From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   God is the only teacher   
      
       "As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our   
   pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and   
   it demands good students, not ones who play truant. In this school we   
   learn something every day. We learn something from commandments,   
   something from examples, and something from sacraments. These things   
   are remedies for our wounds and materials for study."   
      
   Are you an eager student of God's word and do you listen to it with   
   faith and obedience?   
      
   "Lord Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may listen to your   
   word attentively and obey it joyfully."   
   --St. Augustine--   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   March 23rd - St. Joseph Oriol, Visionary   
   (Also known as José Orioli)   
      
   Born in Barcelona, Spain, on November 23, 1650; died there on March   
   23, 1702; beatified by Pope Pius VII on May 15, 1896; canonized in   
   1909. Father Joseph Oriol is remembered for the heroism of his   
   virtues, for the example he proposes to Christians, and for the   
   singular favors God accorded him.   
      
   Joseph is a saint among thousands of saints; but, for more than three   
   centuries, history and legend together have justified the cognomen his   
   parishioners gave him, even before he died: "wonder-worker of   
   Barcelona." A saint among thousands of saints; but, for about three   
   centuries, history and legend have emphasized the healings, the   
   prophecies, the miracles of all kinds of which Joseph Oriol was the   
   instrument.   
      
   Joseph Oriol was born of a poor family. His good conduct, his   
   particular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament persuaded his parish   
   priest to prepare him for the priesthood. He earned a doctorate in   
   theology. In 1675, he was ordained and soon Innocent XI granted him a   
   benefice at Santa Maria del Pino in his native city. In spite of his   
   attempts and temptations, Joseph Oriol never left his parish.   
      
   Although he hoped to evangelize the infidels, God showed him that he   
   had another vocation. On his way to Rome, Father Joseph fell ill and   
   experienced a vision that outlined his new mission: He was to   
   reinvigorate the faith of lukewarm hearts in Barcelona. Thus, Joseph   
   Oriol instructed children, evangelized soldiers, and prayed and urged   
   others to pray for the living and the dead.   
      
   He wore a hair-shirt, lived only on bread and water for 26 years, and   
   used the discipline on himself. Nevertheless, he is not remembered for   
   his austerity, but rather for his faith, hope, and love of God and   
   neighbor. He epitomized the exercise of these virtues to such a high   
   degree of perfection that the Devil was worried, persecuted him and   
   even left his imprint on his flesh. But only on the flesh. Joseph   
   Oriol remained firm on the path of justice and God manifested his   
   Power and favors through his servant with extraordinary gifts. Death   
   finally ended his life on the date he had announced.   
      
   Others would prefer, perhaps, that for the above conventional picture   
   we substitute the one of the wonder-worker, the image of a veritable   
   "medium," worthy heir of the charlatans of paganism, worthy rival of   
   the sorcerers of fetishism, a conjurer as well as a man contemptuous   
   of natural laws.   
      
   But that kind of picture does not deal with holiness. Holiness takes   
   hold of man and utilizes him. It takes hold of the conscious and the   
   unconscious, it takes hold of the miracle-man who, without holiness,   
   would be less than a man, the inverted reflection of a saint   
   (Attwater2, Benedictines, Encyclopedia).   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself.  (Matthew 16:24)   
      
   "If we do not pay great attention to mortifying our own will, there   
   are many things that can take from us that holy liberty of spirit,   
   which we seek in order to be able to mount freely towards our Creator,   
   without being always weighed down with earth and lead. Besides, in a   
   soul that belongs to itself, and is attached to its own will, there   
   can never be solid virtue"   
   --St. Teresa   
      
    St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi said one day that she asked nothing of   
   the Lord except that He would take her own will from her; for she knew   
   that through the vivacity of her disposition, she did not advance so   
   much as she desired in those virtues which render a soul most pleasing   
   to the Lord. After saying this, she raised her eyes to Heaven and fell   
   into an ecstasy, in which she was shown by God how much harm is done   
   to souls, especially those of religious, when they are guided by their   
   own will which they once consecrated to God by vow. In the course of   
   the ecstasy, she took her Superior by the hand and led her to the   
   oratory, where she knelt and prayed the Virgin to enlighten her   
   Superior also, that she might take pains to despoil her of her will;   
   and after prostrating herself three times upon the ground, she   
   recovered from her trance. She was so much in earnest in this matter   
   that she once said she did not remember ever to have tried, either   
   secretly or openly, to incline the will of her Superior to her own.   
      
   (Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints".  March - Mortification)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)