From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Asking God's Help and the Certainty of his Grace:  [III]   
      
   CHRIST.   
   Do not imagine yourself utterly forsaken if for a while I have allowed   
   some trial to harass you, or withdrawn the comfort that you desire;   
   for this is the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. Be assured that it is   
   better for you, and for all My servants, to struggle against   
   difficulties than to have everything as you wish. I know your secret   
   thoughts, and it is necessary for your salvation that you should   
   sometimes be deprived of spiritual joys, lest you become conceited in   
   your happy state, and complacently imagine yourself better than you   
   are. What I have granted, I can take away, and restore it when I   
   choose.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ, Bk 3, Ch 30   
      
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   June 6th - St. Norbert   
      
   St. Norbert was born at Xanten in the Rhineland, about the year 1080.   
   The early part of his life was devoted to the world and its pleasures.   
   He entered upon the ecclesiastical state in a worldly spirit.   
      
   The thunderstorm had boiled up suddenly as Norbert was out riding.   
   Norbert, who had always chosen the easy way, would never have   
   deliberately gone on a journey that promised danger, risk, or   
   discomfort. He had moved easily from the comforts of the noble family   
   he was born into at about 1080 to the pleasure-loving German court. He   
   had no hesitations about joining in any opportunity to enjoy himself,   
   no matter what the source of that pleasure. To ensure his success at   
   court, he also had no qualms about accepting holy orders as a canon   
   and whatever financial benefices that came with that position,   
   although he did hesitate at becoming a priest and the implied   
   responsibilities that came with that vocation.   
      
   But now high winds pushed and pulled at his fashionable coif, rain   
   slashed at his fancy clothes, and dark roiling clouds pressed night   
   down upon his light thoughts. A sudden flash of lightning split the   
   dark and his horse bucked, throwing Norbert to the ground.   
      
   For almost an hour, the still form of the courtier lay unmoving. Even   
   the rain soaking his clothes and the howl of thunder did not bring him   
   back to consciousness and life. When he awoke his first words were,   
   "Lord, what do you want me to do?"--the same words Saul spoke on the   
   road to Damascus. In response Norbert heard in his heart, "Turn from   
   evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it."   
      
   He immediately returned to the place of his birth, Xanten, to devote   
   himself to prayer and penance. He now embraced the instruction for the   
   priesthood he had avoided and was ordained in 1115. His complete   
   conversion and new ways caused some to denounce the former courtier as   
   a hypocrite. Norbert's response was to give everything he owned to the   
   poor and to go to the pope for permission to preach.   
      
   With this commission in hand, he became an itinerant preacher,   
   traveling through Europe with his two companions. In an extreme   
   response to his old ways, he now chose the most difficult ways to   
   travel — walking barefoot in the middle of winter through snow and   
   ice. Unfortunately the two companions who followed him died from the   
   ill effects of exposure. But Norbert was gaining the respect of those   
   sincere clerics who had despised him before. The bishop of Laon wanted   
   Norbert to help reform the canons in his see, but the canons wanted   
   nothing to do with Norbert's type of reform which they saw as far too   
   strict. The bishop, not wanting to lose this holy man, offered Norbert   
   land where he could start his own community. In a lonely valley called   
   Promontre, began his community with thirteen canons. Despite the   
   strictness of his regulation, or perhaps because it, his reforms   
   attracted many disciples until eight abbeys and two convents were   
   involved. Even the canons who had originally rejected him asked to be   
   part of the reform.   
      
   In Norbert's community we have the first evidence of lay affiliation   
   with a religious order. This came about when a count Theobald wanted   
   to join Norbert. Norbert realized that Theobald was not called to holy   
   orders but to marriage and worldly duties. But he did not entirely   
   reject Theobald, giving him a rule and devotions as well as a scapular   
   to wear to identify him as part of the community.   
      
   It was on the trip accompanying Theobald to his marriage, that Norbert   
   was spotted by Emperor Lothair and chosen as bishop of Magdebourg.   
   Legend has it the porter refused to let Norbert into his new residence,   
   assuming he was a beggar. When the crowd pointed out to the   
   flustered porter that this was the new bishop Norbert told the porter,   
   "You were right the first time." Norbert carried the love of reform   
   that he had found in his own life to his new diocese. As usual, this   
   made him many enemies and he was almost assassinated. Disgusted with   
   the citizens desire to keep to their old ways, he left the city, but   
   was soon called back--not because the citizens missed him but because   
   the emperor and the pope pressured them.   
      
   When two rival popes were elected after the death of Honorius II,   
   Norbert helped try to heal the Church by getting his admirer the   
   emperor to support the first elected, Innocent II. At the end of his   
   life he was made an archbishop but he died soon after on June 6, 1134   
   at the age of 53.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Happy is the youth, because he has time before him to do good.   
   --St. Philip Neri   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see. And ask for the   
   old paths, which is the good way, and walk ye in it, and you shall   
   find refreshment for your souls. (Jeremias 6:16)   
      
      
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   PRAYER OF SUPPLICATION TO THE HOLY SPIRIT   
      
   Holy Spirit, you who solve all problems, who light all roads so that I can   
   attain my goals, you who give me the divine gift to forgive and to forget   
   all evil against me and that in all instances of my life you are with me. I   
   want in this short prayer to thank you for all things and to confirm once   
   again that I never want to be separated from you, even in spite of all   
   material illusion I wish to be with you in eternal glory. Thank you for your   
   mercy toward me and mine.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)