From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Listen to Him   
      
      "A voice from the cloud said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I   
   am well pleased; listen to him. I am manifested through his preaching.   
   I am glorified through his humility. So listen to him without   
   hesitation. He is the truth and the life. He is my strength and   
   wisdom. "Listen to him" whom the mysteries of the law foreshadowed, of   
   whom the mouths of the prophets sang. "Listen to him" who by his blood   
   redeemed the world, who binds the devil and seizes his vessels, who   
   breaks the debt of sin and the bondage of iniquity. "Listen to him"   
   who opens the way to heaven and by the pain of the cross prepares for   
   you the steps of ascent into his kingdom."   
    by Leo the Great (excerpt from Sermon 38,7)   
      
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   March 31st - Bl. Joan of Toulouse, Virgin   
   4th Century   
      
   As early as the year 1240 the Carmelite brothers from Palestine made a   
   settlement at Toulouse. Twenty-five years later, when St Simon Stock   
   was passing through Toulouse on his way to Bordeaux, he was approached   
   by a woman called Joan, who begged him to affiliate her to his order,   
   although she was living in her own home. The prior general consented,   
   clothed her with the Carmelite habit, and allowed her to take a vow of   
   perpetual chastity. As far as it was possible Joan followed strictly   
   the rule of St. Albert of Jerusalem, and she was venerated not only as   
   the first Carmelite tertiary, but as the founder of the Carmelite   
   tertiary order. She daily frequented the fathers’ church, and combined   
   penance with love, depriving herself almost of the necessaries of life   
   to relieve the sick and poor. She used to also train young boys in the   
   practices of holiness, with a view to preparing them to enter the   
   Carmelite Order. It was her custom to carry about with her a picture   
   of the crucified Redeemer, which she studied as though it had been a   
   book.   
      
   Bl. Joan was buried in the Carmelite church of Toulouse and her tomb   
   was thronged by those who sought her aid. For 600 years she was   
   honoured, and her body was re-enshrined several times--notably in   
   1805, when a little book of manuscript prayers was found beside her.   
      
   The above is a summary of the story of Bl. Joan (whose cultus was   
   confirmed in 1895) as it is related in the lessons for her feast in   
   the Carmelite supplement to the Breviary, but there has apparently   
   been considerable confusion. It seems clear that she in fact lived at   
   Toulouse towards the end of the fourteenth, not the 13th, century, and   
   that she was not a tertiary but a recluse.   
      
   See the Breviary lessons referred to above, and Fr. Bonifatius, Die   
   sel. Johanna von Toulouse (1897) ; and Fr. B. Zimmerman’s Monumenta   
   historica Carmelitana, p. 369, and Let saints deserts des Cannes   
   déchaussés (1927), pp. 17-18, where the problem is examined.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   I have endeavored to learn all doctrines; but I have acquiesced at   
   last in the true doctrines, those namely of the Christians, even   
   though they do not please those who hold false opinions.   
   -- Saint Justin Martyr at his trial   
      
   Bible Quote:   
      "If you make a vow to God, discharge it without delay, for God has   
   no love for fools, Discharge your vow.  Better a vow unmade than made   
   and not discharged.  Do not allow your mouth to make a sinner of you,   
   and do not say to the messenger that it was a mistake.  Why give God   
   occasion to be angry with you and ruin all the work that you have   
   done?" Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 5:3-5   
      
      
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   Reflection   
   The Jews demand signs and Jesus gave them to them. I shall rebuild   
   this temple in three days. They had not been listening to His message   
   for the last three years. But his apostles could not grasp the meaning   
   of these words either. When Christ reconciled with the father he made   
   us temples of the Living God (1 Cor 6: 19-20) and filled us with the   
   Holy Spirit. We have the advantage of hindsight but imagine how   
   chagrined the Pharisees were to hear such news at the time.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)