From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    -- Isaiah 29:15 –    
      
    Woe to you that are deep of heart,    
   to hide your counsel from the Lord:   
    and their works are in the dark, and they say:   
    Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?  [Isaiah 29:15] DRB   
   ========================   
   How strange that so many people think they can hide from God. In Psalm 139 we   
   learn that God has examined us and knows everything about us. Would you be   
   embarrassed if your best friends knew your personal thoughts? Remember that   
   God knows all of them.    
   Take some time today, get alone with God and read Psalm 139 to him.   
      
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   March 5th - SS. Adrian and Eubulus, of Palestine, Martyrs   
   A.D. 309.   
      
   IN the 7th year of Dioclesian’s persecution, continued by Galerius   
   Maximianus, when Firmilian, the most bloody governor of Palestine, had stained   
   Cæsarea with the blood of many illustrious martyrs, Adrian and Eubulus came   
   out of the country called    
   Magantia to Cæsarea, in order to visit the holy confessors there. At the   
   gates of the city they were asked, as others were, whither they were going,   
   and upon what errand? They ingenuously confessed the truth, and were brought   
   before the president, who    
   ordered them to be tortured, and their sides to be torn with iron hooks, and   
   then condemned them to be exposed to wild beasts. Two days after, when the   
   pagans at Cæsarea celebrated the festival of the public genius, Adrian was   
   exposed to a lion, and not    
   being despatched by that beast, but only mangled, was at length killed by the   
   sword. Eubulus was treated in the same manner, two days later. The judge   
   offered him his liberty if he would sacrifice to idols; but the saint   
   preferred a glorious death, and    
   was the last who suffered in this persecution at Cæsarea, which had now   
   continued 12 years under 3 successive governors, Flavian, Urban, and   
   Firmilian. Divine vengeance pursuing the cruel Firmilian, he was that same   
   year beheaded for his crimes, by the    
   emperor’s order, as his predecessor Urban had been two years before.   
      
     It is in vain that we take the name of Christians, or pretend to follow   
   Christ, unless we carry our crosses after him. It is in vain that we hope to   
   share in his glory, and in his kingdom, if we accept not the condition. [1] We   
   cannot arrive at heaven    
   by any other road but that which Christ walked, who bequeathed his cross to   
   all his elect as their portion and inheritance in this world. None can be   
   exempted from this rule, without renouncing his title to heaven. Let us sound   
   our own hearts, and see if    
   our sentiments are conformable to these principles of the holy religion which   
   we profess.   
      
     Are our lives a constant exercise of patience under all trials, and a   
   continual renunciation of our senses and corrupt inclinations, by the practice   
   of self-denial and penance? Are we not impatient under pain or sickness,   
   fretful under disappointments,    
   disturbed and uneasy at the least accidents which are disagreeable to our   
   nature, harsh and peevish in reproving the faults of others, and slothful and   
   unmortified in endeavouring to correct our own? What a monstrous contradiction   
   is it not to call    
   ourselves followers of Christ, yet to live irreconcilable enemies to his   
   cross! We can never separate Christ from his cross, on which he sacrificed   
   himself for us, that he might unite us on it eternally to himself. Let us   
   courageously embrace it, and he    
   will be our comfort and support, as he was of his martyrs.   
       
   From Eusebius’s History of the Martyrs of Palestine, c. 11. p. 341.   
      
   Note 1. Matt. xvi. 24. Luke xxiv. 26.   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   19 Where words are many, sin is not wanting;   
   but those who restrain their lips do well.   
   20 Choice silver is the tongue of the just;   
   the heart of the wicked is of little worth.   
   21 The lips of the just nourish many,   
   but fools die for want of sense.*  Proverbs 10:19-21:   
      
   * [10:21] The wise by their words maintain others in life whereas the   
   foolish cannot keep themselves from sin that leads to premature death.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)