Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 14 July 1910, Page 1083

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK’S CALENDAR July 17, Sunday.— Sunday after Pentecost. St. _ Leo IV., Pope and Confessor. „ 18, Monday.—St. Camillas de Lellis, Confessor. „ 19, Tuesday.St. Symmachus, Pope and Confessor. „ 20, Wednesday.— St. Jerome Emilian, Confessor. ~ 21, Thursday. —St. Alexius, Confessor. „ 22, Friday,—St. Mary Magdalen, Penitent. ~ 23, Saturday. St, Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr.

St. Leo IV., Pope and Confessor. St. Leo, the son of a Roman nobleman, became Pope in 847. During, a pontificate which lasted a little over eight years, he vigorously exerted his authority for the reformation of discipline in the Church. To protect Rome against the attacks of Saracen marauders, he encircled the entire city with a fortified wall, which remains even to the present day in a good state of preservation.

St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr. . St- Apollinaris, first Bishop of Ravenna, and, according to tradition, a disciple of St. Peter, suffered martyrdom during the reign of the Emperor Vespasian.

GRAINS OF GOLD ‘ THE MASTER GARETH.’ We grieve Him much ! The deed so small We do not think it sin at all, But just the selfish, heedless sway Of one’s own will; the Master’s way Ignored quite; His love so true In all His thought for me and you, We pass it by and heed it not, Our one excuse, ‘We just forgot!’ We grieve Him much!

We please Him much The deed so small We never think it worth at all ; But He looks on with love so true In all His cares for me and you, And sees the loving thought of Him. The cup of water to the brim He sees it filled, for His dear sake Given, another’s thirst to slake. We please Him much!

He loves us much I The moments small We do not think He heeds at all; Yet every thought of grief or praise, Each smile, each tear, the glance we raise While thanking Him for pardon sweet, The trust we feel, the power meet He grants for serviceall are dear To Him; there’s naught for us to fear. He loves us much !

—Catholic News.

Happy is he who has pity on the poor and destitute, for he will receive a hundredfold from God, and even in this life the Most High will be his greatest Benefactor. . Giving is not the throwing away of that which we never miss, but it is the consecrating to noble uses that which is very dear to us, that which has cost us much.

Beyond all honor, or even wealth, is the attachment we form to noble souls; because to become one with the good, generous, and true is to become in a measure good, generous, and true ourselves. Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. There are as many billows of illusion in it as there are flakes in a snowstorm. We wake from one dream and pass into another. Don’t worry about the future. What’s the use of doing so ? When you see trouble, blessings may really be in store for you. Hope for the best. Accept what happens philosophically. Always act with a pure intention and with deliberation.

As sons of God we are all children. So long as we remember this, and seek to bring ourselves into tune with the infinite by obeying the laws of nature and of society—where the latter do not conflict with freedom of the spirit or the mind—we are sure to find life a reasonably happy and helpful experience. Strictly speaking, the imagination is never governed ; it is always the ruling and divine power, and the rest of the man is to it only as an instrument which it sounds or a tablet on which it writes: clearly and sublimely if the wax be smooth and the strings true, grotesquely and wildly if they are stained and broken. Ruskin.