From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Bear One Another's Burdens   
      
      "The responsibility of love is that we bear one another's burdens.   
   But this responsibility, which is not an eternal one, leads doubtless   
   to an eternal blessedness in which there will be no burdens for us   
   that we will be required to bear for one another.   
      Now, however, while we are in this life, that is, on this journey,   
   let us bear one another's burdens so that we can achieve that life   
   which is free of every burden."   
   --St. Augustine--Eighty-three Diverse Questions, 71   
      
   Prayer: Lord, inspire me with love, that I may teach sweetness. Give   
   me patience, that I may teach discipline. Enlighten my understanding,   
   that I may teach wisdom.   
   --St. Augustine--Commentary on Psalm 118 (17), 4   
      
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   October 15th - Saint Teresa of Avila   
      
   Virgin, Reformer of the Carmelite Order (1515-1582)   
      
   "By their fruits you will know them," says Our Lord of those who claim   
   to be His followers. The fruits which remain of the life, labors and   
   prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila bear to her virtue a living and   
   enduring testimony which none can refuse to admit. She herself wrote   
   her life and many other celebrated spiritual works, and much more can   
   still be said of this soul of predilection, whose writings and   
   examples have led so many souls to high sanctity.   
      
   Born in 1515 in the kingdom of Castile in Spain, she was the youngest   
   child of a virtuous nobleman. When she was seven years old, Teresa   
   fled from her home with one of her young brothers, in the hope of   
   going to Africa and receiving the palm of martyrdom. Brought back and   
   asked the reason for her flight, she replied: "I want to see God, and   
   I must die before I can see Him." She then began, with her same   
   brother, Rodriguez, to build a hermitage in the garden, and was often   
   heard repeating: "Forever, forever!" She lost her mother at the age of   
   twelve years, and was led by worldly companions into various   
   frivolities. Her father decided to place her in a boarding convent,   
   and she obeyed without any inclination for this kind of life. Grace   
   came to her assistance with the good guidance of the Sisters, and she   
   decided to enter religion in the Carmelite monastery of the   
   Incarnation at Avila.   
      
   For a time frivolous conversations there, too, checked her progress   
   toward perfection, but finally in her thirty-first year, she abandoned   
   herself entirely to God. A vision showed her the very place in hell to   
   which her apparently light faults would have led her, and she was told   
   by Our Lord that all her conversation must be with heaven. Ever   
   afterwards she lived in the deepest distrust of herself. When she was   
   named Prioress against her will at the monastery of the Incarnation,   
   she succeeded in conciliating even the most hostile hearts by placing   
   a statue of Our Lady in the seat she would ordinarily have occupied,   
   to preside over the Community.   
      
   God enlightened her to understand that He desired the reform of her   
   Order, and her heart was pierced with divine love. The Superior   
   General gave her full permission to found as many houses as might   
   become feasible. She dreaded nothing so much as delusion in the   
   decisions she would make in difficult situations; we can well   
   understand this, knowing she founded 17 convents for the   
   Sisters, and that 15 others for the Fathers of the Reform were   
   established during her lifetime, with the aid of Saint John of the   
   Cross. To the end of her life she acted only under obedience to her   
   confessors, and this practice both made her strong and preserved her   
   from error. Journeying in those days was far from comfortable and even   
   perilous, but nothing could stop the Saint from accomplishing the holy   
   Will of God. When the cart was overturned one day and she had a broken   
   leg, her sense of humor became very evident by her remark: "Dear Lord,   
   if this is how You treat Your friends, it is no wonder You have so   
   few!" She died October 4, 1582, and was canonized in 1622.   
      
   The history of her mortal remains is as extraordinary as that of her   
   life. After nine months in a wooden coffin, caved in from the excess   
   weight above it, the body was perfectly conserved, though the clothing   
   had rotted. A fine perfume it exuded spread throughout the entire   
   monastery of the nuns, when they reclothed it. Parts of it were later   
   removed as relics, including the heart showing the marks of the   
   Transverberation, and her left arm. At the last exhumation in 1914,   
   the body was found to remain in the same condition as when it was seen   
   previously, still recognizable and very fragrant with the same intense   
   perfume.   
      
   Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul   
   Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882)   
      
      
   Reflection:   
    The devotion of Saint Teresa of Avila to Saint Joseph, virginal   
   father of Jesus, is proverbial. She said she had never asked anything   
   of him without receiving what she requested. In the 18th century   
   the Carmelite churches named for him numbered over one hundred and   
   fifty. Let us imitate this holy Foundress and invoke Saint Joseph for   
   our needs, both spiritual and temporal.   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   For which cause I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift   
   of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands. For God   
   gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and   
   discipline. Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor   
   of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to   
   the power of God;   
   --St. Paul in his second letter to Timothy (2 Tim 1:6-8)  DRB   
      
      
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   IDLE TALK   
      
    A sin that is most common and very little recognized is the sin of   
   idle talk. Let us ponder what the Holy Bible has to say on this   
   subject and then adjust our lives accordingly. From the Holy Bible:   
   “But I tell you that of every idle word men speak, they shall give   
   account on the day of judgment.  For by thy words thou wilt be   
   condemned” (Matt. 12:36-37). What is the general rule about the use of   
   the tongue? “But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and   
   slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not work the justice of God”   
   (James 1:19-20).  What does idle talking lead to? “ But avoid profane   
   and empty babblings, for they contribute much to ungodliness and their   
   speech spreads like a cancer" (2 Tim. 2:16:18).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)