From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Jesus the Good Shepherd changes wolves into sheep   
      
   "How then does [Jesus] command the holy apostles, who are innocent men   
   and 'sheep,' to seek the company of wolves, and go to them of their   
   own will? Is not the danger apparent? Are they not set up as ready   
   prey for their attacks? How can a sheep prevail over a wolf? How can   
   one so peaceful conquer the savageness of beasts of prey? 'Yes,' he   
   says, 'for they all have me as their Shepherd: small and great, people   
   and princes, teachers and students. I will be with you, help you, and   
   deliver you from all evil. I will tame the savage beasts. I will   
   change wolves into sheep, and I will make the persecutors become the   
   helpers of the persecuted. I will make those who wrong my ministers to   
   be sharers in their pious designs. I make and unmake all things, and   
   nothing can resist my will.'"   
    by Cyril of Alexandria (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 61)   
      
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   October 24th - St. Felix of Thibiuca   
   Also known as Felix Africanus   
   d. 303   
      
   At Venosa in Apulia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Felix, an   
   African bishop, Audactus and Januarius, priests, and the lectors   
   Fortunatus and Septimus.  In the time of Diocletian, under the   
   governor Magdellian, they were loaded with fetters and imprisoned for   
   a long time in Africa and Sicily.  Because Felix refused to deliver   
   the sacred books, they were at last slain with the sword.   
   In the beginning of Diocletian’s persecution, numbers among the   
   Christians delivered up the sacred books into the hands of the   
   persecutors that they might be burnt.  Many even sought for pretences   
   to extenuate or excuse this crime, as if it ever could be lawful to   
   concur in a sacrilegious or impious action.   
      
   Felix, a bishop in Proconsular Africa, was so far from being carried   
   away by the falls of others that they were to him a spur to greater   
   watchfulness and fortitude.  Magnilian, magistrate of Thibiuca,   
   ordered him to give up all books and writings belonging to his church,   
   that they might be burnt. The martyr replied that the law of God must   
   be preferred to the law of man, so Magnilian sent him to the proconsul   
   at Carthage. This officer, the passio tells us, offended at his bold   
   confession, commanded him to be loaded with irons and, after he had   
   kept him nine days in a foul dungeon, to be put on board a vessel to   
   be taken to stand his trial before Maximinus in Italy.   
      
      The bishop lay under hatches in the ship, between the horses’ feet,   
   four days without eating or drinking. The vessel arrived at Agrigentum   
   in Sicily, and Christians of that island and in all the cities through   
   which he passed treated the saint with great honour. When Felix had   
   been brought as far as Venosa in Apulia, the prefect ordered his irons   
   to be knocked off, and again put to him the questions whether he had   
   the sacred writings and why he refused to deliver them up. Felix   
   answered that he could not deny that he had the books, but that he   
   would never give them up. The prefect without more ado condemned him   
   to be beheaded. At the place of execution St Felix thanked God for all   
   His mercies, and bowing down his head offered himself a sacrifice to   
   Him who lives forever and ever. He was fifty-six years old, and one of   
   the first victims under Diocletian.   
      
   Nevertheless the story of the deportation of St Felix to Italy and his   
   martyrdom there is no more than a hagiographer’s fiction to make him   
   an Italian saint.  There seems no doubt at all that he suffered at   
   Carthage by order of the proconsul there, and his relics were   
   subsequently laid to rest in the well-known basilica Fausti in that   
   city.   
      
   In the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxix (1921), pp. 241-276, Fr   
   Delehaye published a remarkable study of the text of this passio.  The   
   materials previously edited in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. x,   
   were insufficient.  Delehaye, after printing representative forms of   
   the two families into which the texts may be divided, supplies an   
   admirable restoration of the primitive document that  lies at the base   
   of all.  As stated above, the deportation of the martyr to Italy is a   
   fiction of later hagiographers who unscrupulously embroidered the   
   original text. Felix, as Delehaye very positively asserts (in   
   agreement with M. Monceaux, Revue archeologique, 1905, vol. i, Pp.   
   335-340), was put to death by the proconsul at Carthage.  The proper   
   day of the martyrdom of St Felix would seem to be the 15th or possibly   
   the 16th of July. For the confusions which led to its transference,   
   first to July 30, and finally to October 24, see Delehaye, and more   
   fully Dom Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques, pp. 522-532 and   
   697-698.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Not only do they offend thee, O Lady, who outrage thee, but thou art   
   also offended by those who neglect to ask thy favors . . . He who   
   neglects the service of the Blessed Virgin will die in his sins . . .   
   He who does not invoke thee, O Lady, will never get to Heaven . . .   
   Not only will those from whom Mary turns her countenance not be saved,   
   but there will be no hope of their salvation . . . No one can be saved   
   without the protection of Mary.   
   --Saint Bonaventure, Cardinal-Bishop and Doctor of the Church   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers, at the moon and   
   the stars you set firm--what are human beings that you spare a thought   
   for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him? Yet you have   
   made him a little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and   
   beauty, and made him lord of the works of your hands, put all things   
   under his feet..." Psalm 8:3-6   
      
   <><><><>   
   The easy roads are crowded,   
   And the level roads are jammed;   
   The pleasant little rivers   
   With the drifting folks are crammed,   
   But off yonder where it's rocky,   
   Where you get a better view,   
   You will find the ranks are thinning   
   And the travelers are few.   
   Where the going's smooth and pleasant   
   You will always find the throng,   
   For the many, more's the pity,   
   Seem to like to drift along.   
   But the steps that call for courage   
   And the task that's hard to do,   
   In the end results in glory   
   For the never-wavering few.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)