From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Enduring Injuries and the Proof of Patience [3]   
      
      You are not truly patient if you will only endure what you think   
   fit, and only from those whom you like. A truly patient man does not   
   consider by whom he is tried, whether by his superior, his equal, or   
   his inferior; whether by a good and holy man, or by a perverse and   
   wicked person. But however great or frequent the trial that besets   
   him, and by whatever agency it comes, he accepts it gladly as from the   
   hand of God, and counts it all gain.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3, Ch 19   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 22nd - Saint Joachima de Vedruna de Mas   
      
   Born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1783, Joachima was the 5th of the 8   
   children of the aristocratic Vedruna family. When she was 12 she   
   wanted to be a cloistered Carmelite nun; but at 16 she married a young   
   lawyer, Theodore de Mas, who had been thinking of becoming a   
   Franciscan. Both joined the Third Order Secular of St Francis. During   
   the 17 years of her married life, Joachima was a beloved wife and the   
   devoted mother of 8 children, the last of who was born in 1815.   
      
   When Napoleon invaded Spain, Theodore served in the Spanish army,   
   after he had moved his family to Vich. When the French troops arrived   
   there, Joachima had to flee with her children; but after the war she   
   returned to that city, the birthplace of her husband.   
      
   Joachima and Theodore were both members of the Third Order fraternity   
   at the Capuchin church in Vich. She was only 33 when Theodore died in   
   1816 at the age of 42. Though her old desire to enter a religious   
   community was still strong in her, Saint Joachima de Vedruna had   
   duties to perform towards her children; and so, for the first 7 years   
   of her widowhood she took care of her children. At the same time, she   
   led an austere life, wearing the Tertiary habit as her ordinary dress,   
   spending much time in prayers, and waiting on the sick in the hospital   
   at Vich.   
      
   One day in 1820, as Saint Joachima de Vedruna was passing the Capuchin   
   church, her mount refused to go farther. She went into the church and   
   entered the confessional of Father Stephen of Olot, a noted preacher   
   and director of souls. He told her that she was not to join an   
   existing religious order but to found a new community which would   
   devote itself to teaching in schools and to nursing the sick.   
      
   In 1823, two of her children married and one of them took the two   
   remaining girls into their home. Joachima was now free to carry out   
   her plans. Father Stephen assisted her in laying the foundations for a   
   Franciscan sisterhood of the Third Order Regular and drafted the   
   constitutions. The new sisterhood was formally established in 1826 in   
   Joachima’s home with six members, but not as a Franciscan community.   
   Bishop Paul Corcuera of Vich, a Carmelite, made it a congregation of   
   the Carmelite Third Order Regular and called it the Carmelite Sisters   
   of Charity. Later St Anthony Mary Claret revised their rule and   
   constitutions. In 1850 these received the approval of the bishop and   
   in 1880 the approbation of the Holy See.   
      
   Though a hospital was opened at Tarrega a few months after its   
   founding in 1826, the new sisterhood had to contend with many   
   difficulties during the first years. During the Carlist Wars, Mother   
   Joachima was put in a prison for 5 days in 1837; and she, with some of   
   her sisters, was an exile in Perpignan, France, for 3 years until the   
   fall of 1843. Converts with schools and hospitals were then   
   established all over Catalonia.   
      
   Sickness compelled Mother Joachima to resign the superiorship in 1851;   
   and during the last four years of her life, a gradual slow paralysis   
   caused her to die by inches. Saint Joachima de Vedruna was seventy-one   
   when she died in 1854. In 1940, the Carmelite Sisters of Charity had   
   2,000 members in 150 convents, of which 135 were in Spain and 10 in   
   Spanish America. Mother Joachima, who attained a high degree of   
   prayer, trust in God, and selfless charity, was enrolled in the ranks   
   of the Blessed in 1940.   
   *from The Franciscan Book of Saints, Marion Habig, OFM   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Can the life of a good Christian be anything other than that of a man   
   nailed to the Cross with Jesus Christ?   
   -- Saint John Vianney   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayer for Daily Neglects   
      
   Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Sacred Heart of Jesus,   
   with all its Love, all its sufferings and all its merits.   
      
   1st--To expiate all the sins I have committed this day and during all my life.   
    Glory be to the Father …!   
      
   2nd --To purify the good I have done badly this day and during all my life.   
    Glory be to the Father …!   
      
   3rd --To supply for the good I ought to have done and that I have   
   neglected this day and during all my life.   
    Glory be to the Father …!   
      
      
   A Poor Clare nun, who had just died, appeared to her abbess,   
   who was praying for her, and said to her,   
    “I went straight to heaven, for, by means of this prayer,   
    recited every evening, I paid my debts.”   
      
   (This prayer is not meant to replace confession)   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   “A fiery sword, barred of old, the gates of Paradise,   
   a fiery tongue, which brought salvation, restored the gift.”   
   --St Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures:  Lecture 17 no. 15)   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, Praise the name of the   
   Lord! Blessed be the name of the Lord From this time forth and   
   forevermore!" Psalm 113:1-2   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)