Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 29 April 1915, Page 3

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK’S CALENDAR May 2, Sunday. Fourth Sunday after Easter. „3, Monday.—The Finding of the Holy Cross. ~ 4, Tuesday.—St. Monica, Widow. . „ 5, Wednesday.—St. Pius V., Pope and Confessor. „ 6, Thursday. —St. John at the Latin Gate. » 7, Friday.—St. Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr. ~ 8, Saturday.—Apparition of St. Michael, Archangel. The Finding of the Holy Cross. This festival has been celebrated in the Latin Church since the fifth or sixth century. It commemorates the discovery by St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, A.D. 326, of the Cross on which our Blessed Saviour suffered. In the words of St. Jerome: ‘lf the ark was held in such high veneration by the Jews, how much more ought Christians respect the wood of the Cross whereon our Saviour offered Himself a bleeding victim for our sins ? Christ selected the Cross to be the glorious instrument of His victory, and the Cross is the standard under which all His followers must fight His battles.' St. Monica, Widow. St. Monica was a native of Africa. Having been given in marriage to a pagan, she succeeded, by the sanctity of her conduct and the meekness of her disposition, in bringing about his complete conversion from idolatry and vice. Her son, the great St. Augustine, having been led in his youth to embrace the errors of the Manichaean heretics, owed his subsequent conversion to her prayers. St. Monica was seized with her last illness at Ostia, in Italy, A.D. 387. When her second son, Navigius, expressed a wish that she might not die abroad, but in her own country, she said to him and St. Augustine : ‘ Lay this body* anywhere ; be not concerned about that. The only thing I ask of you both is that you make remembrance of me at the altar ot the Lord, wherever you are.' GRAINS op gold. TO-DAY. O, Father, guide these faltering steps to-day Lest I should fall ! To-morrow? Ah, to-morrow’s far away To-day is all. If I but keep my feet till evening time, Night will bring rest ; Then, stronger grown, to-morrow 1 shall climb With newer zest. O may I stoop to no unworthiness, In pain or sorrow, Nor bear from yesterday one bitterness On to to-morrow ! Then, Father, help these, searching eyes to-day The path to see ; Be patient with my feebleness, —the way Is steep to Thee ! —Ave Maria. \\. ; v ' There is a big difference between a wish and a dogged resolution. The fear of the world influences more lives than the fear of God. How many regulate their action and their conduct by what the world will say j how few ever say, ‘ What will God say V How much admiration we should have for a man who measures his life by what God 'will think! Ask God every day for this spirit of fearlessness— to do what is right.