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    From Weedy@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jun 28 23:44:22 2021
    -- 1 Peter 5:7 –

        Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. ========================
    One cannot change the past, but one can ruin the present by worrying over 
    the future.

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    June 29th - SS. Salome and Judith

    9th century.
    ABOUT the middle of the 9th century, Walter, the abbot of the double
    monastery of Ober Altaich in Bavaria, caused an anchoress-cell to be
    built at the west end of the church with an aperture into the choir.
    In it he enclosed with the customary rites a relation of his own, a
    stranger from England named Salome. According to a tradition which
    became current at Altaich, she was an unmarried princess, the niece of
    a king of England. On her way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem she
    had the misfortune to lose her two attendants, all her possessions, and--temporarily--her sight. After many sufferings and much wandering
    she arrived at Passau, where she found a temporary home, and from
    there she went to Altaich to end her days in seclusion and prayer.
    Some time later she was joined by a cousin or aunt, a widow called
    Judith, who--it was popularly believed--had been sent in search of
    Salome by the king of England. Altaich proved as attractive to her as
    to her kinswoman, and she also decided to remain there. For her
    accommodation, a 2nd cell was built, adjoining that of Salome. Thus
    they lived until Salome's death left Judith in solitude. At times she
    suffered from diabolical attacks and night terrors, and the shrieks
    which came from her cell sometimes brought the monks running from the neighbouring abbey to find out if she was being murdered. She was
    buried beside her niece at Ober Altaich. It is stated that in 907,
    when the monastery was destroyed by the Hungarians, the relics of both
    recluses were translated to Nieder Altaich, where they are still
    venerated.

    No contemporary English princess known to history seems to tally with
    either Salome or Judith, unless, as has been suggested, it be Edburga,
    the beautiful and wicked daughter of Offa of Mercia. She married
    Beorhtric, King of the West Saxons, and, after murdering a number of
    his nobles, she accidentally killed her husband with the poison she
    had prepared for someone else. She was driven out of England, and she
    took refuge at the court of Charlemagne. That monarch, in the words of
    William of Malmesbury, “on account of her wickedness and exceeding
    beauty, gave her a noble nunnery for women". Her conduct there,
    however, was so disgraceful that she was ejected with ignominy, and
    was reduced to wandering from one city to another with a maidservant
    as her sole companion. Asser states that he knew people who had seen
    her begging in the streets of Patavium, i.e. Pavia. If Patavium is,
    indeed, as has been suggested, a copyist's erroneous rendering of
    Patavia, or Passau, a city within easy reach of Altaich, then Judith
    the recluse may well have been Edburga; she would naturally change her
    name on entering religion, to sever so tangible a link with her
    discreditable past.

    There is a detailed Latin narrative dealing with what purports to be
    the history of these two recluses, written seemingly by a monk of
    Nieder Altaich. The Bollandists in 1709 describe him as almost a
    contemporary of what he records (see the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol.
    vii), but later critics are satisfied that the document which we
    possess cannot have taken shape earlier than the close of the twelfth
    century. Moreover, the Walter referred to in the story as abbot of
    Altaich seems more likely to belong to the eleventh century, in the
    time of William the Conqueror. See Holder-Egger in MGH., Scriptores,
    vol. xv, pp. 847 seq., who quotes the text in part, and cf.
    Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, vol. xviii (1878), pp. 551 seq.
    For Edburga, see R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England
    (1952), pp. 37 seq.


    Reflection.
     The Church takes delight in styling her founder “Jesus most amiable",
    and He indeed says of Himself, “I am meek and humble of heart.”
    His true followers can all be characterized in the same way.

    Saint Quote:
    Every time we come into the presence of the Eucharist we may say:
    This precious Testament cost Jesus Christ His life. For the Eucharist
    is a testament, a legacy which becomes valid only at the death of the testator. Our Lord thereby shows us His boundless love, for He Himself said there
    is no greater proof of love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.
    -- Saint Peter Julian Eymard

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    "Knowledge comes like light from the sun. The foolish man through
     lack of faith or laziness deliberately closes his eyes--that is, his faculty of
    choice--and at once consigns the knowledge to oblivion because in his
    indolence he fails to put it into practice. For folly leads to indolence,
    and this in turn begets inertia and hence forgetfulness. Forgetfulness
    breeds self-love--the love of one's own will and thoughts which is
    equivalent to the love of pleasure and praise. From self-love comes
    avarice, the root of all evils (cf. 1 Tim. 6:10), for it entangles us in worldly concerns and in this way leads to complete unawareness of
    God's gifts and of our own faults."
    --St. Peter of Damaskos.

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