From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Enduring Injuries and the Proof of Patience:   
      
      You are not truly patient if you will only endure what you think   
   fit, and only from those whom you like. A truly patient man does not   
   consider by whom he is tried, whether by his superior, his equal, or   
   his inferior; whether by a good and holy man, or by a perverse and   
   wicked person. But however great or frequent the trial that besets   
   him, and by whatever agency it comes, he accepts it gladly as from the   
   hand of God, and counts it all gain.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 19   
      
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   December 16th - Bl. Mary of Turin, Virgin, Visionary   
   (Maria Fontanella of the Angels)   
      
   “Obedience wills what God wills"   
      
    There lived at Turin during the 17th century a count of Santena named   
   John Donato Fontanella. He was a religious and well-loved man and   
   married an equally good wife, Mary Tana, whose father was   
   cousin-German to St Aloysius Gonzaga.   
      
      They had 11 children, of whom the ninth, Marianna, was a girl of   
   particular intelligence and promise. When a child of six, emulating St   
   Teresa, she concocted a scheme with her little brother to run away and   
   live “ in the desert” but they spoiled it by oversleeping on the   
   morning intended for their departure. Two years later, when making   
   recovery from a serious illness, she experienced her first vision, and   
   from that time began to show a strongly ascetic disposition; in the   
   following year she made her first communion. A deep impression had   
   been made on her mind by contemplation of the blow in the face given   
   to our Lord by the servant of Caiaphas, and a strange incident is   
   related in that connection. One evening, when Marianna was kneeling at   
   Benediction with one of her sisters, a strange man on her other side   
   turned suddenly and violently slapped her cheek. The man escaped in   
   the ensuing confusion and was never seen again. When she was something   
   over 12, Marianna, by a not very creditable ruse in concert with the   
   nuns to evade her mother, joined the Cistercians at Saluzzo to live   
   among their alumnae; but she was not happy there and, on the death of   
   her father, went home to keep house for her mother. She became ever   
   more drawn to the religious life and in 1676, after some difficulties   
   with her family, was admitted in her 16th year to the Carmel of Santa   
   Cristina. Here her first experience was one of great home-sickness;   
   following that, an intense distaste for her new life and dislike of   
   the novice-mistress. But she persevered and was in due course   
   professed.   
      
      After 7 years in the convent Sister Mary-of-the-Angels, as she was   
   now called, was visited by a long and severe “dark night”, during   
   which she was tormented by numerous diabolical assaults and   
   manifestations. She was guided through this by a very able director,   
   Father Laurence-Mary, O.C.D., and at the end of 3 years began to come   
   into more peaceful ways and to attain higher states of prayer. In 1690   
   she wrote to Father Laurence an account of a mystical experience which   
   marked the end of her violent struggles. That Sister Mary herself was   
   of a vehement disposition her own physical penances show. At one time   
   she was scourging herself to blood daily, compressing her tongue with   
   an iron ring, dropping molten wax on her skin, even suspending herself   
   cross-wise by ropes from a beam in her cell. Of such practices we may   
   borrow from the words of Father George O’Neill, S.J., her Irish   
   biographer: “ No one is asked to imitate, no one is bound to admire   
   them.” When she was 30 she was appointed novice-mistress, and 3 years   
   later prioress, offices which she took up with deep reluctance and   
   discharged with an equally marked ability. At the suggestion of Bl.   
   Sebastian Valfré she undertook a new foundation with a small house and   
   inadequate endowment at Moncaglieri; and having overcome opposition   
   from both ecclesiastical and civil authorities she was able to   
   establish the nucleus of a community there in 1703, and the convent is   
   still in being. Sister Mary herself wished to go there, but the people   
   of Turin would not suffer it; all, from the members of the ducal   
   family of Savoy downwards, were accustomed to go and ask the advice   
   and prayers of the prioress of Santa Cristina, especially during the   
   war with the French.   
      
   During the last 20 years of her life Bl. Mary continued to have   
   remarkable experiences and gifts, among them what appeared to be a   
   literal “odour of sanctity”. This scent emanated from her person, and   
   was communicated to her clothes and even to things that she touched,   
   from which it was sometimes difficult to eradicate. From about 1702   
   this phenomenon was permanent, and among the witnesses to it was   
   Father Costanzo, afterwards archbishop of Sassari in Sardinia. He   
   characterized it as “neither natural nor artificial, nor like flowers   
   or aromatic drugs or any mixture of perfumes, but only to be called an   
   ‘odour of sanctity’”.   
      
      It is stated that certain secondary relics of the beata at   
   Moncaglieri still retain this fragrance. At the same time Bl. Mary,   
   like so many other mystics, was also notably proficient and careful in   
   the practical matters, keeping accounts, looking after workmen, and so   
   on, which fell to her lot as prioress. At the end of the priorate of   
   Mother Teresa-Felix in 1717 the nuns of Santa Cristina wished to elect   
   Bl. Mary for a fifth term of office. She thought that her physical   
   weakness would prevent her from giving a proper example of observance,   
   and appealed to her confessor and to the prior provincial, but they   
   both refused to interfere. Whereupon she set herself to pray that, if   
   it were God’s will, she might shortly die; and within 3 weeks she was   
   very ill....   
      
   A full account of this Carmelite mystic will be found in the book of   
   Father G. O’Neill, Bl. Mary of the Angels (1909). It is based upon a   
   life written in Italian by Father Elias-of St-Teresa who had known the   
   beata personally and was able to utilize what survived of an   
   autobiography which she wrote by command of her superiors. A later   
   Italian account is by Father Benedetto (1934).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Our Lord's words teach us that though we labour among the many   
   distractions of this world, we should have but one goal. For we are   
   but travellers on a journey without as yet a fixed abode; we are on   
   our way, not yet in our native land; we are in a state of longing, not   
   yet of enjoyment. Do you wish to know what we will have there? The   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)