From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Judgment and the Punishment of Sin  (2)   
      
       The patient man goes through a great and salutary purgatory when   
   he grieves more over the malice of one who harms him than for his own   
   injury; when he prays readily for his enemies and forgives offenses   
   from his heart; when he does not hesitate to ask pardon of others;   
   when he is more easily moved to pity than to anger; when he does   
   frequent violence to himself and tries to bring the body into complete   
   subjection to the spirit.   
      It is better to atone for sin now and to cut away vices than to   
   keep them for purgation in the hereafter. In truth, we deceive   
   ourselves by our ill-advised love of the flesh. What will that fire   
   feed upon but our sins? The more we spare ourselves now and the more   
   we satisfy the flesh, the harder will the reckoning be and the more we   
   keep for the burning.   
   'A Kempis:--Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1  Ch 24   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   April 24th - St. William Firmatus   
   d. 1090   
      
   CANONRIES in the 11th century were not always reserved for the clergy,   
   and William Firmatus, a gifted young citizen of Tours, was appointed a   
   canon of St. Venantius at a very early age, before he had decided upon   
   his future career. He took up soldiering and then medicine, till a   
   dream or vision in which he beheld the Devil, in the form of an ape,   
   sitting upon his money chest, revealed to him an unconscious tendency   
   to avarice. Immediately he threw up his profession and withdrew into   
   retirement with his widowed mother. At her death he embraced a still   
   more austere mode of life, residing as a hermit in a wood at Laval in   
   Mayenne, where he suffered much from his neighbours, especially from   
   the wiles and accusations of a wicked woman.   
      
   After a first pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he occupied solitary cells in   
   various parts of Brittany and France--notably at Vitré, Savigny and   
   Mantilly--earning a great reputation for sanctity. A second visit to   
   the Holy Land was followed by a return to Mantilly. St. William’s   
   power over animals led the peasants to appeal to him for the   
   protection of their gardens and fields from the depredations of wild   
   creatures. We read that with a gentle tap he would admonish the hares   
   and goats that frisked about him and the birds as they nestled for   
   warmth in the folds of his habit. In the case of a particularly   
   destructive wild boar he adopted sterner measures. Leading it by the   
   ear he shut it up in a cell, binding it fast all night, and, when he   
   set it free in the morning, the beast was cured for ever of its   
   marauding proclivities! St. William died at a date which appears to   
   have been 1090 or a little earlier.   
      
   A life is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. iii, which is   
   attributed to Stephen de Fougeres. See also H. A. Pigeon, Vies des   
   Saints du diocese tie Coutances, vol. ii, p. 398.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Happy, indeed sublimely happy, is the person to whom the Holy Spirit   
   reveals the secret of Mary, thus imparting to him true knowledge of   
   her. Happy the person to whom the Holy Spirit opens this enclosed   
   garden for him to enter, and to whom the Holy Spirit gives access to   
   this sealed fountain where he can draw water and drink deep draughts   
   of the living waters of grace. That person will find only grace and no   
   creature in the most lovable Virgin Mary. But he will find that the   
   infinitely holy and exalted God is at the same time infinitely   
   solicitous for him and understands his weaknesses. Since God is   
   everywhere, he can be found everywhere, even in hell. But there is no   
   place where God can be more present to his creature and more   
   sympathetic to human weakness than in Mary. It was indeed for this   
   very purpose that he came down from heaven. Everywhere else he is the   
   Bread of the strong and the Bread of angels, but living in Mary he is   
   the Bread of children.   
   --from The Secret of Mary, by Saint Louis Marie de Montfort   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   If you have faith like a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain,   
   "Remove from here," and it will remove. And nothing will be impossible   
   to you.  (Matthew 17:19)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Act of Faith   
      
   O My God, inspired by Your Divine Grace, and because You have revealed it I   
   believe That the Holy Mass I am about to offer is the true unbloody   
   continuation of the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary. That Jesus   
   Christ is the true mystical victim of this holy sacrifice. That at the words   
   of consecration the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ becomes   
   truly present on the altar under the species of bread and wine. That I will   
   receive within myself the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus   
   Christ, the Son of God made man. With all my heart and soul I believe. Lord   
   help my unbelief. - Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)