Posted on 09/28/2012 6:22:16 AM PDT by marshmallow
On October 4, we shall give thanks for one of the best known and least known of all saints. Least known, that is, because Francis of Assisi was not a garden gnome, or a doe-eyed hippy skipping with animals and hugging trees. Garden gnomes do not bear the Stigmata of Christ's wounds.
A vegetarian? He berated a friar for wanting to abstain from meat on a feast day and said that on Christmas he would smear the wall with meat.
An iconoclast? He was meticulous in the ceremonials of the Mass, insisting that every sacred vessel and vestment be the best, and his Rule dismissed any friar who parted from the Pope on the slightest article of Faith.
A pacifist? He joined the Fifth Crusade, simmering ever since eleven thousand Muslims had invaded Rome and desecrated the tombs of Peter and Paul in the year 846. He went to North Africa in 1219 to convert the Muslims and confronted Sultan al Malik al-Kamil, who had just slaughtered five thousand Christians at Damietta. Francis fearlessly told the Sultan: It is just that Christians invade the land you inhabit, for you blaspheme the name of Christ and alienate everyone you can from His worship. While counselors called for the beheading of Francis according to Muslim law, the Sultan was so taken with the humility of Francis that he only had him beaten, chained and imprisoned, and then he released him.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newadvent.org ...
Muslims slaughtered 5000 Christians?? Naw...That would pretty make Muhammed the Hitler of the Muslim world. Who knew....WE ALL KNOW !!!!
Always loved St. Anthony. Had a nice statue of him in the 60's.
St. Francis Ping!
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Whoops....Post 2 & 3...Meant St. Francis
Did you read the article? It claims that the poem you posted, attributed to St Francis, surfaced in 1912, and is not actually of St Francsis at all, and is also of questionable theology.
LOL
Isn’t St. Anthony the saint who may help you find things that are lost?
Isn’t Post 4 the ‘Saint Francis hymn’ that Rutler debunked as having been written in 1912 and having contained semi-Pelagian heresy?
Hello, sis. Funny that we posted almost exactly the same comments. hahah.
***... simmering ever since eleven thousand Muslims had invaded Rome and desecrated the tombs of Peter and Paul in the year 846.***
Interesting how this incident is passed over or forgotten by many who teach history. I did not know about it till I read a history of the Christian Church about 25 years ago.
great point !
My mother in law lost a pair of her favorite ear rings...I found them the following year when I was cutting the lawn...they had laid there all winter and no one spotted them the prior summer...you find what you ask for, but you'll be surprised where you find it....He never fails.. My mother in law had never been in the middle of my front lawn, but thats where I found them....St Anthony never fails..:O)
“St Anthony never has disappointed me when I pray for lost items....it may take years. I lost my engagement ring and prayed to St Anthony...I figured someone came in the house and stole it as I took my rings off sometimes washing dishes...And then after a coupleof years gave up on ever finding it....I cleaned out the back shelf of my closet a couple of years ago, found a Christmas music box with a Santa and revolving tree, gifts etc. My daughter in law gave it to us before she married my son...she made it herself....Sitting on the base of the Christmas tree was my ring....must have put it there a couple of years earlier when I took it off to do dishes....”
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We have a similar story. My wife lost her engagement ring during a Christmas party at our house. We searched the house, including going through all of the garbage with a ‘fine tooth comb’.
Two years later, after I had finally been able to replace the ring, she was putting on the dress wool pants that she had worn when she lost the ring. She felt something in the waist band of the pants. Apparently she put the ring in the pocket while at the sink. The ring got wedged in a tiny crevice created in the overlapping fabric of the waist band above the pocket. It was still there, despite trips to the dry cleaner.
I can’t get her to sell either of them.
As the old song goes......A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girls best friend.... diamonds are for collecting not selling, she is a smart lady...:O)
... but they look pretty chummy to me ...
My cousins wife, a Sicilian, started selling Insurance after they got married went Gault early, Diamods and Gold. She was on the million dollar round table member for 20 years.
Her father was a School Janitor, used to refer to me as Irish, Swamp Yankee would have been more correct.
the idea of a perfect gift (for me) is a champagne glass full of cut but unset diamonds....I asked Santa one year for that and he laughed so hard I fell off his lap....oh wait, that was my husband.
My family is English with a mixture of Scots Irish, Ulster, and Papists, also Ulster, who hate each other for no known reason even though they share the same last name.
To complicate matters I married a Polock who was half Lithuanian and they hate each other for no known reason, to argue this was a great opportunity for a fight at the White Eagle.
The way out was for me was to argue Salem, Mass, 1628.
LOL I would love to see that family tree on paper, if it were even possible to make one.....:O)Have a great week-end....GG
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