From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On the Contrary Workings of Nature and Grace  [III]   
      
   Nature is unwilling to be mortified, checked or overcome, obedient or   
   willingly subject. Grace mortifies herself, resists sensuality, submits to   
   control, seeks to be overcome. She does not aim at enjoying her own liberty,   
   but loves to be under discipline;   
    and does not wish to lord it over anyone. Rather does she desire to live,   
   abide and exist always under God's rule, and for His sake she is ever ready to   
   submit it to all men. (1 Pet. 2:13)   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 54   
      
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   May 2nd – Bl. Mafalda   
      
   IN the year 1215, at the age of 11, Princess Mafalda (i.e. Matilda),   
   daughter of King Sancho I of Portugal, was married to her kinsman King   
   Henry I of Castile, who was like herself a minor. The marriage was   
   annulled the following year on the ground of the consanguinity of the   
   parties, and Mafalda returned to her own country, where she took the   
   veil in the Benedictine convent of Arouca. As religious observance had   
   become greatly relaxed, she induced the community to adopt the   
   Cistercian rule. Her own life was one of extreme austerity. The whole   
   of the large income bestowed upon her by her father was devoted to   
   pious and charitable uses. She restored the cathedral of Oporto,   
   founded a hostel for pilgrims, erected a bridge over the Talmeda and   
   built an institution for the support of twelve widows at Arouca. When   
   she felt that her last hour was approaching she directed, according to   
   a common medieval practice, that she should be laid on ashes. Her last   
   words were, “Lord, I hope in thee”. Her body after death shone with a   
   wonderful radiance, and when it was exposed in 1617 it is said to have   
   been as flexible and fresh as though the holy woman had only just   
   died. Mafalda’s cultus was confirmed in 1793.   
      
   A notice of Mafalda, compiled mainly from late Cistercian sources,   
   will be found in the appendix to the first volume for May in the Acta   
   Sanctorum. An account of her, with her sisters SS. Teresa and Sanchia,   
   is also contained in Portugal glorioso e illustrado, etc., by J. P.   
   Bayao (1727).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to   
   God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to   
   prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to   
   persuade God to will what the man in us wills.   
   --Thomas Aquinas   
      
   Bible Quote   
   19 And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into   
   heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God. 20 But they going forth   
   preached every where: the Lord working withal, and confirming the word   
   with signs that followed.  (Mark 16:19-20)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   [Here is a magnificent excerpt from a 4th-Century sermon of St.   
   Asterius of Amasea, on the Holy Martyrs. It shows that the practice of   
   fervent requests for the intercession of saints is ancient. It shows   
   that even the martyrs of pre-Constantinian times called upon still   
   earlier martyrs for prayers.]   
      "We keep through every age their bodies decently enshrined, as most   
   precious pledges; vessels of  benediction, the organs of their blessed   
   souls, the tabernacles of their holy minds. We put ourselves under   
   their protection. The martyrs defend the church, as soldiers guard a   
   citadel. The people flock in crowds from all quarters, and keep great   
   festivals to honor their tombs.   
      "All who labor under the heavy load of afflictions fly to them for   
   refuge. We employ them as intercessors in our prayers and suffrages.   
   In these refuges the hardships of poverty are eased, diseases cured,   
   the threats of princes appeased. A parent, taking a sick child in his   
   arms, postpones physicians, and runs to one of the martyrs, offering   
   by him his prayer to the Lord, and addressing him whom he employs for   
   his mediator in such word as these.   
      "'You who have suffered for Christ, intercede for one who suffers   
   by sickness. By that great power and confidence you have, offer a   
   prayer on behalf of fellow-servants. Though you are now removed from   
   us, you know what men on earth feel in their sufferings and diseases.   
   You formerly prayed to martyrs, before you were yourself a martyr. You   
   then obtained your request by asking; now you are possessed of what   
   you asked, in your turn assist me. By your crown ask what may be our   
   advancement.'   
      "If another is going to be married, he begins his undertaking by   
   soliciting the prayers of the martyrs.  Who, putting to sea, weighs   
   anchor before he has invoked the Lord of the sea by the martyrs?"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)