From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Zeal in Amending our Lives (2)   
      
      One day when a certain man who wavered often and anxiously between   
   hope and fear was struck with sadness, he knelt in humble prayer   
   before the altar of a church. While meditating on these things, he   
   said: "Oh if I but knew whether I should persevere to the end!"   
   Instantly he heard within the divine answer: "If you knew this, what   
   would you do? Do now what you would do then and you will be quite   
   secure." Immediately consoled and comforted, he resigned himself to   
   the divine will and the anxious uncertainty ceased. His curiosity no   
   longer sought to know what the future held for him, and he tried   
   instead to find the perfect, the acceptable will of God in the   
   beginning and end of every good work.   
      "Trust thou in the Lord and do good," says the Prophet;   
    "dwell in the land and thou shalt feed on its riches."   
   -- Ps. 36:3.  'A Kempis:  Imitation of Christ  Ch  24   
      
      
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   March 13th - Bl. Agnello of Pisa   
      
   THE founder of the English Franciscan province, Bl. Agnello, was   
   admitted into the order by St. Francis himself on the occasion of his   
   sojourn in Pisa. He was sent to the friary in Paris, of which he   
   became the custos or guardian, and in 1224 St. Francis appointed him   
   to found an English province, although he was as yet only a deacon. Of   
   the eight brothers selected to accompany him three were Englishmen,   
   but only one was in priest's orders, namely, Richard of Ingworth. True   
   to the precepts of St. Francis, they had no money, and the monks of   
   Fécamp paid their passage over to Dover. They made Canterbury their   
   first stopping-place, whence Richard of Ingworth, Richard of Devon and   
   two of the Italians went on to London to see where they could settle.   
   The rest were lodged at the Poor Priests' House, sleeping in a   
   building which was used as a school by day. While the scholars were   
   there, the friars were penned up in a small room at the back, and only   
   after the boys had gone home could they come out and make a fire.   
      
   It was the winter of 1224, and they must have suffered great   
   discomfort, especially as their ordinary fare was bread and a little   
   beer, which was so thick that it had to be diluted before they could   
   swallow it. Nothing, however, damped their spirits, and their simple   
   piety, cheerfulness and enthusiasm soon won them many friends. They   
   were able to produce a commendatory letter from Pope Honorius III, so   
   that the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, in announcing   
   their arrival, said, "Some religious have come to me calling   
   themselves Penitents of the Order of Assisi, but I call them of the   
   Order of the Apostles": By this name they were at first known in   
   England, and when some of them were to be ordained acolytes at   
   Canterbury four months after landing, the archdeacon, in bidding the   
   candidates come forward, said, "Draw near, ye brothers of the Order of   
   the Apostles".   
      
   In the, meantime Richard of Ingworth and his party had been well   
   received in London and had hired a dwelling on Cornhill. They were now   
   ready to push on to Oxford, and Agnello came from Canterbury to take   
   charge of the London settlement. Everywhere the friars were received   
   with enthusiasm, and Matthew Paris himself attests that Bl. Agnello   
   was on familiar terms with King Henry III. Although the minister   
   provincial was not himself a learned man, yet he established a   
   teaching centre which afterwards greatly influenced the university. To   
   that school, in which Grosseteste, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, was a   
   lecturer, flocked numbers of eager youths who were trained as friars   
   and who, before many years were over, helped to raise Oxford to a   
   position hardly inferior to Paris as a centre of learning.   
      
   Agnello seems to have died at the age of forty-one, only eleven years   
   after he landed at Dover, but his reputation for sanctity and prudence   
   stood high amongst his fellows. It is stated that his zeal for poverty   
   was so great that "he would never permit any ground to be enlarged or   
   any house to be built except as inevitable necessity required". In   
   particular the story runs that he built the infirmary at Oxford "in   
   such humble fashion that the height of the walls did not much exceed   
   the height of a man". During Mass and when saying the Divine Office he   
   shed tears continually, "yet so that neither by any noise nor by   
   groans nor by any contortion of the face could it be known that he   
   wept". He was stern in resisting relaxations in the rule, but his   
   gentleness and tact led him to be chosen in 1233 to negotiate with the   
   rebellious Earl Marshal. His health is said to have been undermined by   
   his efforts in this cause and by a last painful journey to Italy. On   
   his return he was seized with dysentery at Oxford and died there,   
   after crying out for three days, "Come, sweetest Jesus". The cult of   
   Bl. Agnello was confirmed in 1892 his feast is observed in the   
   archdiocese of Birmingham today and by the Friars Minor on the 11th.   
      
   The narrative of Thomas of Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum  Minorum,   
   together with the Chronicle of Lanercost, and the De conformitate of   
   Bartholomew of Pisa are the most reliable sources of information. See   
   especially the translation of Thomas of Eccleston with its appendixes,   
   by Father Cuthbert, and the text edited by A. G. Little. See also the   
   last-named's The Grey Friars in Oxford (1891); E. Hutton, The   
   Franciscans in England (1933); and Father Gilbert, Bl. Agnellus and   
   the English Grey Friars (1937).   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human: and God is   
   faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you   
   are able, but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be   
   able to bear it.  (1 Cor. 10:13) DRB   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   O Holy Mary! My Mother; into thy blessed trust and special custody,   
   and into the bosom of thy mercy, I this day, and every day, and in the   
   hour of my death, commend my soul and body. To thee I commit all my   
   anxieties and sorrows, my life and the end of my life, that by thy   
   most holy intercession, and by thy merits, all my actions may be   
   directed and governed by thy will and that of thy Son.   
   -- Saint Aloysius Gonzaga   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Hail Mary of Gold   
      
   Hail Mary, White Lily of the Glorious and always-serene Trinity.   
      
   Hail brilliant Rose of the Garden of heavenly delights:   
   O you, by whom God wanted to be born and by whose   
   milk the King of Heaven wanted to be nourished!   
   Nourish our souls with effusions of divine grace. Amen!   
      
   At the hour when the soul which has thus greeted me   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)