All of life is a preparation

I must constantly live in preparation for something better to come.
All of life is a preparation for something better. I must anticipate
the morning to come. I must feel, in the night of sorrow, that
understanding joy that tells of confident expectation of better things
to come. "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning." Know that God has something better in store for you, as long
as you are making yourself ready for it. All your existence in this
world is a training for a better life to come. I pray that when life
is over, I will return to an eternal, spaceless life with God. I pray
that I may make this life a preparation for a better life to come.
—From Twenty-Four Hours a Day

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13 September – Saint Amatus

Monk and Hermit, Penitent, miracle-worker, together with St Romaric,
he founded Remiremont Abbey. Born in c 560 at Grenoble, France and
died on 13 September 627 in Remiremont, Vosges, France of natural
causes. Also known as – Aimé, Amad, Amat, Amé.

Amatus was born about the year 560 to a noble family at Grenoble.
Around 581, he entered the Abbey of St Maurice Agaunum and at the age
of thirty retired into a hermitage, where his reputation for a life of
penance and prayer, privileged with the grace of miracle working, drew
the attention of St Eustace of Luxeuil, who persuaded Amatus to join
his community.

One of his missionary journeys brought him to the court at Metz and
there he converted a former Count Palatine of King Theodebert II, the
Frankish noble St Romaric. S. Romaric founded with Amatus a double
monastery for men and women at Remiremont Abbey, on land that had been
in Romaric’s possession since his days as a Count Palatine.

Amatus was its first abbot. He ruled this Abbey for many years and
established there the difficult pious practice of the “Laus perennis”
or Perpetual Praise, which consisted in the maintaining in the Church,
an uninterrupted service of Psalmody and Prayer, day and night.

Saint Amatus died in the year 627 and at his own request, was buried
just outside the church door. Later, his remains were suitably
enshrined under one of the altars of the same church. Saint Amatus was Canonised on 3 December 1049 by Pope Leo IX. He is greatly venerated
in Grenoble, France.

https://anastpaul.com/2020/09/13/


The Redemption

“The Incarnation of God was sufficient to have saved us.
It would have been enough for God made man, to have offered Himself to
God, for our redemption in a single act of love.
Every act of Jesus, the God-Man, had infinite value and was,
therefore, sufficient to be offered to the Father as an infinite
satisfaction for all our sins.
But, if Jesus had desired to show more clearly His great love for us,
He could have offered His sufferings as a child in the cold cave at
Bethlehem, when He lay whimpering on a wretched straw bed.
He could have offered the sorrow of His exile in Egypt, He could have
offered a single drop of His Precious Blood , during the ceremony of
the circumcision.
He could have offered the difficulties and privations of His simple
working life at Nazareth, or the fatiguing exertions of His apostolic
journeys.
All these, would have been more than enough to have made amends to the
divine Father for all the sins of humanity, to have ransomed us from
the devil and to have restored to us, God’s grace and love.
But in God, everything is infinite.
His love has no limit.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart,” He has
commanded men “and with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength and
with thy whole mind and thy neighbour as thyself.”
He, Himself, did infinitely more than this, however, Jesus was not
satisfied merely to love us, His brothers by adoption, as He loved
Himself but, He wished to love us “more than He loved Himself. Greater
love than this no-one has,” He said, “that one lay down his life for
his friends” (1 Jn 15:13).
This was what he Himself did.
Sinful though we are, He called us friends.
“You are my friends” (Jn 15:14).
Out of love for us, He gave Himself entirely.
He perspired blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was betrayed by
Judas, denied by Peter and, abandoned by the Apostles, He was bound
like a criminal, insulted, scourged, crowned with thorns, condemned to
death and burdened with a cross; finally, when He arrived at Calvary,
He was nailed to the gibbet, where He shed His Precious Blood and gave
His life for our redemption.
Such was the extent of Jesus’ infinite love for us.
“Calvary” writes St Francis de Sales,“is the school of love.”
The Saints were moved to tears by the strange spectacle of
God-made-man, dying on the Cross for men.
What is our reaction?”
by Antonio Cardinal Bacci

Saint Quote:
Reason is the eye of the soul; but like the bodily eye, it needs light
in order to see; and how can it see Divine things clearly, if deprived
of the light of Divine revelations?
-- St. Augustine

Bible Quote:
And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and
shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall
seduce many. And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many
shall grow cold. But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be
saved. (Matt 24:10-13)

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"Lord Jesus, our Savior, let us now come to you: Our hearts are cold;
Lord, warm them with your selfless love. Our hearts are sinful;
cleanse them with your precious blood. Our hearts are weak;
strengthen them with your joyous Spirit. Our hearts are empty; fill
them with your divine presence. Lord Jesus, our hearts are yours;
possess them always and only for yourself."
--(Prayer of Augustine, 354-430)

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