Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 14 February 1918, Page 3

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK’S CALENDAR February 17, - Sunday. First Sunday in Lent. ~ 18, Monday.Of the Feria. ~ 19, Tuesday.—Of the Feria. ' ~ 20, Wednesday.—Of the Feria, Ember Day. ~ 21, Thursday.—Of the Feria. ~ 22, Friday.—St. Peter’s Chair at Antioch. Ember Day. ~ 23, Saturday.—St. Peter Damian, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. Ember Day. Chair of St.. Peter at Antioch. On this day we commemorate the establishment by St. Peter of his Episcopal See at Antioch, where for seven years he ruled the .Church as Universal Pastor, before finally fixing the seat of his spiritual government at Rome. St. Peter Damian, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. St. Peter was born at Ravenna, in the north of Italy, about 988. After a youth of hardship, he entered a Benedictine monastery at the foot of the Apennines, where for many years he led a life of austerity, prayer, and study. His great piety and learning having brought him under the notice of his ecclesiastical superiors, he was employed by more than one Pope in important .affairs, and displayed great zeal and prudence. In 1057 he was created Cardinal and Bishop of Ostia, but, five years later, he succeeded in obtaining permission to resign his bishopric and return to his monastery. His death occurred in 1072. GRAINS OF GOLD. PEACE AND PAIN. The day and night axe symbols of creation, And each has part in all that God hath made, There is no ill without its compensation. And life and death are only, light and shade. There never beat a heart so base and sordid But felt at times a sympathetic glow, There never lived a virtue unrewarded Nor died a vice without its meed of woe In this brief life despair should never reach us, The sea looks wide because the shores ax-e dim, The star that led the magi still can teach us The way to go if we but look at Him. And as we wade, the darkness closing o’er us. The hungry waters surging to the chin, Our deeds will rise like stepping stones before us— The good and bad—for we may use the sin. A sin of youth, atoned for and forgotten, _ Takes on a virtue if we choose to find, When clouds across our onward path are driven, We still may steer by its pale light behind. A sin forgotten is in part to pay for, A sin remembered is a constant gain, Sorrow next joy is what we ought to pray for, ■ As next to peace we profit most from pain. —John Boyle O’Reilly.

O Mother of God! if I place my confidence in thee, I shall be saved if I am under thy protection, I have nothing to fear; for the fact of being thy client is the possession of a certainty of salvation which God grants /only to those He means to save.—St. John Damascene.