Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1913, Page 3

Friends at Court

CLEANINGS FOR NEST WEEK’S CALENDAR June 22, Sunday.—-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Nativity of St. John the Baptist. ~ 23, Monday. —St.. Ferdinand, King and Con- " fessor, ~ 24, Tuesday. —Of the Octave. ' ~ 25, Wednesday. —St. Gallicanus, Martyr. ? , 26, Thursday.—SS. John and Paul, Martyrs. „ 27, Friday.—St. William, Abbot. ~ 28, Saturday. —St. Leo 11., Pope and Confessor. 1 _ f r 1 St. Ferdinand, King and Confessor. During a reign of thirty-five years, marked by incessant warfare, against the Moorish invaders of Spain, St. Ferdinand, King of Castile and Leon, showed by his example that genuine piety is consistent with the duties of a king and Christian soldier. He was in all things severe to himself, but compassionate and mild to others, always master of himself and of his passions. He died in 1252, at the age of 52. Nativity of St. John the Baptist. St. Augustine remarks that while the Church celebrates the feasts of other saints on the day of their death, as being that of their entrance into eternal life, she keeps as a festival the day of St. John the Baptist’s birth, because he came into the world, not as a sinner, but as a saint, having been sanctified in his mother’s womb by our Blessed Lord. Of St. John the angel foretold, ‘ He shall bo great before the Lord, and shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before them in the spirit and power of Elias ... to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people,’ The Son of God, speaking of St. John, says: ‘There hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist.’ The glorious martyrdom of St. John is commemorated on August 29. GRAINS OF GOLD TO THE SACRED HEART. O ! month of June, sweet month of prayer Devoted to the Sacred Heart O, dearest Lord, our pleading hear, And never let us from Thee part. Sweet Saviour of the Sacrament, 14 Hidden within Thy altar here, Oh make our souls for sin repent Most Sacred Heart receive our prayer. O Sacred Heart! O Heart Divine ! We love Thee and we Thee adore, Lord, take our hearts and make them Thine, For ever and for evermore. —Dulcie Hulme. The borrower runs in his own debt.. There was never a night that had no morn. Haste makes waste, and waste makes want. Truth may be smothered, but not extinguishd. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. We swallow at one draught the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us. ■ All science begins in wonder and ends in wonder, but the first is the wonder of ignorance, the last that of adoration.

Men serve the wealth which they seem to command. There is no slave so helpless as the greedy man whom gold makes greedier still.