On Forsaking Creatures to Find the Creator [IV]

Alas, after a short meditation we break off, and do not make a strict examination of our lives. We do not consider where our affections
really lie, nor are we grieved at the sinfulness of our whole life.
Yet it was because of the wickedness of men that the Flood came upon
the earth.(Gen.6:12) When our inner inclinations are corrupted, the
actions that spring from them are also corrupted. And this is a sign
of our lack of inner strength; for from a pure heart alone springs
the fruit of a holy life.
--Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ, Bk 3, Ch 31

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June 11th – St. Paula Frassinetti, Virgin, Foundress
d. 1882

After the French Revolution and the flood of impiety it had let loose
over Europe, the need of Christian education became everywhere more
clearly understood by those who had the cause of God at heart. We find
then a considerable number of religious institutes devoted to this
work growing up everywhere during the first half of the nineteenth
century, many of them being founded by earnest and saintly souls who
seem to have been divinely guided in their efforts to meet a most
crying need. Such a valiant woman was Paula Frassinetti, the sister of
a priest well known as the author of a number of devotional books and
himself a very ardent apostolic worker. Paula was born at Genoa on
March 3, 1809. Her health in early life was very frail and in the hope
that a change of air would prove beneficial, she joined her brother
who was then parish priest of Quinto.

There she undertook to instruct poor children and in a short time it
was apparent that she had found her true vocation. She felt inspired
to gather others round her and to found an institute which should be
devoted entirely to such work. She had many difficulties to encounter,
complete lack of resources being not the least of the obstacles in her
path. But her tact, self-sacrifice and ardent devotion--she often
spent the best part of the night in prayer--triumphed in the end. The
Sisters of St. Dorothy--for this was the name by which the
congregation was known--spread and multiplied not only in many parts
of Italy, but also beyond seas in Portugal and in Brazil. The
institute was formally approved by the Holy See in 1863.

St. Paula was credited with a wonderful insight into character and
with a knowledge of the secrets of hearts. After a series of strokes and
worn out with incessant labours, she died very peacefully in the Lord
on June 11, 1882.

See the decree of beatification in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol.
xxii (1930), pp. 316-319, and also the Analecta Ecclesiastica for
1907. There is an Italian life, by A. Capecelatro (1901), and one in
English by J. Unfreville, published in U.S.A. c. 1944, called A
Foundress in the Nineteenth Century.

Her brother was a parish priest in the city, and she assisted him by
teaching poor children in their parish. From this humble beginning in
1834 began the Congregation of St. Dorothy, which soon spread across
Italy and then to the Americas. Beatified in 1930, she was canonized
in 1984.


Saint Quote:
He who truly loves God prays entirely without distraction, and he who
prays entirely without distraction loves God truly. But he whose
intellect is fixed on any worldly thing does not pray without
distraction, and consequently he does not love God.
--St. Maximos the Confessor

Bible Quote:
Let love be without dissimulation. Hating that which is evil, cleaving
to that which is good, Loving one another with the charity of
brotherhood: with honour preventing one another. [Romans 12:9-10] DRB


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Daily Offering to the Sacred Heart
By St Therese of the Child Jesus of Lisieux (1873-1897)
Doctor of the Church

O my God!
I offer You all my actions of this day
for the intentions and for the glory
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I desire to sanctify
every beat of my heart,
my every thought,
my simplest works,
by uniting them
to His infinite merits
and I wish to make reparation for my sins
by casting them into the furnace
of His Merciful Love.
O my God! I ask of You for myself
and for those whom I hold dear,
the grace to fulfil perfectly
Your Holy Will,
to accept for love of You
the joys and sorrows of this passing life,
so that we may one day be united together
in heaven for all Eternity.
Amen

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