Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 10 April 1913, Page 3

Friends at Court

QLEANFJSGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR April 13, Sunday. Third Sunday after Easter. Patronage of St. Joseph. „ 14, Monday.—St. Justin, Martyr. „ 15, Tuesday.—Of the Octave. „ 16, Wednesday. —St. Benedict Joseph Labre, Confessor. „ 17, Thursday. —St. Anicetus, Pope and Martyr. „ 18, Friday.—Of the Octave. >„ 19, Saturday.St. Leo IX., Pop© and Confessor. Patronage of St. Joseph. This feast was instituted by Pius IX shortly after his elevation to the pontificate. Later on, in 1870, the same Pontiff placed the Universal Church under St. Joseph's patronage. Few, if any, of the. saints, with the exception of the Mother of God, appeal more strongly to our love and veneration than St. Joseph—spouse of the Blessed Virgin and foster-father of our Redeemer. As the Son of God was subject to him on earth, so we believe his intercession to be most efficacious in heaven. St. Thomas of Aquin says of him: ' Some saints are privileged to extend to us their patronage in certain cases with peculiar efficacy; but to St. Joseph is, given to assist us in all cases, in every necessity, in every undertaking.' St. Benedict Joseph Labre, Confessor. St. Benedict was a native of the diocese of Boulogne, in France. Feeling a strong inclination towards the solitude of the cloister, he successively sought admission into the Trappist, Carthusian and Cistercian Orders. Convinced at last that God had not called him to the religious state, he gave himself up to a life of extreme austerity in the world for a period of thirteen years, during which time he visited, on foot, as a pilgrim, the principal shrines of Europe. He died in Home in the year 1783, at the age of thirty-five. GRAINS OF GOLD QUEEN OF HEAVEN. I cannot write a poem of thee, The power of pen is weak; The Mysteries of thy blest life No human tongue can speak. I only ask thee, Mother dear, To be my refuge sweet, And guide me to thy Holy Son, And leave me at His feet. O, Mother Mary, kind and true, I give my heart to thee, O lead me all through life and death, On to eternity. —Dulcie Hulme. It is a great law of our being that we become like those things we contemplate. If we contemplate those : : that are true and noble and elevating, we grow in the 'likeness of these. If we contemplate merely material things, as gold or silver, or copper or iron, our souls, our natures, and even our faces become like them, hard and flinty, robbed of their finer and better and grander qualities. Call to mind the person or picture of the miser, and you will quickly see that this is true. Merely nature's great law. He thought he was going to be a master: he finds himself the slave. Instead of possessing his wealth, his wealth possesses him.