Freedom and healing in Christ

   "In the deaf and dumb and demoniac appear the need of the Gentiles
for a complete healing. Beleaguered on all sides by misfortune, they
were associated with all types of the body's infirmities. And in this
regard a proper order of things is observed. For the devil is first
cast out; then the other bodily benefits follow suit. With the folly
of all superstitions put to flight by the knowledge of God, sight and
hearing and words of healing are introduced. The declaration of the
onlookers followed their admiration over what took place: 'Never has
the like been seen in Israel.' Indeed, he whom the law could not help
was made well by the power of the Word, and the deaf and dumb man
spoke the praises of God. Deliverance has been given to the Gentiles.
All the towns and all the villages are enlightened by the power and
presence of Christ, and the people are freed from every impairment of
the timeless malady. Mt 9:32-38
by Hilary of Poitiers (excerpt from ON MATTHEW 9.10)

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July 16th - St. Sisenandus of Cordova, Martyr
 (also known as Sisenando of Cordoba

Born at Badajoz, Estremadura, Portugal; died at Cordova, Spain, 851.
Sisenandus was a man of the cross. He made the sign of the cross on
himself and on everything--on the face of the morning, on his bread, on
the road that he travelled. At every step, at every turn, the cross
was before him: the cross that can be seen planted in the earth or
elevated above the altar, and the cross that cannot be seen, the cross
that is secret and hidden.

From his youth he was filled with faith, and from his faith he learned
hope, and from his contemplation of the cross he learned charity. Led
by the cross he went to Cordova to study Latin, theology, canon law,
liturgy, and all that was needed to become a priest. He was ordained a
deacon at Cordova.

He lodged in the church of Saint Acisclus, martyred under Diocletian,
and it was to Saint Acisclus that he prayed for help, as if he already
knew what his own fate was to be. He prayed to the saint fervently,
constantly, appealing to him on the fellowship of the cross, not yet
knowing just what it was that drew him on. Nevertheless, he answered
the call, acknowledging the smallness of his understanding in the
embrace of divine logic; and gradually, as he prayed, his resolution
grew, his hesitation lessened and he prepared-not without fear-to
answer the call of Peter, Wallabonsus, Sabinian, Wistremundus,
Habentius, and Jeremias, all of them martyred by the Moors.

They were claiming him as one of them, and Sisenandus put himself into
the hands of Jesus Christ. The Moors under Abderrahman II had just
unleashed a new epidemic of persecutions against the Christians, but
Sisenandus had put himself in the hands of Jesus Christ, so how could
he be other than joyful?

He was imprisoned, but prison did not deprive him of his freedom for
with the cross as his key no doors were locked to him. He lived
without thought for the morrow and prayed for the conversion of his
guards. He wrote to one of his friends, but had to break off the
letter and end it with a cross, for he knew before they arrived that
his guards were coming to take him to his death.

God had seen his strength and courage and found him worthy enough to
know that his death was coming and to go out and meet it. When the
guards came and dragged him out of the prison with insults and blows,
he made the sign of the cross as if he were entering a church. And
when he was taken in front of the large crowd to be bound and
beheaded, he crossed himself for the last time (Benedictines,
Encyclopedia).


Saint Quote:
Occupy your minds with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with
bad ones. Unoccupied, they cannot be.
-- Saint Thomas More

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  You have not the Time
--Sermon from the Cure de Ars--Concerning Prayer and Work

We can only find our happiness on earth in loving God, and we can only
love Him in prayer to Him. We see that Jesus Christ, to encourage us
often to have recourse to Him through prayer, promises never to refuse
us anything if we pray for it as we should. But there is no need to go
looking for elaborate and roundabout ways of showing you that we
should pray often, for you have only to open your catechism and you
will see there that the duty of every good Christian is to pray
morning and evening and often during the day--that is to say,
always....

Which of us, my dear brethren, could, without tears of compassion,
listen to those poor Christians who dare to say that they have not
time to pray? You have not the time! Poor blind creatures, which is
the more precious action: to strive to please God and to save your
soul, or to go out to feed your animals in the stable or to call your
children or your servants in order to send them out to till the earth
or to tidy up the stable? Dear God! How blind man is! .... You have
not the time! But tell me, ungrateful creatures, if God had called you
to die that night, would you have exerted yourselves? If He had sent
you three or four months of illness, would you have exerted
yourselves? Go away, you miserable creatures; you deserve to have God
abandon you in your blindness and leave you thus to perish. We find
that it is too much to give Him a few minutes to thank Him for the
graces which He is giving us at every instant! ....

You must get on with your work, you say.

That, my dear people, is where you are greatly mistaken. You have no
other work to do except to please God and to save your souls. All the
rest is not your work. If you do not do it, others will, but if you
lose your soul, who will save it?

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