From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    -- Psalm 130:3-4 –-    
      
   3 If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities,   
       Lord, who could stand?   
   4 But there is forgiveness with thee,   
       that thou mayest be feared.  RSVCE   
   ================================   
   Keeping a record of sins (or holding a grudge) is like building a wall   
   between you and another person, and it is nearly impossible to talk   
   openly while the wall is there. God doesn't keep a record of our sins   
   -- when he forgives, he forgives completely, tearing down any wall   
   between us and him. Therefore, we fear (revere) God, yet we can talk   
   to him about anything. When you pray, realize that God is holding   
   nothing against you. His lines of communication are completely open.   
      
      
      
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   July 8th - SS. Aquila and Priscilla   
   (1st Century)   
      
   The Acts of the Apostles and their letters sometimes mention the names   
   of the earliest Christian converts. One might wish to know more about   
   these pioneer Christians, but the writers of the New Testament did not   
   have the time to indulge our curiosity.   
      
   There was, however, one praiseworthy husband and wife who were   
   especially active in promoting the Church. Because of their total   
   dedication, enough is said about them by St. Luke and St. Paul to give   
   us a fair acquaintance with their lives as converts. Today the Church   
   venerates them on July 8 as SS. Aquila and Priscilla.   
      
   Paul met Aquila and Priscilla when he landed in Corinth, Greece, on   
   his first missionary journey (AD 50-52): “a Jew named Aquila, a native   
   of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla   
   because Claudius had ordered the Jews to leave Rome” (Acts, 18:1-3).   
   (The expulsion took place in AD 49 or 50. The pagan biographer of   
   Claudius says that this Roman emperor exiled the Jews in Rome because   
   they were fighting among themselves, and that a man named “Chrestos”   
   had started the fight. It seems quite likely, however, from the   
   garbled report, that the name of the “troublemaker” should have been   
   “Christos”, that is, Christ, and that the Jews were quarreling because   
   Jewish converts to Christianity were arguing that Jesus was the   
   Messiah.)   
      
   There is a legend in Rome that St. Peter baptized Aquila and Priscilla   
   before they were driven out of Rome. Like many Jews who lived outside   
   Palestine, they had adopted non-Jewish names. Thus “Aquila” is Latin   
   for “eagle.” (Many Jews who immigrated into Germany centuries later,   
   took this same name in German as “Adler”. “Priscilla” is a diminutive   
   form of the Roman name “Prisca”, as Paul always called her. It means   
   “steadfast” or, in a good sense, “old-fashioned”.) When Paul met the   
   couple and learned that they were by profession tentmakers like   
   himself, he decided to live in their home/shop and work with them   
   part-time (as he did wherever he went) to earn his keep.   
      
   St. Paul remained 18 months in Corinth, preaching first to Jews and   
   then to Gentiles. At length the Jews who rejected his teaching tried   
   to silence him by bringing him before the Roman magistrate.   
      
   The magistrate refused to listen to the charges, so Paul set out for   
   Antioch to complete his missionary journey. Aquila and Priscilla went   
   with him as far as Ephesus. There they opened their home to the   
   Ephesian Christians.   
      
   One day Apollos, a Jewish convert from Alexandria, arrived in town and   
   began to preach powerfully to the Jews about Jesus as Messiah. Aquila   
   and Priscilla noticed, however, that his Christian knowledge was   
   limited. He did not know, for example, about the sacrament of baptism.   
   So they took him aside and filled in the gaps of his knowledge.   
      
   When Paul returned to Ephesus on his third journey, he stayed with   
   Aquila. From Ephesus, he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, in   
   which he said, “Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their   
   house, send you many greetings in the Lord.” (I Cor. 16-19).   
      
   Later on, these two “coworkers” of St. Paul (as he called them)   
   returned to Rome. There, too, their home became a Christian center or   
   a “house-church” as Paul indicates in Rom. 16:3,5. Subsequently they   
   went back to Ephesus, for St. Paul greets them in his second letter to   
   Timothy, written from Rome around AD 67, not long before his death (2   
   Tim. 4:19).   
      
   This letter from Rome is the last scriptural reference to Prisca and   
   Aquila. It is not certain what happened to them later after Paul died.   
   In the Roman tradition they were martyred at Rome. St. Paul had all   
   but canonized them during his lifetime for their holy labors. They   
   “risked their lives for my life, to whom not only I am grateful but   
   also the churches of the Gentiles.” (Rom. 16:3).   
      
   Not by chance does Paul compare, in the Letter to the Ephesians, the   
   matrimonial relationship to the spousal communion that happens between   
   Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5: 25-33). Even more, we can maintain   
   that the Apostle indirectly models the life of the entire Church on   
   that of the family. And the Church, in reality, is the family of God.   
      
   Therefore, we honour Aquila and Priscilla as models of conjugal life   
   responsibly committed to the service of the entire Christian   
   community. And we find in them the model of the Church, God’s family   
   for all times.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   As iron is fashioned by the fire on an anvil, so in the fire of   
   suffering and under the weight of trials, our souls receive the form   
   that our Lord desires for them to have.   
   --St. Madeleine Sophie Barat   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that   
   scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal   
   cometh.  (Mat 18:7)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   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)