Category: The Saints

Almighty and eternal God,
who created us in Thy image and bade us to seek after all that is good,
true and beautiful,
especially in the divine person of Thy only-begotten Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ,
grant we beseech Thee that,
through the intercession of Saint Isidore,
bishop and doctor,
during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee
and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen

I’m going to dig into this one a little more before I form an opinion, it is just a proposed saint, not official but i do like to say i dig the prayer, it’s pretty close, i might have some suggestions before this is all made official… stayed tuned, i’m off to research this

ok this might be my new favorite blog it has a great post on Isidorus

totally legit guy for patron saint type status and I can actually see why you’d use him for the internet

for one he made an encyclopedia that what used in schools

he was a pretty cool brainiac knowledge cataloguer, internet all the way.

he evidently suffered abuse from his older brother who is also saint

One day, the young boy couldn’t take any more. Frustrated by his inability to learn as fast as his brother wanted and hurt by his brother’s treatment, Isidore ran away. But though he could escape his brother’s hand and words, he couldn’t escape his own feeling of failure and rejection. When he finally let the outside world catch his attention, he noticed water dripping on the rock near where he sat. The drops of water that fell repeatedly carried no force and seemed to have no effect on the solid stone. And yet he saw that over time, the water drops had worn holes in the rock.

Isidore realized that if he kept working at his studies, his seemingly small efforts would eventually pay off in great learning. He also may have hoped that his efforts would also wear down the rock of his brother’s heart.

When he returned home, however, his brother in exasperation confined him to a cell (probably in a monastery) to complete his studies, not believing that he wouldn’t run away again.

So he toiled away in a little room studying. Soaking in information in a little box, totally relate that to the interweb.

His encyclopedia of knowledge, the Etymologies, was a popular textbook for nine centuries. He also wrote books on grammar, astronomy, geography, history, and biography as well as theology. When the Arabs brought study of Aristotle back to Europe, this was nothing new to Spain because Isidore’s open mind had already reintroduced the philosopher to students there.

see, makes sense, he’s all about knowledge

lets look into this abusive brother shall we….

St. Leander of Seville, Bishop (Feast – February 27th) Leander was born at Cartagena, Spain, of Severianus and Theodora, illustrious for their virtue. St. Isidore and Fulgentius, bothbishops were his brothers, and his sister, Florentina, is also numbered among the saints. He became a monk at Sevilleand then the bishop of the See. He was instrumental in converting the two sons Hermenegild and Reccared of the Arian Visigothic King Leovigild. This action earned him the kings’s wrath and exile to Constantinople, where he met and became close friends of the Papal Legate, the future Pope Gregory the Great. It was Leander who suggested that Gregory write the famous commentary on the Book of Jobcalled the Moralia. Once back home, under King Reccared, St. Leander began his life work of propagating Christian orthodoxy against the Arians in Spain. The third local Council of Toledo (over which he presided in 589) decreed the consubstantiality of the three Persons of the Trinity and brought about moral reforms. Leander’s unerring wisdom and unflagging dedication let the Visigoths and the Suevi back to the true Faith and obtained the gratitude of Gregory the Great. The saintly bishop also composed an influential Rule for nuns and was the first to introduce the Nicene Creed at Mass. Worn out by his many activities in the cause of Christ, Leander died around 600 and was succeeded in the See ofSeville by his brother Isidore. The Spanish Church honors Leander as the Doctor of the Faith.

from http://www.catholic.org

St. Isidore wrote of his brother: “This man of suave eloquence and eminent talent shone as brightly by his virtues as by his doctrine. By his faith and zeal the Gothic people have been converted from Arianism to the Catholic faith” (De script. eccles., xxviii).

This article is about various theological concepts associated with Arius. For other uses, see Arian.

Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius (ca. AD 250–336), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity (‘God the Father’, ‘God the Son’ and ‘God the Holy Spirit’) and the precise nature of the Son of God. Deemed a heretic by the First Council of Nicaea of 325, Arius was later exonerated in 335 at the First Synod of Tyre^[1], and then pronounced a heretic again after his death at the First Council of Constantinople of 381.^[2] The Roman Emperors Constantius II (337-361) and Valens (364-378) were Arians or Semi-Arians.

Arianism is defined as those teachings attributed to Arius which are in opposition to mainstream Trinitarian Christological dogma, as determined by the first two Ecumenical Councils and currently maintained by theRoman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and most Protestant Churches. “Arianism” is also often used to refer to other nontrinitarian theological systems of the 4th century, which regarded Jesus Christ—the Son of God, the Logos—as either a created being (as in Arianism proper and Anomoeanism), or as neither uncreated nor created in the sense other beings are created (as in Semi-Arianism).

OK now we’re getting somewhere I’m going to have to digress here and start a whole new post on the Arian controversy and the origins of Christianity

hopefully St. Isidore will help me figure this one out

Tags: arianism, catholic, catholicism, council of Nicaea, God, Patron Saint of the Internet, Saint Isidore of Seville Sanctus Isidorus Hispalensis

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Excerpted fSt. Alphonsus Liguori’s, “Uniformity With God’s Will”

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Excerpted from St. Alphonsus Liguori’s, “Uniformity With God’s Will”

click to order from tan books

How do we become a saint? By doing God’s will. But how do we do that? How are we to know His will?

The greatest glory we can give to God is to do his will in everything; to make UNIFORM our will to His. Our Redeemer came on earth in total uniformity with his heavenly Father’s will — not His own — to teach us by his example how to do the same.
This earth is a place of merit which is acquired by suffering; heaven is a place of reward and happiness. God does not want sacrifices, but he does want obedience to his will: Because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel; and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey[1].”
Conformity signifies that we join our wills to the will of God. UNIFORMITY means more — it means that we make ONE will of God’s will and ours, so that we will only what God wills; that God’s will alone, is our will.
This is the summit of perfection and to it we should always aspire; this should be the goal of all our works, desires, meditations and prayers. To this end we should always invoke the aid of our holy patrons, our guardian angels, and above all, of our mother Mary, the most perfect of all the saints because she most perfectly embraced the divine will.
A single act of uniformity with the divine will suffices to make a saint.

Let us now take up in a practical way the consideration of those matters in which we should unite ourselves to God’s will.
In external matters.
In times of great heat, cold or rain; in times of famine, epidemics and similar occasions we should refrain from expressions like these: “What unbearable heat!” “What piercing cold!” “What a tragedy!” In these instances we should avoid expressions indicating opposition to God’s will. We should want things to be just as they are, because it is God who thus disposes them.

In matters that affect us personally, let us submit without protest in God’s will. For example, in hunger, thirst, poverty, desolation, loss of reputation, let us always say: “Do thou build up or tear down, O Lord, as seems good in thy sight. I am content. I wish only what thou dost wish.” Thus too, says Rodriguez, should we act when the devil proposes certain hypothetical cases to us in order to wrest a sinful consent from us, or at least to cause us to be interiorly disturbed. For example: “What would you say or what would you do if some one were to say or do such and such a thing to you?” Let us dismiss the temptation by saying: “By God’s grace, I would say or do what God would want me to say or do.” Thus we shall free ourselves from imperfection and harassment.
Let us not lament if we suffer from some natural defect of body or mind; from poor memory, slowness of understanding, little ability, lameness or general bad health. What claim have we, or what obligation is God under, to give us a more brilliant mind or a more robust body? Who is ever offered a gift and then lays down the conditions upon which he will accept it? Let us thank God for what, in his pure goodness, he has given us and let us be content too with the manner in which he has given it to us.
Who knows? Perhaps if God had given us greater talent, better health, a more personable appearance, we might have lost our souls! Great talent and knowledge have caused many to be puffed up with the idea of their own importance and, in their pride, they have despised others. How easily those who have these gifts fall into grave danger to their salvation! How many on account of physical beauty or robust health have plunged headlong into a life of debauchery! How many, on the contrary, who, by reason of poverty, infirmity or physical deformity, have become saints and have saved their souls, who, given health, wealth or physical attractiveness had else lost their souls! Let us then be content with what God has given us. “But one thing is necessary[2],” and it is not beauty, not health, not talent. It is the salvation of our immortal souls.

1 Kings, 15:22, 23.
2 Luke, 10:42.
Excerpted from St. Alphonsus Liguori’s, “Uniformity With God’s Will”

St. Alphonsus Liguori’s Bigraphy from Catholic Encyclopedia

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DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY?” St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney (The Cure’ of Ars)

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DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY?
Why, my dear brethren, are our lives full of so many miseries? If we consider the life of man carefully, it is nothing other than a succession of evils: the illnesses, the disappointments, the persecutions, and indeed the losses of goods fall unceasingly upon us so that whatever side the worldly man turns to or examines, he finds only crosses and afflictions. Go and ask anyone, from the humblest to the greatest, and they will all tell you the same thing. Indeed, my dear brethren, man on earth, unless he turns to the side of God, cannot be other than unhappy. Do you know why, my friends? No, you tell me.

Well, here is the real reason.

It is that God, having put us into this world as into a place of exile and of banishment, wishes to force us, by so many evils, not to attach our hearts to it but to aspire to greater, purer, and more lasting joys than those we can find in this life. To make us appreciate more keenly the necessity to turn our eyes to eternal blessings, God has filled our hearts with desires so vast and so magnificent that nothing in creation is capable of satisfying them. Thus it is that in the hope of finding some pleasure, we attach ourselves to created objects and that we have no sooner possessed and sampled that which we have so ardently desired than we turn to something else, hoping to find what we wanted. We are, then, through our own experience, constrained to admit that it is but useless for us to want to derive our happiness here below from transient things. If we hope to have any consolation in this world, it will only be by despising the things which are passing and which have no lasting value and in striving towards the noble and happy end for which God has created us. Do you want to be happy, my friends? Fix your eyes on Heaven; it is there that your hearts will find that which will satisfy them completely.

All the evils which you experience are the real means of leading you there. That is what I am going to show you, in as clear and brilliant way as shines the noon-day sun. First of all, I am going to tell you that Jesus Christ, by His sufferings and His death, has made all our actions meritorious, so that for the good Christian there is no motion of our hearts or of our bodies which will not be rewarded if we perform them for Him.

Perhaps you are already thinking: “That is not so very clear.”

Very well! If that will not do you, let us put it more simply.

Follow me for a moment and you will know the way in which to make all your actions meritorious for eternal life without changing anything in your way of behaving. All you have to do is to have in view the object of pleasing God in everything you do, and I will add that instead of making your actions more difficult by doing them for God, you will make them, on the contrary, much more pleasant and less arduous. In the morning, when you awake, think at once of God and quickly make the Sign of the Cross, saying to Him: “My God, I give you my heart, and since You are so good as to give me another day, give me the grace that everything I do will be for Your honour and for the salvation of my soul.”

Before beginning your work, my dear brethren, never fail to make the Sign of the Cross. Do not imitate those people without religion who dare not do this because they are in company. Offer quite simply all your difficulties to God and renew from time to time this offering, for by that means you will have the happiness of drawing down the blessing of Heaven on yourself and on all you do. Just think, my dear brethren, how many acts of virtue you can practice by behaving in this way, without making any change in what you are actually doing. If you work with the object of pleasing God and obeying His Commandments, which order you to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, that is an act of obedience. If you want to expiate your sins, you are making an act of penance. If you want to obtain some grace for yourself or for others, it is an act of hope and of charity. Oh, how we could merit Heaven every day, my dear brethren, by doing just our ordinary duties, but by doing them for God and the salvation of our souls! Who stops you, when you hear the chimes striking, from thinking on the shortness of time and of saying in your minds: “Time passes and death comes closer.

I am hastening towards eternity. Am I really ready to appear before the tribunal of God? Am I not in a state of sin?

ST. JEAN MARIE BAPTISTE VIANNEY (The Cure’ of Ars)
ewtn biography of

biography on marypages.com

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Category: The Saints

see, makes sense, he’s all about knowledge

OK now we’re getting somewhere I’m going to have to digress here and start a whole new post on the Arian controversy and the origins of Christianity

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