From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On the Fervent Amendment of our Whole Life   
      
   “When a certain anxious person, who often times wavered between hope   
   and fear, once overcome with sadness, threw himself upon the ground in   
   prayer, before one of the altars in the Church and thinking these   
   things in his mind, said “Oh, if I only knew how to persevere,” that   
   very instant he heard within him, this heavenly answer: “And if thou   
   did know this, what would thou do? Do now what you would do and thou   
   shall be perfectly secure.” And immediately being consoled and   
   comforted, he committed himself to the Divine Will and his anxious   
   thoughts ceased. He no longer wished for curious things, searching to   
   find out what would happen to him but studied rather to learn what was   
   the acceptable and perfect will of God for the beginning and the   
   perfection of every good work.”   
   --Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)   
      
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   2 April – St Pedro Calungsod   
      
    Martyr, Sacristan, Missionary Lay Catechist--born in c 1654 in   
   Ginatilan, Cebu, Philippines, named after Saint Peter the Apostle and   
   died by being hacked to death with a catana on 2 April 1672 at Tomhom,   
   Guam. His mutilated body was thrown into the sea.   
      
   Pedro Calungsgod was young native of the Visayas Region in the   
   Philippines. Little is known about his life. Based on accounts, Pedro   
   was taught as a lay catechist in a Jesuit minor seminary in Loboc,   
   Bohol. For young recruits like him, the training consisted of learning   
   the Catechism, Spanish, and Latin. They would be later sent with the   
   priests to the countryside to perform daily religious functions as   
   altar boys or catechists. Some of them were even sent to mission   
   centres overseas to accompany the Jesuits in their arduous task of   
   proclaiming the Good News and establishing the Catholic faith in   
   foreign lands. And that was the case of Pedro Calungsod. He served as   
   a teenage catechist alongside Spanish Jesuit missionaries to the   
   violent Chamarros in the Ladrones Islands (modern Marianas) in 1668 at   
   age 14.   
      
   When he was 17, he and his companion Fr Diego Luis de San Vitores were   
   martyred after baptising the daughter of a Christian woman and a   
   non-Christian village chief in the now-U.S. territory of Guam. Upon   
   hearing of her baptism (with the mother’s consent), the chief attacked   
   the two missionaries. Though Pedro could have escaped, he did not   
   leave his companion.   
      
   “From his childhood, Pedro Calungsod declared himself unwaveringly for   
   Christ and responded generously to His call. Young people today can   
   draw encouragement and strength from the example of Pedro, whose love   
   of Jesus inspired him to devote his teenage years to teaching the   
   faith as a lay catechist,” Pope St. John Paul II declared during his   
   beatification in 2000.   
      
   “In a spirit of faith, marked by strong Eucharistic and Marian   
   devotion, Pedro undertook the demanding work asked of him and bravely   
   faced the many obstacles and difficulties he met. In the face of   
   imminent danger, Pedro would not forsake Fr Diego but as a ‘good   
   soldier of Christ’ preferred to die at the missionary’s side,” he   
   added.   
      
   He was Beatified on 5 March 2000 by St Pope John Paul II at Vatican   
   City and Canonised on 21 October 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.   
      
    Patronages--Filipino youth, Catechumens, altar boys, the Philippines,   
   Overseas Filipino Workers, Guam, Cebuanos, Visayans, Archdiocese of   
   Cebu.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Be assured that he who shall always walk faithfully in God's presence,   
   always ready to give Him an account of all his actions, shall never be   
   separated from Him by consenting to sin.   
   -- St. Thomas Aquinas   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    "Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You,   
   through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are   
   ever with me." [Psalm 119:97-98]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   "Heavenly Father, you offer us abundant grace, mercy, and forgiveness   
   through your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Help me to live a   
   grace-filled life as Mary did by believing in your promises and by   
   giving you my unqualified 'yes' to your will and plan for my life."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)