From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Obedience and Discipline   
      
   Everyone gladly does whatever he most likes, and likes best those who   
   think as he does; but if God is to dwell among us we must sometimes   
   yield our own opinion for the sake of peace. Who is so wise that he   
   knows all things? So do not place too much reliance on the rightness   
   of your own view but be ready to consider the views of others. If your   
   opinion is sound, and you forego it for the love of God and follow   
   that of another, you will win great merit. I have often heard that it is   
   safer to accept advice than to give it. It may even come about that   
   each of two opinions is good; but to refuse to come to an agreement   
   with others when reason or occasion demand it is a sign of pride and   
   obstinacy.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 9   
      
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   11 February – St Caedmon   
      
   (Died c 680)   
   St Caedmon is the earliest English (Northumbrian) poet whose name is   
   known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at the double   
   monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey, in Yorkshire, England)   
   during the abbacy (657–680) of the Founder, St Hilda (614–680), he was   
   originally ignorant of “the art of song” but learned to compose one   
   night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century historian   
   and Saint, The Venerable St Bede (673-735) Father & Doctor of the   
   Church. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and   
   inspirational Christian poet.   
      
   The sole source of original information about Cædmon’s life and work   
   is St Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica. According to Bede, Cædmon was a   
   lay brother who cared for the animals at the monastery Streonæshalch,   
   now known as Whitby Abbey. One evening, while the monks were feasting,   
   singing and playing a harp, Cædmon left early to sleep with the   
   animals because he knew no songs. The impression clearly given by St   
   Bede is that he lacked the knowledge of how to compose the lyrics to   
   songs. While asleep, he had a dream in which “someone” approached him   
   and asked him to sing principium creaturarum, “the beginning of   
   created things.” After first refusing to sing, Cædmon subsequently   
   produced a short eulogistic poem praising God, the Creator of heaven   
   and earth.   
      
   Upon awakening the next morning, Cædmon remembered everything he had   
   sung and added additional lines to his poem. He told his foreman about   
   his dream and gift and was taken immediately to see the abbess, St   
   Hilda of Whitby. The abbess and her counsellors asked Cædmon about his   
   vision and, satisfied that it was a gift from God, gave him a new   
   commission, this time for a poem based on “a passage of sacred history   
   or doctrine”, by way of a test. When Cædmon returned the next morning   
   with the requested poem, he was invited to take monastic vows. The   
   abbess ordered her scholars to teach Cædmon sacred history and   
   doctrine, which after a night of thought, Bede records, Cædmon would   
   turn into the most beautiful verse. According to Bede, Cædmon was   
   responsible for a large number of splendid vernacular poetic texts on   
   a variety of Christian topics.   
      
   After a long and zealously pious life, Cædmon died like a saint –   
   receiving a premonition of death, he asked to be moved to the abbey’s   
   hospice for the terminally ill where, having gathered his friends   
   around him, he died after receiving the Holy Eucharist, just before   
   nocturns.   
      
   Bede’s narrative shows that Bede, an educated and intelligent man,   
   believed Cædmon to be an important figure in the history of English   
   intellectual and religious life. He, however, gives no specific dates   
   in his story. Cædmon is said to have taken holy orders at an advanced   
   age and it is implied that he lived at Whitby, at least in part,   
   during Hilda’s abbacy (657–680).   
      
   Cædmon is one of twelve Anglo-Saxon poets identified in medieval   
   sources and one of only three of these for whom both roughly   
   contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output   
   have survived. St Bede wrote, “there was in the Monastery of this   
   Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God,   
   who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was   
   interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into   
   poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in Old English,   
   which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were   
   often excited to despise the world and to aspire to heaven.”   
      
   Cædmon’s only known surviving work is Cædmon’s Hymn, the nine-line   
   alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God which he learned   
   to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested   
   examples of Old English and is one of the earliest recorded examples   
   of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. In 1898, St Cædmon’s Cross   
   was erected in his honour in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church in   
   Whitby.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   The stench of impurity before God and the angels is so great, that no   
   stench in the world can equal it.   
   --St. Philip Neri   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will   
   raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to   
   build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he   
   spoke of the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from   
   the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they   
   believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.  [John   
   2:19-22]  RSVCE   
      
      
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   Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;   
   Naught be all else to me save that Thou art.   
   Thou my best thought by day or by night,   
   Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light.   
      
   Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;   
   I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;   
   Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;   
   Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.   
      
   Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for my fight,   
   Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.   
   Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower.   
   Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.   
      
   Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,   
   Thou mine inheritance, now and always;   
   Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,   
   High King of heaven my Treasure Thou art.   
      
   High King of heaven, my victory won,   
   May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's son,   
   Heart of my heart, whatever befall   
   Still be my vision, O ruler of all.   
   – Saint Dallan Forgaill   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)