A STORY ABOUT GOSSIP

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem.  One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"  "Hold on a minute," Socrates replied.  "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you are going to say.  I call it - The triple filter test.  The first filter is Truth.  Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"  "Well no" the man said, "actually I just heard about it and....."   "All right," said Socrates.  "So you don't really know if its true or not.  Now, let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness.  Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"  "Umm, no, on the contrary ....."  "So, Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you're not certain it's true.  You may still pass the test though, because there is one filter left - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"  "No, not really."  "Well," concluded Socrates,  "if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

[Taken from St Martin Magazine November 2014]

Pope Benedict xvi speaking in 2009 said....

"God is disappearing from the human horizon,
and, with the dimming of the light,
which comes from God,
humanity is losing its bearings,
with increasingly evident destructive effects."

SPIRITUAL GEMS

"ACCEPTING  WHATEVER  COMES  OR  HAPPENS  AS  THE  WILL  OF  GOD,  NO MATTER  WHAT  IT  COSTS,  SPIRITUALLY,  PSYCHOLOGICALLY,  OR  PHYSICALLY,  IS  THE  SUREST  AND  QUICKEST  WAY  TO  A  FREEDOM  OF  SOUL  AND  SPIRIT  THAT  SURPASSES  ALL  UNDERSTANDING  AND  EXPLANATION"

[Walter J. Ciszek S.J.}

Rejoicing, Let us go and see ourselves in Your own Beauty
That is:  Let me be so transformed in Thy beauty, that, being alike in beauty, we may see ourselves both in Thy beauty;
Having Thy beauty, so that, one beholding the other, each may see his own beauty in the other, the beauty of both being Thine only, and mine obsorbed in it.  and so we shall see, each the other, in Thy beauty
[Spiritual Canticle stan. xxxvi St John of the Cross}

THE MUSTARD SEED

The mustard seed is nature's version of "good gifts in small parcels".  It was the smallest seed used by Palestinian farmers, yet, conditions permitting, could produce a tree over ten feet tall.  The smallness, hiddenness and insignificance of the seed belied its power to produce fruit.  Yeast is also rather like this.  Although its presence is hidden, bread will not rise or bake correctly without it.  Jesus told these parables to teach us some very important lessons about the spiritual life.

The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast reflect truths displayed in the life of Jesus and the power of the gospel. Dr. James Allen Francis, in his poem "One Solitary Life", tells the story of Jesus.
He was born of peasant stock into poverty in an obscure Palestinian hamlet. He worked as a carpenter until he was thirty.  He lived the life of an itinerant preacher for three years.  He owned no home and never married.  He had no credentials, no university education.  He never travelled more than 200 miles from his home. When he was a young man the tide of public opinion turned against him.  His friends deserted him and one denied ever knowing him. He was turned over to his enemies, forced to endure the mockery of a trial, and eventually crucified between two thieves.  His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he owned on earth - his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed grave.
Yet this hidden and apparently inconsequential life had become the very centrepiece of human history.  All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever mobilized, all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the history of the world as much as this one solitary life.

 

 

There is a saying, "Never judge a book by its cover", and this story of "One Solitary Life" and the story of the mustard seed are surely all the evidence we need for why we must not judge others, no matter how they may present. There is no telling what lies within a person, what talent, what capacity.

 

Lord, teach me to be ever in awe of You, in awe of your power and your authority. Teach me not to judge, lest I be judged, but to seek out the good in others.

 

[Taken from "Bible Alive" July 2014]

 
 

ST VINCENT DE PAUL

St Vincent was born on 24th April 1581 in the village of Pouy in Gascony, France. He was ordained a priest at the early age of 20.
In 1605 on a voyage by sea from Marseilles, he was taken captive by Barbary pirates and carried off to Tunis, there Vincent was auctioned off as a slave and spent two years in bondage.

His first master was a fisherman, but Vincent was unsuitable for the work because of seasickness and was soon sold.  His next master was a physician and alchemist and inventor.  Vincent was fascinated by his work and was taught how to prepare and administer his master's remedies.  The fame of Vincent's master attracted the attention of Sultan Achmet the first who summoned him to Istanbul.  During the voyage the old man died and Vincent was sold once again.

Vincent's new master was a former priest and Franciscan from Nice named Guillaume Gautier.  He had converted to Islam in order to gain freedom from slavery and was living in the mountains with three wives.  The second wife [a Muslim by birth] was drawn to Vincent because of his great holiness and charity, and questioned him about his faith.  She became convinced that his faith was true and admonished her husband for renouncing his Christianity.  He became remorseful and decided to escape back to France with his slave Vincent. They had to wait 10 months but finally they secretly boarded a small boat and crossed the Mediterranean landing in Aigues-Mortes on the 28th June 1607.

This is just one adventure in the life of this great saint.  Charity was his main virtue it extended to all classes of persons from childhood to old age.
Though honoured by the great ones of the world, he remained deeply rooted in humility.
He founded the Congregation of Priests of the Missions [Lazarists] and, together with St Louise de Marillac, the Daughters of Charity.  These congregations together with the well-known society of St Vincent de Paul continue his charitable works today.
St Vincent de Paul died on the 27th September 1660.
St Vincent de Paul was canonized by pope Clement X11 in 1737.

GOD'S LOVE FOR US

......... This is a Sublime and heavenly state, reached only by those who in all things hear God ask them whether they love Him, and who feel that He so yearns for and desires our love that He seems as though He would die of longing.  Such souls realise that He created all things for this end and asks no other payment for them but love;   that He feeds on nothing but love, for the sake of which He forgives all sins, however great, and forgets them as though they had never been, solely to make those who were His enemies love Him without delay.  He begs them to accept His pardon and receive it, so that He may not remain unloved:

He never ceases granting favours that He may never cease to win the love which seems the only thing that can abate the infinite flame that continually burns within Him, so that He may, as it were, begin anew to love us, as though our love were holy water that heated the eternal furnace of His charity!

.....[Francisco de Osuna c 1492-1540]

 

THE FALL [MAN]

........ He lost Sanctifying grace, Supernaturally he was dead.  He lost the Preternatural gifts too.  He could now suffer, he had come under the natural law of death; worst of all he had lost integrity, the subordination of lower powers to higher, in the rejection of his own subordination to God.

From now on every element in him would be making for its own immediate and separate gratification:  the civil war within man had begun.....
God would remain the contact and Sanctifying grace would be in him once more.  But the man it was in  was a very different man.  The Preternatural gifts were not restored, so that integrity was not there....
every one of us is a civil war.
                                [Frank Sheed]

ST FRANCES OF ROME wife-mother 1384-1440

 

Frances was born in Rome in 1384 to a noble and wealthy couple, Paolo Bussa and Jacobella dei Roffredeschi.  When she was 11 years old she asked her parents to allow her to become a nun, only to be met by a point-blank refusal.  When she was barely thirteen she was married to Lorenzo Ponziano from a very wealthy family.   At first she found her new life very trying and one day Vannozza, her sister-in -law found her crying bitterly.  Frances told her of her frustrated hopes, and learnt to her surprise that her sister-in-law would also have preferred a life of retirement and prayer.

This was the beginning of a close friendship which lasted till death, and the two young wives strove together to live a perfect life under a common rule.

When Frances was very ill and close to death - soon after her marriage she had a vision of St Alexis, who told her God was giving her an important choice; "Did she want to recover or not"? She whispered "God's will is mine".  The saint then informed her that it was God's will that she should recover and work for His greater glory, and, after throwing his cloak over her he disappeared.  Her illness had disappeared also.
In 1400 Frances gave birth to her first son John Battista and Frances took on the full care of her little son herself.
In 1408 the troops of Ladislaus of Naples, the ally of the anti-pope had entered Rome, and a soldier of fortune, Count Troja, had been appointed governor. The Ponziano family had always supported the legitimate pope, and in one of the frequent conflicts Lorenzo was stabbed and carried home to Frances, to whose devoted nursing he owed his restoration to health.
A great plague swept across Italy it struck Rome and left Frances's second son dead.  In an effort to help alleviate some of the suffering Frances used all her money and sold her possessions to buy whatever the sick might need. When all was gone Frances and Vannozza went door-to-door begging.  Later Frances's daughter Agnes died and the saint opened a section of her home as a hospital.
Frances became more convinced that this way of life was so necessary for the world, that she requested and was giving permission to found a society of women bound by no vows, they simply offered themselves to God and the service of the poor.  Once the society was established, Frances chose not to live at the community residence, but rather at home with her husband.  She did this for seven years until he died.  So at the age of 52 she lived the life as a nun she had always wished.  Four years later she died.  Her last words were "The angel has finished his task - he beckons me to follow him"