From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Manna   
      
      Our Lord Jesus Christ nourishes us for eternal life both by his   
   commands, which teach us how to live holy lives, and by the Eucharist.   
   He in himself therefore is truly the divine, life-giving manna. Anyone   
   who eats it will be exempt from corruption and will escape death,   
   unlike those who ate the material manna. That type had no power to   
   save, but was merely an imitation of the reality.   
      God sent down manna like rain from above, and ordered everyone to   
   gather as much as necessary, those who shared a tent gathering   
   together if they wished. Gather it, each of you, he said, with those   
   who share your tent. Let none of it be left over till the morning.   
   That is to say, we must fill ourselves with the divine teaching of the   
   gospel.   
      Christ indeed gives us his grace in equal measure, whether we are   
   great or small, and bestows life-giving food on all alike. He wishes   
   the stronger among us to gather for the others, working on behalf of   
   their sisters and brothers, lending them their labor so that all may   
   share in the heavenly gifts.   
   --Cyril of Alexandria   
      
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   August 7th – St. Cajetan of Thienna, Confessor   
   from the Liturgical Year, 1901   
      
   Cajetan appeared in all his zeal for the sanctuary at the time when   
   the false reform was spreading rebellion throughout the world. The   
   great cause of the danger had been the incapacity of the guardians of   
   the holy City, or their connivance by complicity of heart or of mind   
   with pagan doctrines and manners introduced by an ill-advised revival.   
   Wasted by the wild boar of the forest, could the vineyard of the Lord   
   recover the fertility of its better days? Cajetan learned from Eternal   
   Wisdom the new method of culture required by an exhausted soil.   
      
   The urgent need of those unfortunate times was that the clergy should   
   be raised up again by worthy life, zeal, and knowledge. For this   
   object men were required, who being clerks themselves in the full   
   acceptation of the word, with all the obligations it involves, should   
   be to the members of the holy hierarchy a permanent model of its   
   primitive perfection, a supplement to their shortcomings, and a   
   leaven, little by little raising the whole mass. But where, save in   
   the life of the counsels with the stability of its three vows, could   
   be found the impulse, the power, and the permanence necessary for such   
   an enterprise? The inexhaustible fecundity of the religious life was   
   no more wanting in the Church in those days of decadence than in the   
   periods of her glory. After the monks, turning to God in their   
   solitudes and drawing down light and love upon the earth seemingly so   
   forgotten by them; after the mendicant Orders, keeping up in the midst   
   of the world their claustral habits of life and the austerity of the   
   desert: the regular clerks entered upon the battle-field, whereby   
   their position in the fight, their exterior manner of life, their very   
   dress, they were to mingle with the ranks of the secular clergy; just   
   as a few veterans are sent into the midst of a wavering troop, to act   
   upon the rest by word and example and dash.   
      
   Like the initiators of the great ancient forms of religious life,   
   Cajetan was the Patriarch of the Regular Clerks. Under this name   
   Clement VII., by a brief dated 24th June, 1524, approved the institute   
   he had founded that very year in concert with the Bishop of Theati,   
   from whom the new religious were also called Theatines. Soon the   
   Barnabites, the Society of Jesus, the Somasques of St. Jerome Emilian,   
   the Regular Clerks Minor of St. Francis Carracciolo, the Regular   
   Clerks ministering to the sick, the Regular Clerks of the Pious   
   Schools, the Regular Clerks of the Mother of God, and others, hastened   
   to follow in the track, and proved that the Church is ever beautiful,   
   ever worthy of her Spouse; while the accusation of barrenness hurled   
   against her by heresy, rebounded upon the thrower.   
      
   Cajetan began and carried forward his reform chiefly by means of   
   detachment from riches, the love of which had caused many evils in the   
   Church. The Theatines offered to the world a spectacle unknown since   
   the days of the Apostles; pushing their zeal for renouncement so far   
   as not to allow themselves even to beg, but to rely on the spontaneous   
   charity of the faithful. While Luther was denying the very existence   
   of God's Providence, their heroic trust in It was often rewarded by   
   prodigies.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   He who trusts in himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things.   
   -- Saint Alphonsus Liguori   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human. And God is   
   faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you   
   are able: but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be   
   able to bear it.  (1 Cor. 10:13)  DRB   
      
      
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   Jesus! my Lord, my God, my All! How can I love Thee as I ought?   
   And how revere this wondrous gift, So far surpassing hope or thought?   
      
   Had I but Mary's sinless heart To love Thee with, my dearest King!   
   O, with what bursts of fervent praise Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing!   
   Sweet Sacrament! We Thee adore! O, make us love Thee more and more!   
      
   F. Faber: Corpus Christi. (19th cent.)   
      
      
      
      
   Reflection   
      
      You cannot believe in God and keep your selfish ways. The old self   
   shrivels up and dies, and upon the re-born soul God's image becomes   
   stamped. The gradual elimination of selfishness in the growth of love   
   for God and your fellow human beings is the goal of life. At first,   
   you have only a faint likeness to the Divine, but the picture grows   
   and takes on more and more of the likeness of God until those who see   
   you can see in you some of the power of God's grace at work in a human   
   life. I pray that I may develop that faint likeness I have to the   
   Divine. I pray that others may see in me some of the power of God's   
   grace at work   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
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   August 7th – St. Sixtus II, Pope M, & Companions MM    
   (Also Known as Xystus)   
      
   Died August 6, 258; feast day formerly on August 6. Pope Sixtus II was   
   a Greek philosopher who embraced the Christian faith, served as a   
   deacon in Rome, reached this pinnacle of the church's offices on   
   August 30, 257, and lasted in it no more than a year, suffering a   
   brave martyr's death. His name is in the canon of the Roman Mass.   
      
   Although Sixtus II was convinced that anyone baptized by a heretic was   
   truly baptized, he nevertheless refused to excommunicate or otherwise   
   punish those theologians who disagreed with him. In his correspondence   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)