Your brothers know and are used to the Roman Church, in which you have been nurtured. But I approve of your selecting carefully anything you have found that may be more pleasing to Almighty God, whether in the Roman Church or that of Gaul, or in any Church whatever, and introducing in the Church of the Angli, which is as yet new in the faith, by a special institution, what you have been able to collect from many Churches. For we ought not to love things for places, but places for things. Wherefore choose from each several Church such things as are pious, religious, and right, and, collecting them as it were into a bundle, plant them in the minds of the Angli for their use.


-- From a letter of Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury

The crowd joined in the attack on them, and the magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake. About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened, there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew [his] sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.” He asked for a light and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.” So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house. He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once. He brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.

-- Acts 16:22-34

Joseph basically spent his whole life doing one thing in one place for one group of people. Not a very exciting life but then being a missionary has many different rewards, though excitement and notoriety may not be among them. He is remembered for his patience and gentleness and is reflected in today's quote by him.
Today is also the feast of Paul VI, which was declared after I initially wrote this entry. I cannot say enough about this man and his influence in my life. His choice of the name Paul speaks to me of his understanding of how Vatican II built on Vatican I and how, like Paul V, the job of implementing the council fell to him.
It is fitting to celebrate both today. Both men speak to me of quiet strength and perseverance as well as steadfast devotion to the message of Christ.

We must love them, love them in spite of everything, love them always.

-- Retreat Notes

The saying goes that one man's garbage is another man's treasure.
Beloved by the French reviled by the English in her time and yet, because we are all Catholic, she is today celebrated by the whole Church.
She is a conundrum though. When the noted agnostic George Bernard researched and wrote his celebrated play "Saint Joan", he was hard pressed to find any "bad guys" or "good guys" for that matter (of course, it may have been because he was British).
But we see with the eyes of Faith and an understanding of human sinfulness. What the story of Joan teaches us is that we must not be parochial in our thinking but be catholic. We must follow God's will in all things. She was a mystic, called to overcome injustice and deny roles and expectations in order to call all to love and honor regardless of nationality or political necessity. There are no borders for us; we must respect the rights of others, not because we are benevolent rulers but because we are brothers and sisters. Sometimes our conscience (God's voice within us) guides in ways that seem contrary to Church law or teachings, but upon closer examination, if we have truly given ourselves over to Him and not our own vanity, God's will is done, despite opposition from the well-intentioned. How many saints and religious orders and reformers have trod that path!
We ourselves must hear the words of Jesus, when he defends his teachings  “I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing. Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.” (John 18:20-21) A clear conscience gives us strength - there is no need for explanation.
The text below is from the rather one-sided English trial against her, but I think speaks to her nature, which today we interpret one way, but at that time they interpreted in another.

After Jeanne had been admonished in this manner and had heard these exhortations she replied thereto in this way: "As for my words and deeds, which I declared in the trial, I refer to them and will maintain them."
Asked if she thinks she is not bound to submit her words and deeds to the Church Militant [the Church on Earth] or any one other than God, she answered: "I will maintain that manner of speech which I always said and held in the trial."
She said that if she were condemned and she saw the fire and the faggots alight and the executioner ready 'to kindle the fire, and she herself were in it, she would say nothing else and would maintain until death what she said in the trial.
...On Thursday after Whitsuntide, May 24th of the same year, we the said judges repaired in the morning to a public place, in the cemetery of the abbey of Saint-Ouen at Rouen, where the said Jeanne was present before us on a scaffold or platform. First we had a solemn sermon pronounced by master Guillaume Erart, a distinguished doctor of sacred theology, for the salutary admonition of the said Jeanne and of the great multitude of people present.
...The said doctor began his sermon by taking for his text the word of God in the fifteenth chapter of St. John: "A branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine." Then he solemnly explained that all Catholics must abide in the true vine of Our Holy Mother Church which Our Lord planted with His right hand: he showed how this Jeanne had cut herself off from the unity of our Holy Mother Church by many errors and grave crimes, and how she had frequently scandalized the Christian people. He admonished and exhorted her and the multitude of people by salutary doctrines.
When the sermon was over he addressed Jeanne in these terms: "Behold my Lords your judges who have repeatedly summoned and required you to submit all your words and deeds to Our Holy Mother Church, showing and pointing out to you that in the opinion of the clergy many things are to be found in your words and deeds which it is good neither to affirm nor uphold."
To which Jeanne replied: "I will answer you. Touching my submission to the Church, I have answered them on this point. Let all that I have said and done be sent to Rome to our Holy Father the Pope to whom after God I refer myself. As for my words and deeds, they were done at God's command." She said that she charged no one with them, neither her king nor any other; and if there were any fault it was hers and no other person's.
Asked whether she would revoke all her words and deeds which are disapproved of by the clergy, she answered: "I refer me to God and to our Holy Father the Pope."

-- The Trial of Joan of Arc, May 23-24.

What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.

-- Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, I, 1

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said,
"Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."
And Mary said:
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever."

-- Luke 1:39-56