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 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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   March 18th - St. Anselm, Bishop of Lucca   
      
   d.1086   
   IT was in 1036 that St. Anselm was born in Mantua, and in 1073 his   
   uncle, Pope Alexander II, nominated him to the bishopric of Lucca,   
   left vacant by his own elevation to the chair of St. Peter, and sent   
   him to Germany to receive from the Emperor Henry IV the crozier and   
   the ring-- in accordance with the regrettable custom of the time.   
   Anselm, however, was so strongly convinced that the secular power had   
   no authority to confer ecclesiastical dignities that he could not   
   bring himself to accept investiture from the emperor and returned to   
   Italy without it. Only after he had been consecrated by Alexander’s   
   successor, Pope St. Gregory VII, did he consent to accept from Henry   
   the crozier and the ring, and even then he felt scruples of conscience   
   on the subject. These doubts led him to leave his diocese and to   
   withdraw to a congregation of Cluniac monks at Polirone. A dignitary   
   of such high-minded views could ill be spared, and Pope Gregory   
   recalled him from his retirement and sent him back to Lucca to resume   
   the government of his diocese. Zealous with regard to discipline, he   
   strove to enforce among his canons the common life enjoined by the   
   decree of Pope St. Leo IX. In acute discordance with the edifying   
   example accredited to them above in our notice of St. Frediano, the   
   canons refused to obey, although they were placed under an interdict   
   by the pope and afterwards excommunicated. Countess Matilda of Tuscany   
   undertook to expel them, but they raised a revolt and, being supported   
   by the Emperor Henry, drove the bishop out of the city in 1079.   
      
   St. Anselm retired to Canossa, to the Countess Matilda, whose director   
   he became, and in all the territories under her jurisdiction he   
   established strict order among the monks and the canons. He was wont   
   to say that he would prefer that the Church should have neither,   
   rather than that they should live undisciplined lives. He himself was   
   most austere, and always spent several hours daily in prayer: he never   
   drank wine, and found some pretext for avoiding delicate food at   
   well-served tables. Although he used to celebrate every day, he was   
   moved to tears in saying Mass, and he lived so continually in the   
   presence of God that no secular affairs could banish the remembrance   
   of it.   
      
   As one of Pope Gregory’s most faithful supporters, he drew upon   
   himself much persecution. His chief services to the pontiff were   
   rendered in connection with investitures, the suppression of which was   
   at that period a matter of life or death to the orderly government of   
   the Church. This abuse had been gradually increasing until it had   
   become a grievous scandal, especially in Germany. It had its roots in   
   the feudal system, under which bishops and abbots had become owners of   
   lands and even of cities, for which they naturally paid allegiance to   
   the sovereign, receiving in exchange temporal authority over the   
   territories they governed. But the consequence was that in course of   
   time all sacred offices were shamelessly sold to the highest bidder or   
   bestowed on profligate courtiers. Gregory had no more vigorous   
   supporter than Anselm of Lucca, who had himself protested against   
   receiving investiture at secular hands. After the death of Gregory,   
   the next pope nominated St. Anselm to be his legate in Lombardy--a   
   post which entailed the administration of several dioceses left vacant   
   in consequence of the investitures quarrel. Thus Anselm was apostolic   
   visitor, but he was never actually made bishop of Mantua, as some of   
   his biographers have claimed.   
      
   We read that he was a man of great learning, and had made a special   
   study of the Bible and of its commentators if questioned on the   
   meaning of any passage of Holy Scripture--a great part of which he   
   knew by heart--he could cite at once the explanations given by all the   
   great fathers of the Church. Amongst his writings may be mentioned an   
   important collection of canons and a commentary on the Psalms which he   
   began at the request of the Countess Matilda, but which he did not   
   live to complete. The holy bishop died in his native town of Mantua,   
   and the city has since adopted him as its principal patron saint.   
      
   The main source of information is the life of the saint, formerly   
   attributed to Bardo, primicerius of the cathedral of Lucca, though Mgr   
   Guidi has shown that the true author must have been a priest belonging   
   to the suite of the Countess Matilda (see Analecta Bollandiana, vol.   
   xlviii, p. 203). This “Bardo” life has been many times printed, e.g.   
   by Mabillon, the Bollandists, and in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xii. But   
   there is also a long poem by Ranierius (7300 lines), first printed by   
   La Fuente (1870), on which cf. Overmann in the Neues Archiv, vol. xxi   
   (1897). See also the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. ii, and P. Schmeidler   
   in the Neues Archiv., vol. xliii. Anselm’s Collectio Canonum has been   
   critically edited in recent times by Thaner.   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   19 Where words are many, sin is not wanting;   
   but those who restrain their lips do well.   
   20 Choice silver is the tongue of the just;   
   the heart of the wicked is of little worth.   
   21 The lips of the just nourish many,   
   but fools die for want of sense.  Proverbs 10:19-21:   
      
      
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   For Strength from the Passion   
      
   Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we, who in our many   
   troubles fail because of our weakness, may with the Passion of Thine   
   only-begotten Son pleading for us, take heart anew.   
   (Roman Missal)   
      
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   Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself. (Matthew 16:24)   
      
   "If we do not pay great attention to mortifying our own will, there are many   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)