From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Perseverance into Old Age   
      
      "Please forgive me if I have spoken too much. I am a long-winded   
   old man, and ill health has made me anxious. As you see, I have grown   
   old with the passing years. But for a long time now, this ill health   
   has made an old man of me.   
      However, if God is pleased with what I have just said, he will give   
   me strength. I will not desert you."   
   --St. Augustine--Sermon 355, 7   
      
   Prayer: Lord, with your help we have done what you commanded. Reward   
   us, now, as you promised.   
   --St. Augustine--Sermon 31, 6   
      
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   August 18th – St. Alipius, Bishop of Tagaste   
      
   ST. Alipius was born about the year 360 at Tagaste in Africa, of which   
   town St. Augustine, only a few years older than himself, was also a   
   native. He studied grammar at Tagaste and rhetoric at Carthage, both   
   under St. Augustine, till a disagreement happened between his master   
   and his father. Alipius still retained a great affection and respect   
   for Augustine, and was reciprocally much beloved by him. At Carthage   
   Alipius was engrossed by the circus, to which the inhabitants of that   
   city were extravagantly addicted. Augustine was afflicted that so   
   hopeful a young man should be lost in what was an exceedingly   
   dangerous interest, but he had no opportunity to warn him, as Alipius   
   by that time was not allowed by his father to be any longer one of his   
   scholars. Alipius happened, however, one day to go into his school,   
   and hear some part of the lecture, as he did sometimes by stealth.   
   Augustine, in expounding the subject which he had in hand, borrowed a   
   similitude from the shows of the circus, with a smart rebuke for those   
   who were involved in their excesses. This he did without any thought   
   of Alipius. But he imagined it had been spoken purely for him and,   
   being a well-disposed youth, was angry with himself for his weakness,   
   and determined to overcome it.   
      
   Alipius, pursuing a career in the world according to the wishes of his   
   parents, went to Rome to study the law. He had already moved some   
   distance on the road towards conversion to Christianity, but soon had   
   a serious set-back. Some of his friends meeting him one day led him to   
   some barbarous sports. He resisted all the way, and said to them, “If   
   you haul my body thither, can you force me to turn my mind or my eyes   
   upon these shows? I shall be absent therefrom, though present in   
   body.” Yet they did not desist, but carried him with them. When they   
   had taken their seats Alipius shut his eyes, that his soul might not   
   take any delight in such scenes; and would to God, says St. Augustine,   
   he had shut his ears too. For hearing a great shout, he was overcome   
   by curiosity and opened his eyes, meaning only to see what the matter   
   was, and then shut them again. But, showing us how much our safety   
   depends upon our shunning the occasions of evil and shutting out all   
   dangerous objects from our soul, by this curiosity he fell. One of the   
   combatants was wounded; and Alipius no sooner saw the blood of the   
   wounded gladiator than, instead of turning away his eyes, he fixed   
   them on the savage sight, sucked in all the fury, and was made drunk   
   with the insensate cruelty of those criminal combats. He was not now   
   the man he came, but one of the multitude with which he mingled. He   
   looked on gloatingly, he shouted, he carried away with him a madness   
   which compelled him to return again and to draw others with him. He   
   relapsed into his former passion for the diversions of the circus,   
   some of them innocent, some barbarous, and some gross. From these   
   misfortunes he learned to fear his own weakness, and trust in God   
   alone, after he had been rescued by the strong and merciful hand of   
   his Creator. But this was long afterwards.   
      
   In the meantime Alipius followed his studies, lived chaste, behaved   
   with integrity and honour, and in due course received a judicial   
   office, which he discharged with equity and disinterestedness. When   
   Augustine came to Rome he stuck close to him, went with him to Milan   
   in 384, and shared his conversion. Their names were inscribed together   
   among the competentes at the beginning of the Lent of 387. Alipius   
   followed with exactness and fervour the exercises of catechumens   
   before baptism, and received that sacrament with St. Augustine from   
   St. Ambrose on Easter eve. Some time after they went back to Africa.   
   They lived together at Tagaste, in a small community of devout   
   persons, in the fervent practice of penance and prayer. Worldly habits   
   just discarded stood in need of such a retreat, and habits of virtue   
   were to be formed and strengthened. Such a solitude was also a   
   necessary preparation for the apostolic life, which these holy men   
   afterwards undertook.   
      
   They lived thus three years at Tagaste when, St. Augustine being made   
   priest of Hippo, they all removed thither and continued the same   
   manner of life. Alipius, now a priest, made a pilgrimage of devotion   
   to Palestine, where he met with St. Jerome. Upon his return to Africa   
   he was consecrated bishop of Tagaste, about the year 393. He was St.   
   Augustine’s chief assistant in all his public work, and preached and   
   laboured with indefatigable zeal in the cause of God and His Church.   
   St. Augustine in a letter which he wrote to St. Alipius in 429 calls   
   him old, and he seems not to have long survived that year. His name   
   occurs in the Roman Martyrology on August 15, but the Augustinian   
   canons regular and others keep his feast on the 18th.   
      
   A sufficient account of St. Alipius, pieced together mainly from the   
   writings of St. Augustine, will be found in the Acta Sanctorum,   
   August, vol. iii.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   The rosary is said not with the lips alone, muttering Hail Marys one   
   after the other. … For a Christian vocal prayer must spring from the   
   heart, so that while the rosary is said, the mind can enter into   
   contemplation of each one of the mysteries.   
   -- Saint Josemaria Escriva   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "Put not your trust in princes; in the children of men, in whom there   
   is no salvation. Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his   
   helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God; who made heaven and earth,   
   the sea, and all things that are in them."  (Ps. 114:3,5-6).   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   We are all members of Christ. We do all things with Him, (in a   
   sacramental and mystical way, and in actual life according to the   
   position on the scale of time) as His members: we suffer with Him, are   
   buried with Him, we rise with Him, we ascend and sit in heavenly   
   places with Him. The more we are like Him in this first phase,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)