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"Sorrow of Heart (3)

   If you do not enjoy the favor of men, do not let it sadden you; but consider it a serious matter if you do not conduct yourself as well or as carefully as is becoming for a servant of God and a devout religious.
   It is often better and safer for us to have few consolations in this life, especially comforts of the body. Yet if we do not have divine consolation or experience it rarely, it is our own fault because we seek no sorrow of heart and do not forsake vain outward satisfaction.
--Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Chapter 21


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March 21st - St. Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis

SURNAMED “the Scholastic” on account of his learning both in sacred and in secular knowledge, St. Serapion for some time presided over the catechetical school of Alexandria; he afterwards retired into the desert, where he became a monk and formed a friendship with St Antony, who at his death left him one of his tunics. Serapion was drawn from his retreat to be placed in the episcopal seat of Thmuis, a city of Lower Egypt near Diospolis. He took part in the Council of Sardica in 347, was closely associated with St Athanasius in defence of the Catholic faith, and is said by St. Jerome to have been banished by the Emperor Constantius. 

He informed Athanasius about the new Macedonian heresy which was being propagated and the four letters which Athanasius, from the desert where he lay concealed, wrote to Serapion were the first express confutation of that error to be published. St. Serapion laboured with great success against the Arians and the Macedonians, and he also compiled an excellent book against the Manicheans. He wrote several learned letters and a treatise on the titles of the Psalms, which are lost, but for us his most important work is the Euchologion, discovered and published at the end of last century. 

Socrates says that St. Serapion made a short epigram or summary of Christian perfection which he often repeated “The mind is purified by spiritual knowledge (or by holy meditation and prayer), the spiritual passions of the soul by charity, and the irregular appetites by abstinence and penance.” He is thought to have died in banishment, but the exact date of his death is not known.

See the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. iii; DCB., vol. iv, p. 613 and CMII., pp. 154-155. There has been much confusion in the martyrology entries. There is a short account of Serapion’s career in the preface to Bishop John Wordsworth’s booklet Bishop Serapion’s Prayerbook (1910), being a translation of the prayers of his Euchologion.


Saint Quote:
If you want God to hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you wish God to anticipate your wants, provide those of the needy without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the needs of those who are ashamed to beg. To make them ask for alms is to make them buy it. 
--St. Thomas of Villanova 

Bible Quote:
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  (Matthew 10:28)


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You and God...

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some
genuine enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you;
Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating others could destroy overnight;
Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.

Give the best you have and it may never be enough;
Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

--Mother Teresa