From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Keep going forward:   
      
    "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for   
   they shall be filled." Only in the fullness of faith can the heartsick   
   and faint and weary be satisfied, healed, and rested. Think of the   
   wonderful spiritual revelations still to be found by those who are   
   trying to live the spiritual life. Much of life is spiritually   
   unexplored country. Only to the consecrated and loving people who walk   
   with God in spirit can these great spiritual discoveries be revealed.   
   Keep going forward and keep growing in righteousness. I pray that the   
   material things of the world may not hold me back. I pray that I may   
   let God lead me forward.   
   --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
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   December 23rd - Saint Nicolás Factor-Estaña, Mystic and visionary   
   Also known as Nicholas Factor   
      
   Memorial   
   23 December   
   14 December on some calendars   
      
   d. 1583   
      
   Vincent Facto was a Sicilian tailor who came to live at Valencia in   
   Spain, where he married a young woman called Ursula, and in 1520 their   
   son, Peter Nicholas, was born. He was a pious child and quick at   
   school, and when he was fifteen his father wanted him to go into the   
   business, but Nicholas heard a call to the religious life and in 1537   
   joined the Friars Minor of the Observance in his native town. He made   
   rapid progress in his order, and many times asked to be sent on   
   foreign missions, but had to content himself with working for the   
   conversion of the Moors in Spain: he is said twice to have offered to   
   throw himself into a furnace if, on his coming out unhurt, his hearers   
   would receive baptism. But the offer was refused. During the last year   
   of his life Bl. Nicholas migrated to the Capuchin Friars Minor at   
   Barcelona, but returned to his own branch after a few months.   
      
   “I left those men, who are entirely holy”, he told the Carthusians at   
   La Scala, “to go back to men who are also entirely holy.”   
      
   The biographers of Bl. Nicholas devote most of their space to accounts   
   of his austerities and of the marvels connected with his name. He used   
   always to take the discipline before celebrating Mass and three times   
   before preaching His   
   raptures, miracles and visions were so frequent that St. Louis   
   Bertrand said he lived more in Heaven than on earth, and among many   
   examples of supernatural knowledge was an announcement of the victory   
   of Lepanto the day after the battle.   
      
   He was known and revered by the great ones of Spain from King Philip   
   II downwards, and his personal friends included St. Paschal Baylon,   
   St. Louis Bertrand and Bl. John de Ribera, all of whom gave evidence   
   for his beatification. Among the characteristic stories told of   
   Nicholas, in which there would seem to be a considerable degree of   
   exaggeration or misunderstanding, are that our Lady through the mouth   
   of a statue once told him to go and celebrate Mass, whereupon he was   
   assisted in vesting by St. Francis and St. Dominic; that divine love   
   so warmed his heart that cold water into which he plunged became   
   heated almost to boiling-point; and that Satan frequently attacked him   
   in the form of a lion, a bear, a snake and the like. Bl. Nicholas   
   Factor died at Valencia on December 23, 1583, and was beatified in   
   1786.   
      
   Long accounts of Bl. Nicholas may be found in all the Franciscan   
   chroniclers. For example, in Mazzara’s Leggendario Francescano (1680),   
   he fills pages 718 to 749 in vol. ii, pt 2; and in the Croniche of   
   Leonardo da Napoli, pt 4, vol. ii, more than 120 closely printed pages   
   are devoted to him. The best biography is probably that of G. Alapont,   
   Compendio della Vita del B. Niccolô Fattore, which claims to be based   
   upon the process of beatification and was printed in 1786. A short   
   life in English was included in the Oratorian Series in the middle of   
   the last century, and see also Léon, Auréole Séraphique (Eng. trans.),   
   vol. iv, pp. 178-191.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Being obedient she became the cause of salvation for herself and for   
   the whole human race. The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by   
   Mary's obedience: what Eve bound through her disbelief, the Virgin   
   Mary loosened by her faith.   
   -- Saint Irenaeus of Lyons   
      
   <><><><>   
   Who abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him.--1 John 4:16   
      
   10. One act of resignation to the Divine Will, when it ordains what is   
   repugnant to us, is worth more than a hundred thousand successes   
   according to our own will and pleasure.   
   --St. Vincent de Paul   
      
   How much, in the midst of all his disasters, did holy Job merit before   
   God by his "Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit--The Lord hath given, and   
   the Lord hath taken away."   
      
   ( "A Year with the Saints".  December: Union)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)