Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 22 January 1920, Page 3

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR. Jan. 25, Sunday. Third Sunday after Epiphany. Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle. ~ 26, Monday.St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. „ 27, Tuesday.St. John Chrysostom, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. ~ 28, Wednesday. —St. Agnes (second time). ~ 29, Thursday.St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. ~ 30, Friday.—St. Martina, Virgin and Martyr. ~ 31, Saturday.—Office of the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. Feast of the Conversion of St. Paid. St. Paul was at first a violent persecutor of the Church. In fact, at the very moment when the grace of God touched his heart he was on his way to Damascus, with authority to seize any persons whom he might find professing the new faith, and send them in chains to Jerusalem. After his conversion, St. Paid devoted all his energies to the propagation of the Christian religion, and spent his life in carrying the glad tidings of redemption to the nations that till then hail sat "in darkness and in the shadow of death." St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. St. Polycarp, a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, governed the important See of Smyrna for 70 years. Tie is believed to have been the .Angel or Bishop of Smyrna commended by Our Blessed Lord in the Apocalypse (chap, ii.). He was martyred in 169, being then about 100 years of age. St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. This saint was horn in Savoy in 1547. Naturally of a passionate disposition, lie succeeded in obtaining such perfect control over himself that his name is a synonym for meekness ami patience. Ordained priest, the sanctity of his life, united to a gentle, winning manner, enabled him to bring back to the Church numbers of his countrymen who had been imbued from childhood with the heretical tenets of Calvin. In 1602 he became Bishop of Geneva. He died in 1622, after having shown himself the model of a Bishop, as he had been that of a layman ami priest. GRAINS OF GOLD STEWARDS OF GOLD. The flush of the rose on your breast, The red of the rose in your hair. From the hearts of the poor have been pressed, —■ The stain of the blood is still there. The gems that like raindrops of light Around your fair neck are aglow, Are the tears of the poor thai at night In silence and misery flow. The languorous music that throbs, As color and fragrance are wed. Holds the cadence of children's low sobs, In desperate hunger for bread. Your senses are stayed with the wine That lulls you to slumber in ease; But the toil that hath nurtured the vine. Must savor with sorrow the lees. O rich, who are stewards of gold, Remember the truth while you may: When you die, all your poor hands will hold Is what you have given away ! REFLECTIONS. What did St. Joseph do all his life except hammer nails with a pure intention? Yet Joseph is God's ideal of a saint. — Father Tracy Clarke, S.J. Let us lift ourselves above all things that pass, and soar aloft far from the earth ! Up above, the air is so pure! . . . Jesus may hide Himself, but we know that Ho is there. My heart, O Lord, is ready— ready for prosperity, ready for adversity, ready for what is high and for what is lowly, ready for everything that You command.— St. Bernard. You cannot unite two men together unless the compact be virtue, for vice can give no sanction to compact, she can form no bond of affection. —Curran.