Subj : August 23rd - Bl. James of Bevagna To : All From : rich Date : Tue Aug 22 2017 10:01:07 From: rich August 23rd - Bl. James of Bevagna Also known as Giacomo Bianconi da Bevagna, James Bianconi, Jacobus de Blanconibus de Mevania d. 1301 Mevania, now called Bevagna, is a small town in Umbria, and here this James was born in the year 1220, of the family of the Bianconi. His future holiness was foreshadowed in his childhood, and a reconciliation of the Bianconi to the Alberti, with whom they had quarreled, was attributed to his youthful prayers. When he was sixteen, two Dominicans came to Bevagna to preach during Lent, and the boy was attracted by what he heard of the life of the preachers and by their discourses; he considered the matter over and over and when, after his communion on Maundy Thursday, he was saying Psalm 118, the appositeness of the 33rd verse struck him, "Set before me for a law the way of thy justifications, 0 Lord, and I will always seek after it." He went to one of the friars and opened his mind, and was recommended to watch all that night before the Blessed Sacrament in the Easter sepulchre, asking for light, and to await the will of God. This he did, and as he slept on the eve of Holy Saturday St. Dominic appeared to him and said, "Do it! According to God's will I choose you, and will be ever with you". When the friars returned to their house at Spoleto James went with them. In due course he was given permission to establish a house of his order at Bevagna, of which he became prior. The neighbourhood gave ample scope for the labours of the friars, and after the town had been sacked by the Emperor Frederick II in 1248 Bl. James more than ever endeared himself to the people by his solicitude for them in their misfortunes. This was a time of recrudescence of Manichean errors, and a particularly pestilential sect of Antinomians was active in Umbria; James set out to combat it with great energy, and succeeded in inducing one of its leaders to make a public repudiation of his heresy at Orte. Bl. James was very strict in his observance of his vow of poverty, and when his mother gave him some money to buy a new habit, which he badly needed, he got permission from his superior to buy a crucifix for his cell instead. When his mother saw the worn-out habit again, she remonstrated with him, but he answered with a smile, "I have done as you wished. St. Paul tells us to 'put on the Lord Jesus`, and that is the habit I have bought." But that crucifix was to clothe him in a way he never thought of, for praying before it one day in great dryness and fear of spirit, almost despairing of his salvation, it is said that a spurt of blood miraculously sprang from the image over his face, and he heard a voice saying, "Behold the sign of your salvation". Another marvel, reported at his death, is recounted in the notice of Bl. Joan of Orvieto, under July 23. Pope Boniface IX approved the cultus of Bl. James of Bevagna. The Bollandists in giving an account of this beatus (August, vol. iv) deplore, and not without reason, the lack of any early biography. The narrative of Father Taigi is certainly full of legendary matter neither can one feel any more confidence in the Vita del B. Giacomo Bianconi by Father Piergili (1729) or in that compiled by F. Becchetti or in the summary given in Procter, Lives of Dominican Saints. For a fuller bibliography see Taurisano, pp. 23-24. Saint Quote: It often happens that we pray God to deliver us from some dangerous temptation, and yet God does not hear us but permits the temptation to continue troubling us. In such a case, let us understand that God permits even this for our greater good. When a soul in temptation recommends itself to God, and by His aid resists, O how it then advances in perfection. --St. Alphonsus Liguori Bible Quote: Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you since you received him from God. You are not your own property; you have been bought and paid for. That is why you should use your body for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ) <><><><> Prayer for Holiness O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who, by the will of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Ghost, has by Your death given life to the world, deliver me by this, Your most Sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from every evil; make me cling always to Your commandments, and permit me never to be separated from You. Who with the same God, the Father and the Holy Ghost, lives and reigns God, world without end. - Amen. --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .