From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   "Which will love him more?"   
   Meditation: Luke 7:36-50   
      
    What fuels the love that surpasses all other loves? Unbounding   
   gratitude for sure! No one who met Jesus could do so with   
   indifference. They were either attracted to him or repelled by him.   
   Why did a rabbi invite Jesus to a nice dinner and then treat him   
   discourteously by neglecting to give him the customary signs of   
   respect and honor? Simon was very likely a collector of celebrities.   
   He patronized Jesus because of his popularity with the crowds. Why did   
   he criticize Jesus' compassionate treatment of a woman of ill repute -   
   most likely a prostitute? The Pharisees shunned the company of public   
   sinners and in so doing they neglected to give them the help they   
   needed to find healing and wholeness.   
      
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   July 21st – Bl. François De Montmorency-Laval   
      
   First Bishop of Quebec and of Canada   
   (1623-1708)   
      
   Blessed François de Laval was born at St. Martin de Montigny-sur-Avre,   
   Normandy, France. He wanted to become a priest from his earliest   
   childhood. When he was eight years old, his father placed him with the   
   Jesuits, where he lived for fourteen years far from his family.   
      
   François lost his father in 1636. His uncle, a bishop, appointed him a   
   canon of Evreux to assist his family. He was ordained a priest on May   
   1, 1647. King Louis XIV chose him as the first Bishop of New France.   
   On December 8, 1658, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the   
   thirty-eight year old prelate was consecrated a bishop. He left for   
   Quebec on June 16, 1659, and immediately began making pastoral visits   
   throughout his immense diocese.   
      
   Upon his arrival, he won everyone’s confidence with his charity,   
   piety, discernment and impartiality. His first concern consisted in   
   advancing the organization of the Church in Canada. He contributed   
   greatly towards both the civil and religious formation of the country.   
   Even though he had to face many difficulties, with his wise, firm   
   action, he succeeded in implanting the Faith all over North America.   
      
   Bishop de Laval first founded the Seminary of Quebec which gathered   
   together a community of priests; in 1663 he entrusted the formation of   
   his clergy to this seminary. Five years later, a Minor Seminary was   
   opened for the recruitment of his clergy. In conformity with holy   
   practice in the early centuries of the Church, all the clerics and   
   churchmen lived out of a common fund. Blessed François de Laval had to   
   fight with all his might against disorders that had been introduced   
   into the country at the beginning of its colonization, chiefly the   
   traffic of intoxicating liquor. Saint Mary of the Incarnation wrote,   
   “The bishop has had many conflicts in New France concerning liquor   
   given to the natives which almost led to the total ruin of this new   
   Church.” Thanks to his apostolic zeal, this shameful commerce was   
   absolutely forbidden.   
      
   The secular powers raised serious opposition to his evangelizing   
   activities, but Bishop de Laval never capitulated in the face of his   
   adversaries’ odious proceedings. With firmness and perseverance, the   
   holy bishop resisted all encroachments of civil authorities in Church   
   government. He rose up with authority against anyone who wanted to   
   hinder the implantation of Christianity in the blessed land of New   
   France. With supreme patience, he endured all the wicked actions that   
   earthly magnates wrought against him, as well as two major fires that   
   demolished his seminary, for which he had labored so hard.   
      
   This holy bishop, a pioneer of the Church in New France, lived in   
   constant, heroic renouncement. He wore a hair shirt and slept very   
   little, so as to be able to pray all his offices and rosaries. As for   
   the brief rest he granted himself, he took it on a wretched mat laid   
   on a bed of boards, without even a sheet to cover himself. His great   
   evangelical simplicity was also very praiseworthy, for never did any   
   man have a greater horror of showmanship and vanity, especially when   
   it presented itself under a cover of religion.   
      
   This worthy, virtuous prelate wore old, patched garments. For twenty   
   years he owned only two winter cassocks. At his death one of them was   
   still good; the other, threadbare and patched, attested to his   
   wonderful spirit of poverty. Hard on himself, this admirable man of   
   God was prodigal to excess towards Christ’s poor. Every year he never   
   failed to give the needy 1,500 to 2,000 pounds.   
      
   Blessed François de Laval endured the sufferings of his last years   
   with great serenity and resignation to God’s will. During Holy Week in   
   1708 he contracted the illness that was to take him to the grave. On   
   May 6, 1708, he died in the company of his priests, reciting the   
   Rosary and the Litany of the Holy Family, which devotion he had   
   propagated throughout Canada.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends,   
    but let us not despair. God is like a looking glass in which souls   
   see each other.   
   The more we are united to Him by love,   
   the nearer we are to those who belong to Him.   
   -- St. Elizebeth Ann Seton   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Amen, amen, I say to you: He that entereth not by the door into the   
   sheepfold but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a   
   robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the   
   sheep. To him the porter openeth: and the sheep hear his voice. And he   
   calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out. And when he hath   
   let out his own sheep, he goeth before them: and the sheep follow him,   
   because they know his voice. But a stranger they follow not, but fly   
   from him, because they know not the voice of strangers.  (Joh 10:1-5)   
   DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   17. With those who are perfect and walk with simplicity, there is   
   nothing small and contemptible, if it be a thing that pleases God; for   
   the pleasure of God is the object at which alone they aim, and which   
   is the reason, the measure, and the reward of all their occupations,   
   actions, and plans; and so, in whatever they find this, it is for them   
   a great and important thing.   
   --St. Alphonsus Rodriguez   
      
   This is the reason why St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. John Berchmans, St.   
   Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi, and so many others were so observant even of   
   the least Rule, so exact in all their ordinary occupations and so   
   careful to perform well every work trusted to them, however trifling   
   it might be. It is stated that the celebrated Father Ribera kept up   
   through his whole life the same exact observance which marked his   
   novitiate.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)