Subj : April 2nd - Saint Francis of Paula, Confessor To : All From : rich Date : Wed Apr 01 2020 09:24:00 From: rich April 2nd - Saint Francis of Paula, Confessor from the Liturgical Year, 1870 The founder of a Religious Order, whose distinguishing characteristics were= humility and penance, comes before us today: it is Francis of Paula. Let u= s study his virtues and beg his intercession. His whole life was one of gre= at innocence; and yet, we find him embracing, from his earliest youth, mort= ifications which, now-a-days, would not be expected from the very worst sin= ners. How was it that he could do so much? and we, who have so often sinned= , do so little? The claims of Divine Justice are as strong now as ever they= were; for God never changes, nor can the offence we have committed against= Him by our sins be pardoned, unless we make atonement. The Saints punished= themselves, with life-long and austere penances, for the slightest sins; a= nd the Church can scarcely induce us to observe the law of Lent, though it = is now reduced to the lowest degree of severity. What is the cause of this want of the spirit of expiation and penance? It i= s that our Faith is weak, and our Love of God is cold, because our thoughts= and affections are so set upon this present life, that we seldom if ever c= onsider things in the light of Eternity. How many of us are like the King o= f France, who having obtained permission from the Pope that St. Francis of = Paula should come and live near him, threw himself at the Saint's feet, and= besought him to obtain of God that he, the King, might have a long life! L= ouis the 11th had led a most wicked life; but his anxiety was, not to do pe= nance for his sins, but to obtain, by the Saint's prayers, a prolongation o= f a career, which had been little better than a storing up wrath for the da= y of wrath. We, too, love this present life; we love it to excess. The laws= of Fasting and Abstinence are broken, not because the obeying them would e= ndanger life, or even seriously injure health,--for, where either of these = is to be feared, the Church does not enforce her Lenten penances: but peopl= e dispense themselves from Fasting and Abstinence, because the spirit of im= mortification renders every privation intolerable, and every interruption o= f an easy comfortable life insupportable. They have strength enough for any= fatigue that business or pleasure call for; but the moment there is questi= on of observing those laws, which the Church has instituted for the interes= t of body as well as of the soul, all seems impossible; the conscience gets= accustomed to these annual transgressions, and ends by persuading the sinn= er that he may be saved without doing penance. St. Francis of Paula was of a very different way of thinking and acting. Th= e Church gives us the following abridged account of his life. Francis was born at Paula, an unimportant town of Calabria. His parents, wh= o were for a long time without children, obtained him from heaven, after ha= ving made a vow, prayed to St. Francis. When very young, being inflamed wit= h the love of God, he withdrew into a desert, where, for six years, he led = an austere life, but one that was sweetened by heavenly contemplations. The= fame of his virtues having spread abroad, many persons went to him, out of= a desire to be trained in virtue. Out of a motive of fraternal charity, he= left his solitude, built a Church near Paula, and there laid the foundatio= n of his Order. He had a wonderful gift of preaching. He observed virginity during his whol= e life. Such was his love for humility, that he called himself the last of = all men, and would have his disciples named Minims. His dress was of the co= arsest kind; he always walked bare-footed, and his bed was the ground. His = abstinence was extraordinary: he ate only once in the day, and that not til= l after sunset. His food consisted of bread and water, to which he scarcely= ever added those viands which are permitted even in Lent: and this practic= e he would have kept up by his Religious, under the obligation of a fourth = vow. God bore witness to the holiness of his Servant by many miracles, of which = this is the most celebrated; that when he was rejected by the sailors, he a= nd his companion passed over the straits of Sicily on his cloak, which he s= pread out on the water. He also prophesied many future events. Louis the 11= th, king of France, had a great desire to see the Saint, and treated him wi= th great respect. Having reached his 91st year, he died at Tours, in the ye= ar of our Lord 1507. His body, which was left unburied for 11 days, so far = from becoming corrupt, yielded a sweet fragrance. He was canonised by Pope = Leo the Tenth. Saint Quote: Fix your minds on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Inflamed with love = for us, he came down from heaven to redeem us. For our sake he endured ever= y torment of body and soul and shrank from no bodily pain. He himself gave = us an example of perfect patience and love. We, then, are to be patient in = adversity. -- Saint Francis of Paola from a letter Bible Quote: He who glories, let him glory in the Lord. =C2 {1 Corinthians 1:31} <><><><> Prayer: Apostle of penance! thy life was always that of a Saint, and we are sinners= : yet do we presume, during these days, to beg thy powerful intercession, i= n order to obtain of God, that this holy Season may not pass without having= produced within us a true spirit of penance, which may give us a reasonabl= e hope of receiving His pardon. We admire the wondrous works which filled t= hy life,--a life that resembled, in duration, that of the Patriarchs, and p= rolonged the privilege the world enjoyed of having such a Saint to teach an= d edify it. Now that thou art enjoying in heaven the fruits of thy labours = on earth, think upon us, and hearken to the prayers addressed to thee by th= e Faithful. Get us the spirit of compunction, which will add earnestness to= our works of penance. Bless and preserve the Order thou hast founded. Thy = holy relics have been destroyed by the fury of heretics; avenge the injury = thus offered to thy name, by praying for the conversion of heretics and sin= ners, and drawing down upon the world those heavenly graces, which will rev= ive among us the fervour of the Ages of Faith. Amen --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .