Saints' Books - Donation Received!

Today Saints' Books received another donation. I feel so heartened by this I am in fact quite surprised at the extent of my happiness.

I keep thinking of the good books I am more able to acquire for the site through such donations.

I am very thankful for the kindness of each person who contributes to this work.

I find it interesting that so far, Saints' Books is the site that is receiving donations. Saints' Prayers is the least finished of the sites, and Saints' Quotes the most. And Saints' Books right in the middle.

I am almost ready to take the construction sign down off of Saints' Books. What it requires is, of course, besides some further volumes -- there will always be continually added further volumes, revising, and so, the sites are only 'finished' in the sense that the main construction work is finally done -- besides some further volumes, that the extracts be extended.

That is, on the front page, they be multiplied into a more comprehensive series of readings, several especially worth reading from each book.

Other than this I may put some chapter extracts in front in a series of set 'Selections', I am not certain, I feel as if there is something more to do but not quite what it is. Of course there are more complicated things one -might- do, that I simply cannot do because of the unnecessary complexity it adds to the maintenance, visit, etc. The sites will always be simple in nature.

Site maintenance can be a mortifying experience. Recently, I discovered that Internet Explorer treated the Master Book List completely differently than Firefox, and shoved a great deal of text off in the wrong place. How long it had been that way, I did not know.

I shall be adding a very large number of quotes from St. Paul of the Cross to the Saints' Quote site in the next few days, as soon as the reviewing and editing is finished. Saints' Prayers has seen some additional prayers, Latin and English, and should have further meditations prepared before long.

I have ordered some books to draw from, for Christmas, but the huge ones still have to wait they are too great expenses. One step closer. . . Step by step.


Hearken, O Lord
Attende Domine

Crying, we raise our eyes to Thee, Sovereign King, Redeemer of all. Listen, Christ, to the pleas of the supplicant sinners.

Ad te Rex summe, omnium redemptor, oculos nostros sublevamus flentes: exaudi, Christe, supplicantum preces.

O Christ keep safe those whom Thou hast redeemed.

Quos redemisti, tu conserva, Christe.

Merry Christmas

All three websites have been updated. Saints' Quotes with further quotes, Saints' Prayers with meditations, Saints' Books with many new books.

I next hope to work on a series of quotations for Saints' Quotes selected for the purposes of meditation, as well as per the norm of continually adding to the database.

I have finished moving (for the nonce, much is still at its previous location for the winter).

Please remember this time, the infancy of Christ, and hold the Christ Child in your heart these days and in eternity.

Merry Christmas!

'As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
Alas, quoth he, but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.'

St. Robert Southwell, 'St. Peter's Complaint', 'The Burning Babe'

Our Lady of the Holy Face Pray for Us

Mary the dawn, Christ the Perfect Day;
Mary the gate, Christ the Heavenly Way!

Mary the root, Christ the Mystic Vine;
Mary the grape, Christ the Sacred Wine!

Mary the wheat, Christ the Living Bread
Mary the stem, Christ the Rose blood-red!

Mary the font, Christ the Cleansing Flood;
Mary the cup, Christ the Saving Blood!

Mary the temple, Christ the temple's Lord; Mary the shrine, Christ the God adored!
Mary the beacon, Christ the Haven's Rest; Mary the mirror, Christ the Vision Blest!
Mary the mother, Christ the mother's Son; By all things blest while endless ages run.

[Edit: Update]

Most likely no one noticed yet, as it has hardly been a day, but Fr. Martin Cochem's 'Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass' download was missing a few pages. This has been corrected. :)

Upgrades. . .

Are are in progress. . .

The most publicly noticeable so far has been the addition of Meditations to Saints' Prayers.

Just in time for Christmas.

Meditation is the opposite of the method of worldly people, it requires a forced, strong and direct attention span. Many people feel very urged to turn away and ignore meditation. But it is absolutely a very great gift and very essential and beneficial.

So, I urge everyone, take up couple of these meditations.. discover how good they are.. then complete all of them.

The difference will be seen not only here, but also by you in eternity. :)

Meditations authored by a saint are certain to be worth it. :)

I am currently in the middle of moving and have been unable to update the sites for the past few weeks.

However, there's a lot of work that's been done that's ready to be uploaded.

I hope to have finished the move at worst in one and a half weeks.

So, around then we should have some major uploads of new quotes, prayers, and some expansions including meditations.

Patience!

'We should not wish to see or do anything which could not be done in the presence of God and His creatures, and we shall thus imagine that we are always in His presence.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

'Pray in peace and serenity, sing intelligently and in a good state - and you will be like a young eagle soaring high in the sky.'

St. Nilus of Sinai

'The Church is thy hope, the Church is thy salvation, the Church is thy refuge.'

St. John Chrysostom

I am beginning to feel the Christmas spirit.. I am going to start listening to the music and that will be the trick.

My two favorite seasons are Christmas and Lent. . Of course it is not Christmas yet. . But it is nearer and nearer.

I doubt I will have time to be able to gather as many quotations as I would like especially for this season, but I will try.

I have some modernly updated quotations of St. Robert Southwell already long used, but today.. a treat.

Older English.. Some of it Christmas poetry. . .

St. Peter's Complaint

Launch forth, my soule, into a maine of teares,
Full fraught with griefe, the trafficke of thy mind;
Torn sailes will serue, thoughts rent with guilty feares:
Giue Care the sterne, vse sighs in lieu of wind:
Remorse, thy pilot; thy misdeede thy card ;
Torment thy hauen, shipwrack thy best reward.

Shun not the shelfe of most deserued shame;
Sticke in the sands of agonizing dread;
Content thee to be stormes' and billowes' game;
Diuorct from drace, thy soule to pennace wed;
Fly not from forraine euils, fly from thy hart;
Worse then the worst of euils is that thou art.

Give vent vnto the vapours of thy brest,
That thicken in the brimmes of cloudie eyes;
Where sinne was hatcht, let teares now wash the nest;
Where life was lost, recouer life with cryes.
Thy trespasse foule, let not thy teares be few,
Baptize thy spotted soule in weeping dew.

... And later. . .

The Burning Babe

As I in hoary Winter's night stood shiveringe in the snowe,
Surpris'd I was with sodayne heat, which made my hart to glowe;
And liftinge upp a fearefull eye to vewe what fire was nere,
A prety Babe all burninge bright, did in the ayre appeare;
Who scorched with excessive heate, such floodes of teares did shedd,
As though His floodes should quench His flames which with His teares were fedd;

Alas! quoth He, but newly borne, in fiery heates I frye,
Yet none approch to warme their hartes or feele my fire but I!
My faultles brest the fornace is, the fuell woundinge thornes,
Love is the fire, and sighes the smoke, the ashes shame and scornes;
The fuell Justice layeth on, and Mercy blowes the coales,
The mettall in this fornace wrought are men's defiled soules,
for which, as nowe on fire I am, to worke them to their good,

So will I melt into a bath to washe them in My bloode:
With this He vanisht out of sight, and swiftly shroncke awaye,
And straight I called unto mynde that it was Christmas daye.

Nine Offices of the Sacred Heart

I am endeavoring to find the book or pamphlet detailing the Nine Offices of the Sacred Heart. . .


“The peace of all things lies in the tranquility of order; and order is the disposition of equal and unequal things in such a way as to give to each its proper place.”

St. Augustine

"In every danger, 'as the dove when frightened flies for refuge to the hollows of the rock, so will the Christian soul seek protection in the cleft of the mystical rock, the Wounded Side of the Redeemer."

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"I am filled with comfort, I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations;"

2 Corinthians 7: 4

O holy Heart of Jesus, dwell hidden in my heart, so that I may live only in You and only for You, so that, in the end, I may live with You eternally in heaven.

St. Claude de la Colombiere

Blessed Elzear, Comte d'Arian, in Provence, having, says St. Francis de Sales, been long absent from his devout and chaste Delphina, she sent a messenger to him to inquire expressly for his health. Behold the reply she received: "I am very well, my dear wife; but if you wish to see me, seek me in the wound of the side of our sweet Jesus: for it is there that I dwell, and there you will find me. Elsewhere you will seek me in vain." This was a Christian chevalier indeed.

- E.B.

Papal Quotes

I have read some interesting papal quotes recently. . .

Here we have a condemnation of co-education, and so-called 'sexual education' which I agree with him about how distasteful a terminology it is.

"Surely, equally false and harmful to Christian education is that method of instructing youth, which is commonly called "coeducation." Both the sexes have been established by God's wisdom for this purpose, that in the family and in society they may complement each other, and may aptly join in any one thing; for this reason there is a distinction of body and of soul by which they differ from each other, which accordingly must be maintained in education and in instruction, or, rather ought to be fostered by proper distinction and separation, in keeping with age and circumstances. Such precepts in accord with the precepts of Christian prudence are to be observed at the proper time and opportunely not only in all schools, especially through the disturbed years of youth, upon which the manner of living for almost all future life entirely depends, but also in gymnastic games and exercises, in which special care must be taken for the Christian modesty of girls, inasmuch as it is especially unbecoming for them to expose themselves, and to exhibit themselves before the eyes of all."

". . . much more pernicious are those opinions and teachings regarding the following of nature absolutely as a guide. These enter upon a certain phase of human education which is full of difficulties, namely, that which has to do with moral integrity and chastity. For here and there a great many foolishly and dangerously hold and advance the method of education, which is disgustingly called "sexual," since they foolishly feel that they can, by merely natural means, after discarding every religious and pious aid, warn youth against sensuality and excess, by initiating and instructing all of them, without distinction of sex, even publicly, in hazardous doctrines; and what is worse, by exposing them prematurely to the occasions, in order that their minds having become accustomed, as they say, may grow hardened to the dangers of puberty."

You can read more of the above in his Encyclical, "Divini illius magistri"

Pope St. Pius X's quotation in the database, puts it all much more succinctly:

'Obviously the need of this Christian instruction is accentuated by the decline of our times and morals. It is even more demanded by the existence of those public schools, lacking all religion, where everything holy is ridiculed and scorned. There both teachers' lips and students' ears are inclined to godlessness. We are referring to those schools which are unjustly called neutral or lay. In reality, they are nothing more than the stronghold of the powers of darkness.'

Pope Leo XIII, and Bl. Pope Pius IX, amongst others sound the same notes.