For the recovery of his health St. Raymund returned to his native   
   country, was received with as much joy as if the safety of the kingdom   
   depended on his presence. Being restored again to his dear solitude at   
   Barcelona be continued his former contemplation, preaching and work in   
   the confessional. The number of conversions of which he was the   
   instrument is known only to Him who by His grace was the author of   
   them. Raymund was employed frequently in important commissions, both   
   by the Holy See and by the king. In 1238, however, he was   
   thunderstruck by the arrival of deputies from the general chapter of   
   his order at Bologna with the news that he had been chosen third   
   master general, Bl. Jordan of Saxony having lately died. He wept and   
   entreated, but at length acquiesced in obedience. He made the   
   visitation of his order on foot without discontinuing any of his   
   austerities or religious exercises. He instilled into his spiritual   
   children a love of regularity, solitude, studies and the work of the   
   ministry, and reduced the constitutions of his order into a clearer   
   method, with notes on the doubtful passages. The code which he drew up   
   was approved in 3 general chapters. In one held at Paris in 1239 he   
   procured the establishment of this regulation, that the voluntary   
   resignation of a superior, founded upon just reasons, should be   
   accepted. This he contrived in his own favour, for in the year   
   following he resigned the generalship which he had held only two   
   years. He grounded his action on the fact that he was now 65 years   
   old.   
      
   But St. Raymund still had 34 years to live, and he spent them in the   
   main opposing heresy and working for the conversion of the Moors in   
   Spain. With this end in view, he engaged St. Thomas to write his work   
   “Against the Gentiles”; he contrived to have Arabic and Hebrew taught   
   in several convents of his order; and he established friaries, one at   
   Tunis, and another at Murcia, among the Moors. In 1256 he wrote to his   
   general that ten thousand Saracens had received baptism. He was active   
   in getting the Inquisition established in Catalonia; and on one   
   occasion he was accused--it is to be feared not without some   
   reason--of compromising a Jewish rabbi by a trick.   
      
   A famous incident in St. Raymund’s life is said to have taken place   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)