From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   -- Psalm 95:6-9 --   
      
       Come, let us bow down in worship,   
       let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;   
       for he is our God   
       and we are the people of his pasture,   
       the flock under his care.   
       Today, if you hear his voice,   
       do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,   
       as you did that day at Massah in the desert,   
       where your fathers tested and tried me,   
       though they had seen what I did.   
   ========================   
   A hardened heart is as useless as a hardened lump of clay or a   
   hardened loaf of bread. Nothing can restore it and make it useful. The   
   psalmist warns against hardening our hearts as Israel did in the   
   desert by continuing to resist God's will (Exodus 17:7). They were so   
   convinced that God couldn't deliver them that they simply lost faith   
   in him. When someone's heart becomes hardened, that person is so   
   stubbornly set in his ways that he or she cannot turn to God. This   
   does not happen all at once; it is the result of a series of choices   
   to disregard God's will. If you resist God long enough, God may toss   
   you aside like hardened bread, useless and worthless.   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   4 October – Saint Petronius  Bishop of Bologna   
      
   (Died c 450)   
   Patronages – Bologna, Italy, archdiocese of and the city of Bologna.   
   The only certain historical information we possess concerning St   
   Petronius is derived from a letter written by Bishop Eucherius of   
   Lyons to Valerianus and from Gennadius of Massilia (died c 496) “De   
   viris illustribus.” Eucherius writes, that the holy Bishop Petronius   
   was then renowned in Italy for his virtues.   
      
   From Gennadius we receive more detailed personal information –   
   Petronius belonged to a noble family, whose members occupied high   
   positions at the imperial Court at Milan and, in the provincial   
   administrations, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the   
   fifth centuries. His father (also named Petronius) was probably a   
   governor, since a Petronius filled this office in Gaul in 402-8.   
   Eucherius also seems to suggest that the future bishop also held an   
   important secular position.   
   Even in his youth Petronius devoted himself to the practices of   
   asceticism and seems to have visited the Holy Places in Jerusalem,   
   perhaps on a pilgrimage.   
      
   About 432 he was elected and consecrated Bishop of Bologna, where he   
   erected a church to St Stephen, the building design of which, was in   
   imitation of the shrines on Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre in   
   Jerusalem.   
      
   According to Gennadius, Petronius died during the reign of Emperor   
   Theodosius and Valentinian, i. e., before 450., of natural causes. A   
   biography and relics, were discovered in 1141. Shortly afterwards, a   
   church was erected in his honour at Bologna, a second, planned on a   
   larger site, was begun in 1390 and partially completed. In 1659 the   
   building work was resumed and the glorious Italian-Gothic church   
   completed as it stands to-day.   
      
   In iconography, he is depicted as a bishop holding a model of Bologna   
   in his hand.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Receive Lord, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole   
   will. You have given me all that I have, all that I am, and I   
   surrender all to your divine will, that you dispose of me as you will.   
   Give me only your love and your grace. With this I am rich enough, and   
   I have no more to ask.   
   --St. Ignatius Loyola   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of   
   God  (I Cor. 10:31)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer for the souls in purgatory, from Father Lasance's My Prayer Book:   
      
    St. Thomas declares that prayer for the dead is the most excellent kind   
   of intercessory prayer.   
      
   The Cure D'Ars once said: 'Oh my friends, let us pray much, and let obtain   
   many prayers from others, for the poor dead; the good God will render back   
   to us the good we do for them a hundred fold.  Ah! if everyone knew how   
   useful this devotion to the holy souls in purgatory is to those who   
   practice it, they would not be forgotten so often; the good God regards all   
   that we do for them as if it were done to Himself.' "   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)