From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The Glory of the Cross   
      
   "Let us declare that Christ was crucified for our sake, proclaiming it   
   with joy and pride, not with fear and shame. Paul the Apostle saw in   
   this reason for boasting.   
   He could have told us many great and holy things about Christ: how as   
   God he shared with his Father the work of creation, and how as man   
   like us he was master of the world. But Paul would not glory in any of   
   these wonderful things."   
   --St. Augustine--Sermon 218C, 1   
      
   Prayer: Lord, in case I would falter, you gave me a remedy through   
   your admonishments. You established the law of forgiveness, so that as   
   I forgive I may be forgiven.   
   --St. Augustine--Commentary on Psalm 129, 3   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   March 22nd - Blessed Isnard de Chiampo   
   (distinguished preacher, known for miracles )   
   d. 1244   
      
   Born in Chiampo (near Vicenza), Italy; cultus confirmed in 1919. From   
   the springtime of the Dominicans in Bologna, Italy, comes the story of   
   Blessed Isnard. He was born into a wealthy family but little else is   
   known of his boyhood. In 1219, as a student at the University of   
   Bologna, he met Saint Dominic and decided to join his new order. Soon   
   after completing his novitiate in Bologna, Isnard distinguished   
   himself as a preacher. His first assignment was in Pavia, where his   
   work of founding and ruling the priory was complicated by the war   
   between the pope and the emperor.   
      
   Blessed Isnard plunged courageously into the work. He knew that he was   
   risking death in doing so, and a less stout-hearted man might have   
   found some excuse for going to a more peaceful place. Blessed Isnard   
   insisted on meeting the situation head-on.   
      
   One of his first encounters was with the forces of evil, quite   
   undisguised. A possessed man had become the mouthpiece of the devil   
   and was being used by heretics to discredit the preaching of the friar   
   who had so recently come to Pavia to preach the faith. The devil,   
   speaking through the lips of the possessed man, issued a challenge to   
   the friar: "If you are from God, cast me out and cure this man."   
      
   Isnard realized that one does not lightly take up open battle with the   
   powers of wickedness. The condition of the poor man, whose name was   
   Martin, was enough to strike terror into any heart. The challenge came   
   when Isnard was in the pulpit preaching. The possessed man was brought   
   into the church, screaming, and in convulsions. The preacher realized   
   that he must cure him or lose the interest of his audience in the   
   cause of Christ.   
      
   Stepping down from the pulpit, he approached the possessed man, put   
   his arms around him and, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,   
   demanded that the evil spirits depart. Martin was freed from his   
   tormentor, and he ended his days, according to legend, as a lay   
   brother in the local monastery.   
      
   At another time when Isnard was preaching, a hardened heretic refused   
   to listen to him and called out loudly, "I shall believe in the   
   sanctity of this man only if he makes that barrel on the corner of the   
   square come loose and strike me." Immediately, the barrel jumped from   
   its place and struck the scoffer, breaking his leg.   
      
   Isnard spent his life preaching and working in Pavia, regardless of   
   the fact that in spite of his life of self-mortification "he was   
   excessively fat and people used to ridicule him about it when he was   
   preaching." At his death, it presented a quite different appearance   
   from the godless and strife-ridden city it was when he had arrived   
   (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Dorcy).   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   "Some pursue their own taste and satisfaction in spiritual things in   
   preference to the way of perfection which consists in denying their   
   own wishes and tastes for the love of God, If such persons perform   
   some exercise through obedience, even though it suit their   
   inclination, they soon lose the wish for It, and all devotion in It,   
   because their only pleasure is in doing what their own will directs,   
   which ordinarily would be better left undone. The Saints did not act   
   thus".   
   --St. John of the Cross   
      
    The blessed Seraphino, a Capuchin lay-brother, said to a friend that   
   he would be glad to be in the house of Loretto or at Rome, that he   
   might serve as many Masses as possible. When it was suggested that he   
   might ask this favor of the Superiors, who would have readily granted   
   it, he replied: ‘‘Oh, not that! Any holy desire would be profaned by   
   one’s own will, and every good intention ought to be subject to   
   obedience, the only true directress of all holy thoughts."   
      
   (Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints".  March - Mortification)   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Now those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said:   
   This is of a truth the prophet, that is to come into the world.  (John   
   6:14)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)