From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Patient Endurance    
      
      With regard to patience the Lord says, 'You will gain possession of your   
   souls through your patient endurance' (Luke 21:19). He did not say 'through   
   your fasting' or 'through your vigils'. I refer to the patience bestowed by   
   God, which is the queen of virtues, the foundation of courageous actions.   
      It is patience that is peace amid strife, serenity amid distress, and a   
   steadfast base for those who acquire it. Once you have attained it with   
   the help of Christ Jesus, no swords and spears, no attacking armies,   
   not even the ranks of demons, the dark phalanx of hostile powers,   
   will be able to do you any harm.   
   --St Gregory of Sinai.   
      
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   January 14th - Bl. Odoric   
      
   (c. 1265-1331)   
      
   Even today relatively few people from the western world visit China,   
   especially far inland. Therefore, it is all the more amazing to recall that in   
   the 13th century Venetian businessmen visited the present Beijing (Peking),   
   and that not long afterward a    
   Franciscan missionary, John of Montecorvino, was sent there as archbishop.   
      
   Odoric of Pordenone was one of a later delegation of Franciscans assigned to   
   the China mission. He was a native of Udine in northeastern Italy, ordained a   
   priest around 1290.   
      
   Father Odoric’s first remote post in his years of missionary work was the   
   Mongols of Kipchak in the south of Russia, but he also probably worked for a   
   while in the Balkans. In 1314 he was transferred to the Near East, where   
   Franciscans had been active    
   since the Crusades. For eight years he preached the gospel in Constantinople,   
   Turkey and Iran.   
      
   Then in 1322 Odoric and an Irish Franciscan named Friar James set out for   
   Cathay (as China was then called), to come to the aid of Friar John of   
   Montecorvino, who had been consecrated archbishop of Peking in 1308. (It was   
   the Venetians Maffeo and Nicolo    
   Polo who had first reached Peking. On their return to Rome in 1269 they had   
   passed on to the pope the request of the Great Khan, Kublai, to send Catholic   
   missionaries to China. When the Brothers Polo made their second trip to   
   Cathay, they took with them    
   Marco, Nicolo Polo’s young son. On his return to Europe around 1307, Marco   
   wrote the famous account of his travels.)   
      
   The Polos had gone to China by land. Odoric and James took the longer route,   
   mostly by sea: through Persia, Arabia, Iran, to the Persian Gulf, where they   
   shipped out for India. Then they went on to Sumatra and Java, and probably to   
   Borneo and Indo-China.    
   There they learned, however, that in order to land at Canton, China, they must   
   go back to Ceylon. They backtracked, got passage on the right ship, and having   
   reached Canton, moved up northward. This was in 1324. Odoric spent some time   
   at Zaitun (now    
   Chuanchow) assisting the Franciscan bishop there. Finally he went on to   
   Cambaluc (Beijing). For three years he worked under the aging Archbishop John   
   of Montecorvino. Shortly before John died in 1328 he directed Odoric to return   
   to Europe and recruit new    
   missionaries for China.   
      
   This time the friar from Pordenone and his companion took the land route,   
   passing by Tibet, and going through Chinese Turkestan, Persia, Iraq, Syria and   
   probably Palestine. When he reached Venice in 1330, Odoric set out to report   
   to Pope John XXII.    
   Unfortunately, illness forced him to call the trip off and return to Udine.   
   But eventually 50 Franciscans were assigned to the Chinese enterprise. Blessed   
   Odoric published an account of his travels, and this book, second perhaps only   
   to Marco Polo’s    
   travel book in popularity, probably helped in the recruitment of his   
   successors on the Chinese mission. Regrettably, the Mongol Dynasty, which had   
   been kindly to Catholic Christianity, was ousted by the Ming Dynasty in 1368,   
   and the Catholic missionary    
   church in China was completely destroyed.   
      
   Odoric was thus best known for his adventures in exotic Asia. By tradition he   
   was a devout and zealous preacher who brought the light of the gospels to   
   hundreds of Asians. His Franciscan community long venerated him as a saint,   
   and in 1755 Pope Benedict    
   XV approved the title “Blessed” for him, allowing the friars to observe   
   his feast day annually in the liturgy. Blessed Odoric’s patronage is invoked   
   by long-distance travelers and on behalf of the Church in China.   
      
   Blessed Odoric was not, therefore, the only missionary to work in medieval   
   China, but he exemplifies the arduous lengths to which true missionaries will   
   go to “make disciples of all the nations.”   
      
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Almsgiving proceeds from a merciful heart and is more useful for the   
   one who practices it than for the one who receives it, for the man who   
   makes a practice of almsgiving draws out a spiritual profit from his   
   acts, whilst those who receive his alms receive only a temporal   
   benefit.   
   -- Saint Thomas Aquinas   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith: Out of his belly   
   shall flow rivers of living water. Jn 7:38   
      
      
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   God sends his heaviest crosses   
   To those he calls his own,   
   And the bitterest drops of the chalice   
   Are reserved for his friends alone.   
   But the blood-red drops are precious,   
   And the crosses are all gain,   
   For joy is bought with sacrifice,   
   And the price of love is pain.   
   (Author unknown)    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)