10 Things you should know about Tolkien
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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio The Conversion of Saint Paul
A favorite of mine and a repost.
After passing many years in a hermitage, he formed and governed a community of five hundred monks near Heliopolis. They all wore the same coarse white habit, all received the holy communion every day, and the holy abbot made them also a daily exhortation with admirable unction. He entertained them often on the evils of melancholy and sadness, saying, that spiritual joy and cheerfulness of heart is necessary amidst our tears of penance; as being the fruit of charity, and requisite to support the fervour of the soul. He was known to strangers by the joy of his countenance. By humility he ranked himself, among the goats, unworthy to be numbered among the sheep. He made it his constant and earnest petition to God, that he might know himself, and be preserved from the subtle snares and illusions of pride. It is said that the devil left a possessed person at his command, crying out, that he was not able to withstand his humility. The saint received a visit from St. Petronius, afterwards bishop of Bologna, in 393, being then nearly eighty years old, which he did not long survive. See Sozom. l. 6. c. 29. Rufin. l. 2. Tillem. t. 10. p. 35. The Greek menæa and Bollandus on this day.
Lots of kids in my office while I work.
Lisa’s parents brought us their old dining-room table, which is a good bit larger than our bit-too-small table. So our old table is now my new office desk. Of course, this occasioned much rearranging in my office: my computer stuff and books are on the new desk, the oldest boy’s drawing desk was moved in next to my desk, and my old desk now holds the laptop. What this amounts to is anywhere from 1 to all 5 kids in my office while I work. They have been Sternly Warned that bickering will get them kicked out.
One immediate result: I have learned more about the loathsomely puerile Star Trek TNG in the last hour than I ever cared to know before.
He gave all things, even the herbs out of his garden, to the poor. He was martyred by the Lombards in the seventh century, and his relics were famed for miracles. St. Greg. Dial. 1. 4. c. 22.
My doctor and I recently agreed that I should begin taking a small daily dose of Wellbutrin. It’s had some surprisingly pleasant side-effects:
I’m rather enjoying the whole experience!
I’m thinking about posting an obscure saint of the day each day…
St. Eusebius, Abbot between Antioch and Berœa. His example was a perpetual and a most moving sermon, and his very countenance inspired all who beheld him with the love of virtue. He took nourishment only once in four days, but would not allow any of his monks to pass above two days without eating. He prescribed them mortifications of each sense in particular, but made perpetual prayer his chief rule, ordering them to implore the divine mercy in their hearts, in whatever labour their hands were employed. While Ammianus, who had resigned to him the government of the abbey, was one day reading aloud, out of the scriptures, for their mutual edification, Eusebius happened to cast his eye on certain labourers in the field where they sat, so as not to give due attention to the lecture: to punish himself for this slight fault, he put on, and wore till his death, for above forty years, a heavy iron collar about his neck, fastened by a stiff chain to a great iron girdle about his middle, so that he could only look downwards under his feet: and he never afterwards stirred out of his cell but by a narrow passage from his cell to the chapel. His sanctity drew many disciples to him. He flourished in the fourth century. See Theodoret Philoth. c. 4. Item Hist. Eccles. l. 4. c. 28.
