From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Self-Examination, and the Purpose of Amendment:  [III]   
      
   When you have confessed and grieved over these and your other faults   
   with deep sorrow and contrition at your own weakness, make a firm   
   resolve to amend your life and to advance in holiness. Then surrender   
   yourself and your will entirely to Me, and offer yourself on the altar   
   of your heart as a perpetual sacrifice to the honour of My Name.   
   Faithfully commit yourself to Me, body and soul, that you may worthily   
   approach and offer this Sacrifice to God, and receive the Sacrament of   
   My Body to the health of your soul.   
   --Thomas à Kempis--Imitation of Christ Book 4 Ch.7   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   October 16th - St. Margaret d'Youville   
   Foundress of the Sisters of Charity, called Grey Nuns   
      
   The oldest of six children, at seven years of age Mary Margaret   
   Dufrost, born at Varennes near Montreal, had already lost her   
   courageous soldier-father. After receiving only two years of excellent   
   education in Quebec City with the Ursuline nuns, she was obliged to   
   return to Varennes before her 12th birthday, to assist her mother to   
   bring up her five younger brothers and sisters. The Sisters had   
   foreseen the heavy responsibilities which would come upon her, and   
   under their tutelage, as they later testified, she had “redoubled her   
   activity and application to all her duties.” By means of a subsidy   
   granted by the king of France to the families of his deceased military   
   officers, the little family was able to remain together.   
      
   One day, some 60 years later, Mother Margaret d’Youville, Foundress of   
   a Congregation of Sisters of Charity, would be known to the people of   
   Quebec as “the Providence of Montreal.” It became proverbial among the   
   Church’s authorities, even before she died, when there was a   
   charitable work to do, to “ask the Grey Nuns; they never refuse a   
   mission.” This was indeed an honorable reputation; but in 1730 the 26   
   year-old widow of Francis d’Youville, could not have imagined such   
   honor, nor what Providence was holding in store for her already strong   
   and experienced charity.   
      
   Saint Margaret was living in Montreal with her two sons at the death   
   of Mr. d’Youville. It was soon evident that the pious widow would seek   
   no distraction amid the world’s frivolities. She took in sewing and   
   opened a little business, thus becoming known in the city; half of her   
   earnings were always dedicated to her children’s Christian   
   instruction. Both of her sons would later become priests. These   
   occupations were not enough, however, to occupy her time; she visited   
   prisoners, cared for the dying, brought peace to many troubled   
   households, and even aided the poor financially. Her work with the   
   unfortunate soon brought to her 3 apostolic young hearts, to offer   
   their assistance. The 4 young women put their savings in common, and   
   kneeling before a little statue of the Blessed Virgin, vowed their   
   lives to the care of the poor. They rented a house, and soon received   
   5 suffering members of the Mystical Body of Christ as their charges.   
      
   The young missionaries did not escape the harsh opinions which always   
   test the perseverance of those who desire to serve God in the person   
   of the unfortunate. Undisciplined tongues accused them of bootlegging   
   alcohol and even of making abundant use of it themselves. Mother   
   d’Youville prayed to the Eternal Father, to whom she would always have   
   an outstanding devotion, that she might not, during her trials, lose   
   her good spiritual director who was ill; she already had lost her   
   closest companion by death. The director was cured, but the little   
   hospital burnt down in January of 1745. The misery of the little group   
   won sympathy for them, and soon lodging, clothes and food were offered   
   them.   
      
   Their destitution drew the attention of city authorities, who at that   
   time were wondering what to do about the city hospital, overburdened   
   with large debts and without sufficient personnel to staff it. When   
   Mother d’Youville offered to take on both the debts and the labors,   
   they were very happy indeed to accept her offer. With five companions,   
   nine indigents and two lady-boarders, she entered the hospital in   
   1747. There a new difficulty for the foundress would soon make its   
   appearance; the work still had enemies.... an appeal to the king of   
   France, Louis XV, elicited his command that the decision of the local   
   authorities be canceled, and she was authorized in 1752 to keep the   
   hospital and to found a Community.   
      
   It was not only the sick who were the object of Saint Margaret   
   d’Youville’s loving care. Foundling children, prisoners, orphans, the   
   handicapped, the aged, were soon the cherished beneficiaries of the   
   Grey Nuns’ indefatigable solicitude. Their foundress passed to her   
   reward in 1771; and that night a large luminous cross appeared in the   
   Montreal skies, attesting the death of a Saint. But her community   
   continued and has been richly blessed, not only by the poor it has   
   strengthened for the combats of life, but by the Father of the Poor   
   Himself, who in 150 years gave it extension to fifteen dioceses of   
   North America. The Grey Nuns have labored in the most difficult   
   missions of the extreme north of Canada, as well as in a dozen cities   
   of the more southerly provinces and the United States. Their   
   self-effacement, their missionary spirit, their hardy courage in the   
   face of the rudest living conditions, have earned the admiration of   
   all who know them.   
      
   Source: La Vénérable Mère d’Youville, by Abbé Émile Dubois (L’Oeuvre   
   des Tracts: Montreal, 1921).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Clearly, what God wants above all is our will which we received as a   
   free gift from God in creation and possess as though our own. When a   
   man trains himself to acts of virtue, it is with the help of grace   
   from God from whom all good things come that he does this. The will is   
   what man has as his unique possession.   
   --Saint Joseph of Cupertino, from the reading for his feast in the   
   Franciscan breviary   
      
   Bible Quote:   
     My dearest, if God hath so loved us, we also ought to love one   
   another.  (1 St. John 4:11)  DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   A Prayer Of Confidence In God   
      
   Jesus of the loving Heart, I believe that thou doth care for me more   
   than Thou careth for the birds of the air or the lilies of the field.   
      
   I believe that Thou doth care for me more than a mother careth for the   
   child in her arms.   
   I believe that even though a mother may forget the child of her womb,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)