From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How Burdens must be Borne to win Eternal Life [II]   
      
   Labor with all your might. Work faithfully in My vineyard;(Matt. 20:7)   
   I myself will be your reward. (Gen. 15:1) Write, study, worship, be   
   penitent, keep silence and pray. Meet all your troubles like a man:   
   eternal life is worth all this and yet greater conflicts. Peace will   
   come at a time known only to the Lord. It will not be day or night as   
   we know it, (Rev. 22:5) but everlasting light, boundless glory,   
   abiding peace and sure rest. You will not say then, 'Who will free me   
   from this mortal body?; (Rom 7:4) nor cry, 'Alas, how long is my   
   exile!' (Ps. 120:5) for the power of death will be utterly broken,   
   (Isa. 25:8) and full salvation assured. No anxiety will remain, but   
   only blessed joy in the fair and lovely fellowship of the Saints.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 47   
      
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   November 10th - St. Justus of Canterbury   
      
   St. Justus (d. 627) was one of the companions of St. Augustine of   
   Canterbury in his work of the conversion of England. In response to   
   one of his consultations, St. Gregory the Great wrote him:   
      
       “When you are with our brother Augustine, tell him that after long   
   consideration and careful examination of the English question, I   
   judged that you should not destroy the pagan temples, but only the   
   idols in them. You should purify them with holy water, take the idols   
   from the altar, and put relics of Saints there.   
      
       “For if these temples are well built, let them pass from the   
   worship of the Devil to the service of the true God. If the people see   
   that the places to which they are accustomed are conserved, they will   
   go to them more readily. And since they are used to sacrificing bulls   
   to the Devil there, some solemn ceremony related to the martyrs whose   
   relics are there should replace this. You should raise tents around   
   the temples transformed into churches and celebrate the feast there   
   with meals. Instead of sacrificing animals to the Devil, you should   
   kill them for the people to eat and give thanks to God, Who gave them   
   the food. This way, apart from the sensible manifestations of joy,   
   they can more easily be introduced to the spiritual joys [of the   
   Faith]. For it is impossible to detach all the customs at once from   
   hardened spirits. By moving slowly, one goes far.”   
      
      
   Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)   
      
   This letter is very interesting for its statement – which we can find   
   in many writings of the Church Fathers and Doctors--hat all the gods   
   of the gentiles are devils. This principle is in Scripture: Omnia dii   
   gentium sunt daemonia (Psalm 95:5), referring to the gods of pagan   
   peoples. It is a very strong expression and it is profoundly   
   anti-ecumenical.   
      
   This letter also is very anti-ecumenical. It is very ductile, very   
   malleable in the things that are not fundamental, and enormously   
   severe about the things that are really important. The temples of   
   those pagan nations were not at all like today’s modern art and   
   architecture. Modern art is a violent and blasphemous denial of truth   
   and good. It imposes arbitrary artistic styles that generally affirm   
   disorder and ugliness. Obviously, modern art is not appropriate for a   
   Catholic church. But those pagan English temples were built following   
   other artistic schools. They lacked the elevation of the gothic, but   
   followed certain dignified artistic schools that had true elements of   
   beauty and could adequately serve Catholic worship.   
      
   If you take a noble and beautiful Chinese pagoda, for example, it has   
   the necessary elements to house Catholic worship for a Chinese nation.   
   Of course, if we were to build a place for worship, we would not build   
   a pagoda, because one has the obligation to make the best for God. But   
   when one receives something from others, one has to accept what is   
   adequate.   
      
   When the heroes of the Reconquista conquered the cities where the   
   Moors had built beautiful mosques – Corboba and Granada, for   
   instance--hey purified them, removed all the symbols of Islamism, and   
   installed the Catholic worship. Until today, Catholic worship   
   continues to be celebrated in such places. When her army took Granada,   
   one of the main concerns of Isabella, the Catholic Queen, was to   
   celebrate a Catholic Mass there. It was the principal symbol of the   
   victory over Islam.   
      
   This was precisely the same advice that St. Gregory the Great gave to   
   St. Justus and St. Augustine. If the pagan temples were well built and   
   adequate for worship, they could take advantage of them. He also gave   
   a psychological reason for doing this: the people were accustomed to   
   go there. The habit of going to a place breaks the inhibition of going   
   to a service from another faith when it is in the same place.   
      
   You can see the healthy intransigence of St. Gregory with regard to   
   what was really necessary, and his great ductility regarding the   
   secondary things that did not touch on the principles. This does not   
   mean one should be intolerant regarding primary principles and   
   tolerant with respect to secondary principles. This would be wrong. We   
   cannot admit any concession in principles. But the part of reality   
   that is not touched by the principles should be handled with this   
   broad spirit.   
      
   St. Gregory also counseled them to raise up tents around the churches   
   so the people could enjoy eating together. Then they could be taught   
   to thank God for these good things. It was a way to attract the simple   
   people. They like to eat. God gave the apple, the German made the   
   apfelstrudel [apple strudel], and he likes to eat it with his friends.   
   It is a legitimate joy, according to the Catholic spirit. Catholic   
   England also liked to eat. It was born amid this sort of kermis.   
      
   Let us ask St. Justus along with St. Augustine of Canterbury and St.   
   Gregory the Great to give us the understanding and love for the   
   Catholic balance between intransigence and ductility that they applied   
   in their apostolate. Without intransigence, we cannot maintain the   
   purity of principles; without ductility we cannot apply them and make   
   the apostolate flourish. Such equilibrium is a magnificent fruit of   
   the Catholic spirit we should acquire.   
      
   http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j101sdJustusCanterbury11-10.htm   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Be loyal to the Lord, accept his will.   
   --Saint Peter in a letter to his wife from prison   
      
   Bible Quotes:   
   Be nothing solicitous: but in every thing, by prayer and supplication,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)