We can learn from the Saints!

[koralstratz]

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St. Eleutherius / Abbot
(Feast Day Sept 6 )



A wonderful simplicity and spirit of compunction were the distinguishing virtues of this holy man. He was chosen abbot of St. Mark's near Spoleto, and favored by God with the gift of miracles. A child who was possessed by the devil, being delivered by being educated in his monastery, the Abbot said one day: "Since the child is among the servants of God, the devil dares not approach him." These words seemed to savor of vanity, and thereupon the devil again entered and tormented the child.

The Abbot humbly confessed his fault, and fasted and prayed with his whole community till the child was again freed from the tyranny of the fiend. St. Gregory, the Great, not being able to fast on Easter-eve on account of extreme weakness, engaged this Saint to go with him to the church of St. Andrew's and offer up his prayers to God for his health, that he might join the faithful in that solemn practice of penance.

Eleutherius prayed with many tears, and the Pope, coming out of the church, found that he was enabled to perform the fast as he desired. It is also said that St. Eleutherius raised a dead man to life. Resigning his abbacy, he died in St. Andrew's monastery in Rome about the year 585.

[koralstratz]

[petite fleur]

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.

~Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

[wenlove24]

Thank you so much St. Joseph of Cupertino for your intercession! Whee! I'm so happy! Answered prayer indeed! No score below 7!
I promise to do everything I can to make you known from this day forward. So deeply grateful.

[petite fleur]

wow ate wen CONGRATS!!!! Also, for sure with the intercession of our Blessed Mother. Advance Happy Birthday Mother! hehehe

[petite fleur]

"There is still time for endurance, time for patience, time for healing,
time for change. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease.
Do not stand among sinners, but leap aside. For when you turn away
and weep, then you will be saved."

-- Saint Basil

[petite fleur]

When we have to reply to anyone who has insulted us, we should be careful to do it always with meekness. A soft answer extinguishes the fire of wrath. If we feel ourselves angry, it is better for us to be silent, because we should speak amiss; when we become tranquil, we shall see that all our words were culpable.

-St. Liguori.

Igo ko

[koralstratz]

St. Cloud
(Feast Day Sept 7 )



On the death of Clovis, King of the Franks, in the year 511 his kingdom was divided between his four sons, of whom the second was Clodomir. Thirteen years later he was killed fighting against his cousin, Gondomar, leaving three sons to share his dominions. The youngest of these sons of Clodomir was St. Clodoald, a name more familiar to English people under its French form of Cloud from the town of Saint-Cloud near Versailles. When Cloud was eight years old, his uncle Childebert plotted with his brother, to get rid of the boys and divide their kingdom. The eldest boy, Theodoald was stabbed to death. The second, Gunther fled in terror, but was caught and also killed. Cloud escaped and was taken for safety into Provence or elsewhere.

Childebert and his brother Clotaire shared the fruits of their crime, and Cloud made no attempt to recover his kingdom when he came of age. He put himself under the discipline of St. Severinus, a recluse who lived near Paris, and he afterwards went to Nogent on the Seine and had his heritage where is now Saint-Cloud. St. Cloud was indefatigable in instructing the people of the neighboring country, and ended his days at Nogent about the year 560 when he was some thirty-six years old.

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Hhmmmmmm.......just wondering if Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy protagonist) was somewhat named after this saint (lol).

[koralstratz]

Charisms or Graces Gratis Datae


St. Paul speaks of these extraordinary graces in his First Epistle to the Corinthians where he says: "Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. . . . And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto profit. To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom; and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another, faith in the same Spirit; to another, the grace of healing in one Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to another, diverse kinds of tongues; to another, interpretation of speeches. But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to everyone according as He will."

St. Paul places charity far above all these gifts or charisms: "If . . . I have not charity, I am nothing," for my will is turned in the opposite direction from the divine will.

NATURE AND DIVISION OF THE CHARISMS

As St. Thomas shows, sanctifying grace and charity are much more excellent than these charisms; the former unite us immediately to God, our last end, whereas these exceptional gifts are directed chiefly to the benefit of our neighbor and only prepare him to be converted, without giving him divine life. As a rule, they are not essentially supernatural like sanctifying grace, but only preternatural like a miracle and prophecy. They are only signs which confirm the divine revelation proposed to all, or the sanctity of great servants of God.

There is an immense difference between the essentially supernatural character of sanctifying grace and the supernaturalness of these charisms. Grace is essentially supernatural as a participation in the intimate life of God; it is consequently invisible and not naturally knowable. Whereas these naturally knowable signs are not supernatural by their essence, but only by the mode of their production: thus the resurrection of a dead body restores natural life (vegetative and sensitive) in a supernatural manner, but does not produce supernatural life, the participation in the divine life. What is supernatural in these signs is, therefore, exterior and very inferior to that of the grace received in baptism.


The nature of these charisms may be more clearly seen in the division that St. Thomas gives of them, following the text of St. Paul, which we quoted before.


1. Graces that give full knowledge of divine things

-faith or special certitude as to principles.
-word of wisdom, on the principal conclusions known through the first cause.
-word of knowledge, on the examples and effects which manifest the causes

2. Graces that confirm divine revelation

-by works: gift of healing, gift of miracles.
-by knowledge: discerning of spirits, prophecy.

3. Graces that aid in preaching the word of God

-gift of tongues;
-gift of interpretation of speeches.

It is easy to see that St. Paul and St. John the Evangelist excelled in the word of wisdom; St. Matthew and St. James in the word of knowledge; that certain saints, such as St. Vincent Ferrer, received the gift of miracles in a striking manner; others, such as St. John Bosco, that of prophecy; still others, like the holy Cure of Ars, the discerning of spirits.

source: The Three Ages of the Interior Life | Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP | Catholic Spiritual Teaching

[petite fleur]

PASKO NA SA ISTORYA!!!! Yehay!
Merry Christmas ate wen, koral, libraun, moonglow, sir springfield....kinsa pa diha ang nalimtan.