From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Love does not envy others   
      
   Envy and jealousy, its counterpart, are sinful because they lead us to   
   sorrow over what should make us rejoice - namely, our neighbor's good.   
   The reason we may grieve over our another's good is that somehow we   
   see that good as lessening our own value or excellence. Envy forms   
   when we believe that the other person's advantage or possession   
   diminishes or brings disgrace on us. Envy is contrary to love. Both   
   the object of love and the object of envy is our neighbor's good, but   
   by contrary movements, since love rejoices in our neighbor's good,   
   while envy grieves over it.   
      
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   July 5th - St Athanasius the Athonite, Abbot   
      
   (c..1000)   
   FOR a 1000 years Athos, the Holy Mountain, the most easterly of the 3   
   large headlands which the peninsula of Chalcidice thrusts out into the   
   Aegean Sea, has been the chief centre of Byzantine monasticism; for   
   nearly all that time this " monastic republic" has been out of   
   communion with the Holy See, but at the time of its inception and   
   organization, and during the preceding centuries when it was occupied   
   by little colonies of hermits, Athos was Catholic and a stronghold of   
   orthodoxy in a different sense from that in which it is so today. The   
   father of Mount Athos as a congeries of regular monasteries was one   
   Athanasius, who was born at Trebizond about the year 920, the son of   
   an Antiochene, and baptized Abraham.   
      
   He studied at Constantinople, where he became a professor; and while   
   he was teaching he met St Michael Maleinos and his nephew, Nicephorus   
   Phocas, who as emperor was to be Abraham's patron. He received the   
   monastic habit in St Michael's monastery at Kymina in Bithynia, taking   
   the name of Athanasius, and lived there till about the year 958.   
   Kymina was a laura, the name then reserved for monasteries wherein the   
   monks lived in separate cells grouped more or less closely round their   
   church. When the abbot St Michael Maleinos died Athanasius saw that he   
   would be pretty surely elected in his place; he therefore fled, and   
   eventually found his way to Mount Athos, to avoid this responsibility   
   --only to find that God was reserving for him a greater.   
      
   He disguised himself as an ignorant fellow, assuming the name of   
   Dorotheus, and hid in a cell near Karyes, but he was soon traced and   
   found by his friend Nicephorus Phocas. He was about to undertake an   
   expedition against the Saracens, and persuaded Athanasius to come to   
   Crete to help him organize it (it is so often found that the   
   contemplative soul is a capable man of affairs which, after all, is   
   only to be expected) and to support it with his blessing and prayers.   
   Athanasius was very unwilling to make this sally out into the world   
   and its concerns, but he went; the expedition was victorious, and   
   Athanasius asked permission to return to Athos. But before he was   
   allowed to, he was forced to accept a large sum of money, with which he   
   was to build a monastery. This, the first monastery proper on Athos,   
   was begun in the spring of 961 and the church two years later; it was   
   dedicated in honour of the All-holy Mother of God, but is now called   
   "of St Athanasius", or, more often, simply Laura, "The Monastery".   
      
   When Nicephorus Phocas became emperor, Athanasius feared that he might   
   be called to court or to other honours and disturbing offices, so he   
   ran away from Athos to Cyprus. Phocas again found him and told him to   
   go back and govern his monastery in peace, giving him more money, with   
   which was built a harbour for Athos. In adopting the laura system for   
   his monks, Athanasius had deliberately reversed the policy of St Basil   
   and St Theodore Studites and returned in a measure to the ancient   
   monastic tradition of Egypt; his monks were to be as "out of the   
   world" as is possible for human beings (even now the Athonite monks   
   are still extraordinarily "out of touch with things", as a general   
   rule). But in spite of this he was involved in great difficulties with   
   the solitaries who had been on Athos long before he came and who felt,   
   understandably, that generations of predecessors had given them a   
   prescriptive right to have the place to themselves; they resented his   
   coming there and building monasteries and churches and harbours,   
   imposing rules and keeping order generally.   
      
    Twice attempts were made to murder St Athanasius. Criminal violence   
   spoils the best of causes, and the Emperor John Tzimisces interfered;   
   He confirmed the donations and rights granted by Nicephorus Phocas,   
   forbade opposition to Athanasius, and recognized his authority over   
   the whole of the mountain and its inhabitants. He thus became superior   
   general over 58 communities of hermits ,and monks, and the monasteries   
   of Iviron, Vatopedi and Esphigmenou were founded, which still exist as   
   living communities. St Athanasius died about the year 1000, being   
   killed with 5 of his monks by the falling of a keystone of the vault   
   of the church on which they were working. He is named daily in the   
   preparation of the Byzantine Liturgy, and is sometimes called "the   
   Lauriote "or  “of Trebizond ".   
      
   There exists a very full Greek life of St Athanasius the Athonite   
   which was edited in Russia by J. Pomialovsky in 1895. The author was a   
   monk, also named Athanasius, who lived in close relation with the   
   saint's immediate successor in office. Another long biography in   
   Greek, based upon the earlier text, was published by L. Petit in the   
   Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxv (1906), pp. 1-89, with the addition of   
   valuable notes;....   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Let love be without dissimulation. Hating that which is evil, cleaving   
   to that which is good,   
   Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood: with honour   
   preventing one another.  [Romans 12:9-10] DRB   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "He who knows himself, knows God and he who knows God, is worthy to   
   worship Him as is right. My beloved in the Lord, know yourselves. For   
   they who know themselves, know their time and they who know their   
   time, are able to stand firm, and not be moved about by diverse   
   tongues."   
   --St. Anthony the Great.   
      
   <><><><>   
   Short prayers to our Lord:   
      
   Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, light of the world,   
    I adore Thee; for Thee, I live, for Thee I die.  Amen.   
      
   O sweetest Jesus, hide me in Thy Sacred Heart,   
   permit me not to be separated from Thee,   
   defend me from the evil foe.   
      
   Sweetest Jesus, be not my Judge, but my Saviour.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)