From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Freedom and healing in Christ   
      
      "In the deaf and dumb and demoniac appear the need of the Gentiles   
   for a complete healing. Beleaguered on all sides by misfortune, they   
   were associated with all types of the body's infirmities. And in this   
   regard a proper order of things is observed. For the devil is first   
   cast out; then the other bodily benefits follow suit. With the folly   
   of all superstitions put to flight by the knowledge of God, sight and   
   hearing and words of healing are introduced. The declaration of the   
   onlookers followed their admiration over what took place: 'Never has   
   the like been seen in Israel.' Indeed, he whom the law could not help   
   was made well by the power of the Word, and the deaf and dumb man   
   spoke the praises of God. Deliverance has been given to the Gentiles.   
   All the towns and all the villages are enlightened by the power and   
   presence of Christ, and the people are freed from every impairment of   
   the timeless malady. Mt 9:32-38   
   by Hilary of Poitiers (excerpt from ON MATTHEW 9.10)   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   July 16th - St. Sisenandus of Cordova, Martyr   
    (also known as Sisenando of Cordoba   
      
   Born at Badajoz, Estremadura, Portugal; died at Cordova, Spain, 851.   
   Sisenandus was a man of the cross. He made the sign of the cross on   
   himself and on everything--on the face of the morning, on his bread, on   
   the road that he travelled. At every step, at every turn, the cross   
   was before him: the cross that can be seen planted in the earth or   
   elevated above the altar, and the cross that cannot be seen, the cross   
   that is secret and hidden.   
      
   From his youth he was filled with faith, and from his faith he learned   
   hope, and from his contemplation of the cross he learned charity. Led   
   by the cross he went to Cordova to study Latin, theology, canon law,   
   liturgy, and all that was needed to become a priest. He was ordained a   
   deacon at Cordova.   
      
   He lodged in the church of Saint Acisclus, martyred under Diocletian,   
   and it was to Saint Acisclus that he prayed for help, as if he already   
   knew what his own fate was to be. He prayed to the saint fervently,   
   constantly, appealing to him on the fellowship of the cross, not yet   
   knowing just what it was that drew him on. Nevertheless, he answered   
   the call, acknowledging the smallness of his understanding in the   
   embrace of divine logic; and gradually, as he prayed, his resolution   
   grew, his hesitation lessened and he prepared-not without fear-to   
   answer the call of Peter, Wallabonsus, Sabinian, Wistremundus,   
   Habentius, and Jeremias, all of them martyred by the Moors.   
      
   They were claiming him as one of them, and Sisenandus put himself into   
   the hands of Jesus Christ. The Moors under Abderrahman II had just   
   unleashed a new epidemic of persecutions against the Christians, but   
   Sisenandus had put himself in the hands of Jesus Christ, so how could   
   he be other than joyful?   
      
   He was imprisoned, but prison did not deprive him of his freedom for   
   with the cross as his key no doors were locked to him. He lived   
   without thought for the morrow and prayed for the conversion of his   
   guards. He wrote to one of his friends, but had to break off the   
   letter and end it with a cross, for he knew before they arrived that   
   his guards were coming to take him to his death.   
      
   God had seen his strength and courage and found him worthy enough to   
   know that his death was coming and to go out and meet it. When the   
   guards came and dragged him out of the prison with insults and blows,   
   he made the sign of the cross as if he were entering a church. And   
   when he was taken in front of the large crowd to be bound and   
   beheaded, he crossed himself for the last time (Benedictines,   
   Encyclopedia).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Occupy your minds with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with   
   bad ones. Unoccupied, they cannot be.   
   -- Saint Thomas More   
      
   <><><><>   
     You have not the Time   
   --Sermon from the Cure de Ars--Concerning Prayer and Work   
      
   We can only find our happiness on earth in loving God, and we can only   
   love Him in prayer to Him. We see that Jesus Christ, to encourage us   
   often to have recourse to Him through prayer, promises never to refuse   
   us anything if we pray for it as we should. But there is no need to go   
   looking for elaborate and roundabout ways of showing you that we   
   should pray often, for you have only to open your catechism and you   
   will see there that the duty of every good Christian is to pray   
   morning and evening and often during the day--that is to say,   
   always....   
      
   Which of us, my dear brethren, could, without tears of compassion,   
   listen to those poor Christians who dare to say that they have not   
   time to pray? You have not the time! Poor blind creatures, which is   
   the more precious action: to strive to please God and to save your   
   soul, or to go out to feed your animals in the stable or to call your   
   children or your servants in order to send them out to till the earth   
   or to tidy up the stable? Dear God! How blind man is! .... You have   
   not the time! But tell me, ungrateful creatures, if God had called you   
   to die that night, would you have exerted yourselves? If He had sent   
   you three or four months of illness, would you have exerted   
   yourselves? Go away, you miserable creatures; you deserve to have God   
   abandon you in your blindness and leave you thus to perish. We find   
   that it is too much to give Him a few minutes to thank Him for the   
   graces which He is giving us at every instant! ....   
      
   You must get on with your work, you say.   
      
   That, my dear people, is where you are greatly mistaken. You have no   
   other work to do except to please God and to save your souls. All the   
   rest is not your work. If you do not do it, others will, but if you   
   lose your soul, who will save it?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)