From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

December 11th - Blessed Franco of Siena

FRANCO Lippi was a native of Grotti, near Siena, and was born in 1211.
As a youth he was violent, insubordinate and lazy, and after the death
of his father he spent all his time and money in gambling and
debauchery. To avoid a prosecution for murder he joined a band of
condottieri wherein his evil propensities had full scope, and by
middle age his excesses had ruined his health and more than once
brought him nearly to death.

When he was fifty he lost his eyesight, and the shock of this sudden deprivation occasioned a complete change in him. He made a general
confession and set out on a long and painful pilgrimage to the shrine
of St James at Compostela. There his blindness was healed, but his
spiritual sight remained and he made a further pilgrimage, barefooted,
from Compostela to Rome.

=C2 While praying in a Carmelite church Franco had a vision of our Lady
in which he was told he must make public reparation for the endless
scandals he had caused in Siena. He accordingly went about the streets
clothed in sackcloth and beating himself with a whip, and eventually
asked to be admitted into the Carmelite Order. But his age--he was now sixty-five-- and his appalling reputation made the friars dubious of
such a postulant, and they told him to try again in five years' tim=
e.

Franco persisted, and at last he was allowed to join as a lay-brother.
He lived for ten years in Carmel, and not only his brethren but the
whole city was amazed and edified by his fervour and the austerity of
his penance. Visions and miracles were accorded him, and after his
death on December 11, 1291, there was a spontaneous recognition of him
as a very holy penitent. His cultus was confirmed in 1670.

No early separate biography seems to be known, but G. Lombardelli
published in 1590, La vita del b. Franco Sanese da Grotti, and another
account by S. Grassi appeared in 1680. For a more modern setting see
Il Monte Carmelo (1917), pp. 300


Quote:
Thou knowest well how to excuse and color thine own deeds; but thou
art not willing to receive the excuses of others. It were more just
that thou shouldest accuse thyself, and excuse thy brother.
--Thomas =C3 Kempis

Bible Quote:
And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one.=C2 (1 John 4:7)


<><><><>
Our Morning Offering

Grant us Your light O Lord
so that the darkness of our hearts
may wholly pass away
and we may come at last to the light of Christ.
For Christ is that Morning Star
who when the night of this world has passed
brings to His saints the promised light of life
and opens to them everlasting day.
Amen
by St Bede from =E2=80=9COn the Apocalypse=E2=80=9D

--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)