From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Those who kept my word" (John 15:20)   
      
   If we want to live in the light of God's truth, how can we rightly   
   distinguish good from evil and truth from deception? True love of God   
   and his ways draw us to all that is lovely, truthful and good. If we   
   truly love God then we will submit to his truth and obey his word. A   
   friend of God cannot expect to be a friend of the world because the   
   world is opposed to God's truth and way of righteousness.   
      
      
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   June 10th - Blessed Diana d’Andalo   
   Memorial 10 June   
   8 June or 9 June on some calendars   
      
   The first cloistered nuns of the Dominican Order are not necessarily   
   as “famous” as their counterpart in other orders, such as St. Clare of   
   Assisi; nor even as well-known as their own later Third Order sisters,   
   St. Catherine of Siena and St. Rose of Lima. Yet there were, from the   
   beginning, women whose prayers in the cloister supported the Holy   
   Preaching. The best known of these is Blessed Diana d’Andalo of   
   Bologna, a young woman whose life was touched by the three most famous   
   friars of the new Order of Preachers. In his book, To Heaven With   
   Diana, Gerald Vann writes, “Of her childhood we know nothing; but we   
   know a good deal about her as she was when she first came into contact   
   with the friars. She was of outstanding beauty. ...Her contemporaries   
   also speak of her as eloquent and learned; and there is no doubt about   
   her charm, her high spirits, her courage, and that faculty of making   
   swift and sure decisions which, as one of her modern biographers   
   remarks, is often found in women who have been brought up in the   
   society of men. She was full of the joy of living…”   
      
   Around the year 1218 Diana was deeply inspired on hearing the   
   preaching of Reginald of Orleans, and determined that there should be   
   a monastery of Dominican nuns in Bologna. Diana made her desire known   
   to the Dominican friars there, and when St. Dominic himself visited   
   Bologna in 1221, she made a vow at his feet to establish a monastery,   
   and to become a nun herself. Shortly thereafter, she fled by night to   
   the Augustinian nuns, but was followed by her brothers, who brought   
   her back to their home with such a struggle that some of her ribs were   
   broken. Diana bided her time as her injuries healed. In 1223 she   
   escaped again to the Augustinians. This time her family left her in   
   peace. The new Monastery of St. Agnes was built in Bologna, and Diana   
   was made the first prioress. Owing to her youth and lack of   
   experience, however, she was soon replaced as prioress by Sister   
   Cecilia Caesarini from St. Dominic’s recent foundation at San Sisto in   
   Rome. Almost exactly Diana’s age, Sister Cecilia was already a more   
   experienced nun. She was appointed by the new Master of the Order,   
   Jordan of Saxony, who thought that a more experienced prioress would   
   help build up the new Bolognese monastery.   
      
   Diana made her greatest contribution to the Order in saving all the   
   correspondence that Jordan of Saxony wrote to her in the early years   
   of the Order. He wrote variously about the unfolding history of the   
   Order, the many novices who joined it, and his sorrow at the death of   
   friends. Sometimes he served as her spiritual director. Without   
   Diana’s careful preservation of Bl. Jordan’s letters, we would lack   
   what was compiled as the Libellus, the single greatest source of early   
   Dominican history. Diana died in 1236.   
      
   Commenting of Diana’s holiness of life, Gerald Vann concludes, “Diana   
   herself had her own very distinctive gifts; and as her religious life   
   went on she learned with Jordan’s help and guidance how to free them   
   from what was imperfect in them, how to use them for her religious   
   family’s progress in goodness and peace and happiness, how to make   
   them a more and more perfect offering to God from whom they came.”   
   Most significantly, Vann gives us from Père Hyacinthe Cormier, O.P.,   
   an insight into the grace which Bl. Diana came to personify in her   
   living of Dominican life, that of perfect love.   
      
   <><><><>   
   All things whatsoever that they command you, observe and do.  (Matt. 23:3)   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "Obedience is, without doubt, more meritorious than any austerity.    
   And what greater austerity can be thought of than that of keeping one's   
   will constantly submissive and obedient"?   
   --St. Catherine of Bologna   
      
      When St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi was sick, she was accustomed   
    to refuse any delicate food or costly medicine that was offered her;    
   but if the bringer required her to take it as an act of obedience,    
   she made no further objections; but saying only "Blessed be God   
   she would instantly take it.   
      
   (Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints".  June - Obedience)   
      
   Bible Quote   
   But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,   
   he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever   
   I shall have said to you.  (John 14:26)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer   
   "Lord Jesus, your word is power and life. May I never doubt your love   
   and mercy, and the power of your word that sets us free, and brings   
   healing and restoration to body, mind, heart, and spirit."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)