Meditation for troubled times:
- From: Weedy <richarra@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 09:04:05 -0700 (PDT)
Meditation for troubled times:
Try not to give way to criticism, blame, scorn, or judgment of
others when you are trying to help them. Effectiveness in helping
others depends
on controlling
yourself. You may be swept away by a temporary natural urge to
criticize or
blame, unless you
keep a tight rein on your emotions. You should have a firm foundation
of
spiritual living which
makes you truly humble, if you are going to really help other people.
Go easy on
them and be
hard on yourself. That is the way you can be used most to uplift a
despairing
spirit. And seek
no personal recognition for what you are used by God to accomplish.
I pray that I may try to avoid judgment and criticism. I pray that I
may always
try to build up
others instead of tearing them down.
-From Twenty-Four Hours a Day
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September 5th - Saint Lawrence Justinian
Laurence was born into the illustrious Venetian family of the
Justinians
(Giustiniani), and while still a child, he was remarkable for the
seriousness of
his character. His piety produced admiration and respect.
At age 19 he had a vision of Eternal Wisdom inviting him to unite
himself with
it. He entered the religious life in the Augustinian Order of the
Canons of St.
George on Alga Island, one mile from Venice. He was noted for his
great
austerities and humiliations. He used to go beg alms for the
community, and
often received sarcastic barbs instead of goods, for which he thanked
God.
Soon after his ordination he was elected General of his Order. He
reformed it so
profoundly that he is considered its second founder. In 1433 he was
named Bishop
of Venice. He tried to refuse the dignity, but Pope Eugene IV obliged
him to
accept it. He brought peace to numerous state quarrels, founded 15 new
monasteries and added many new parishes in which he took a special
care of the
accuracy and beauty of the divine worship.
In 1450 he was elected Patriarch of Venice. The ecclesiastic reform he
made in
Venice is justly considered a precursor to what St. Charles Borromeo
did in
Milan after the Council of Trent. His books and sermons transmit a
great
devotion to the Passion of Our Lord. On January 8, 1455 he died. He
was
beatified in 1524 by Clement VII and canonized in 1690 by Alexander
VIII. His
feast day was established for September 5, the day of his episcopal
consecration.
Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)
First, it is interesting to see that since his childhood St. Laurence
Justinian
was marked by a profound seriousness and that his piety produced
admiration and
respect. Anyone who saw him was impressed by his seriousness. This is
the way it
should be. According to the sentimental piety that infiltrated the
Church in the
18th and 19th centuries, the saints should all be amiable, tender, and
soft. St.
Laurence was the opposite of such a model since his childhood. This is
excellent! I don't deny that piety at times can cause tenderness, but
to hold it
up as the principal note of sanctity seems absurd to me. According to
the
selection, his piety produced admiration and respect. These are the
true
characteristics of sanctity, as God always causes respect and
admiration, and
the saint is a man who lives with God.
The sentimental way to describe the saints is one-sided and deforms
the souls.
Such sentimentalism should be avoided, and a good criteria to know
when we have
an objective description of the saint is to see if the portrayal
produces
admiration and respect.
Second, while he was very young, he entered an Order that was
corrupted, putrid.
He was elected its superior and reformed it to the point that he is
considered
its second founder. That is, it was an Order so rotten that it needed
a general
reform, and was reborn at the hands of a saint. But it was not so
rotten that it
would not elect a saint to reform it. Today, what Order elects a saint
to reform
it?
Third, in 1433, about 100 years before the explosion of Protestantism,
the
Church was already immersed in the great crisis of the Revolution. The
humanist
mentality was promoting pride and sensuality everywhere, and preparing
the way
for the acceptance of the bad ideas of Protestantism. Well, St.
Laurence
Justinian reformed his Order, and instead of being persecuted and
despised, he
was named Patriarch of Venice. Once again, you can see a difference
between that
phase of the Revolution and the point it has reached in our days.
In those times, there was a St. Laurence Justinian as Patriarch of
Venice and a
St. Charles Borromeo as Archbishop of Milan; today instead there was a
Angelo
Rocalli in Venice and a John Baptist Montini in Milan. The first two
Saints
lived their lives in preparation for, or as a consequence of, the
Council of
Trent. That is to say, they dedicated themselves to help the Church to
resist
Protestantism. The two progressivist Cardinals (who became Popes)
prepared the
Church for Vatican Council II, which opened her doors not only to
Protestantism
but also to all the heresies synthesized in Modernism. At the time of
St.
Laurence, many people were already revolutionary but they were at
least aware of
the corruption and chose saints to reform them. In our times, people
have lost
the notion of good and evil and can actually think that those
progressivist
Cardinals were good. There is an enormous moral difference between
these two
steps of the Revolution.
Let us pray to St. Laurence Justinian asking him to give us his
seriousness in
order to face the Revolution within the Church and to help us to
restore her, as
he did in his Order and in the Archdiocese of Venice.
See Images at:
http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j089sdLaurenceJustinian_9-05.htm
Saint Quote:
Even though you possess plenty, you are still indigent. You abound in
temporal
possessions, but you need things eternal. You listen to the needs of a
human
beggar, yet yourself are a beggar of God. What you do with those who
beg from
you is what God will do with His beggar. You are filled and you are
empty. Fill
your empty neighbor with your fullness, so that your emptiness may be
filled
from God's fullness.
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
Bible Quote:
"Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to
utter
anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let
your
words be few." (Eccelsiastes 5:2)
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Prayer:
How true it is, O Lord, that contradictions are most advantageous to a
Christian
who endeavors to support them with patience and resignation! for they
prove and
purify his virtue and bring it to perfection But Thou knowest what
difficulty we
experience in supporting these trials, and how sensible we are to
everything
that opposes our desires. Permit us not, O God, to yield to our
feelings, but
grant we may sacrifice them for the happiness of pleasing Thee; since
to feel
much, and not to follow the bent of our feelings, to keep silence when
the heart
is moved, and to withhold ourselves when we are all but overcome, is
the most
essential practice, and the surest mark for that truly Christian
virtue which is
to gain for us eternal happiness. This, O Jesus, we hope to obtain
from Thine
infinite bounty. Amen.
.
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