From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

January 1st - Saint Zedislava Berka, OP, Matron
=C2 (also known as Zdislava Berka, Zedislava Berkiana, Zdislava of Lember=
k)

Memorial 1 January
30 May (region of the Czech Republic)
4 January (Dominicans)

Born in Bohemia (Czech Republic), 1210; died there on January 1, 1252;
cultus approved by Pope Pius X in 1907; canonized by Pope John Paul II
in Olomouc, Czech Republic, in 1995.

Born of a warrior race to noble parents, Zedislava lived in a
fortified castle on the borders of Christendom, in an age when the
fierce Mongol hordes were the world's worst menace. Her whole life was
spent within the sound of clashing arms, and the moans of the dying.
The gentleness and purity of her life stand out in surprising beauty
against the dark background of a warlike and materialistic people.

Zedislava learned Christian charity early in life from her mother, who
taught her not only the secrets of preparing medicinal herbs but also
the healing balm of prayer. Going each day to the castle gate with
alms and medicines for the poor and the wretched who crowded there for
help, she was soon well acquainted with human misery. Cheerful,
prayerful, and alert to see the sorrows of others, the child became a
light of hope to the miserable. Because of her sweetness and natural
charm, she was able to teach many lessons to those about her.

As a child, she is said to have fled from her home for a time to live
as a hermit, but she returned to live a more normal life that included
an early marriage to a soldier, the duke of Lemmberk, who, like her
own father, was a rich nobleman in command of a castle on the
frontier. The couple produced four children. Zedislava cared
judiciously for her own family and lavished great care on the poor,
especially the fugitives and victims of the Tartar invasions.

Her husband was a good man, but a rough and battle-hardened soldier
who liked nothing better than the clash of swords. He may have treated Zedislava badly and he certainly tried his young wife's patience and
obedience in a thousand ways. He insisted that she dress in her finest
gowns and attend the long and barbarous banquets that pleased him so.
(In return, she tried his patience because of her generosity towards
the poor.)

Being of a retiring disposition and much given to prayer=E2=80=94and,
moreover, having a family and a large castle to care for=E2=80=94she found
this a real sacrifice. However, obedience and patience had been an
important part of her training, and she taught herself to spiritualize
the endless trials that would beset the mother of four children in a
medieval fortress.

The Polish missionaries, Saint Hyacinth and Blessed Ceslaus, brought
Zedislava the first knowledge of the new religious order which had
begun but a few years before. Saint Dominic, a Spaniard, had met them
in Italy, where he had gone to have his order approved. Begun in
France, the Dominican Order was already international, and with the
profession of Zedislava as the first Slavic Tertiary, its world-wide
scope became apparent.

Enchanted with the possibilities of an order that allowed her to share
in its benefits and works while caring for her family, Zedislava threw
herself into the new project with enviable zeal. She encouraged her
husband to build a hostel for the many poor pilgrims who came homeless
to the gate. She visited the prisoners in the frightful dungeons, and
used her influence to obtain pardons from the severe sentences meted
out to them. She fed and cared for the poor, taught catechism to the
children of the servants, and showed all, by the sweetness of her
life, just what it meant to be a Christian lady and a Dominican
Tertiary. On the occasion of a Mongol (Tartar) attack, when homeless
refugees poured into the castle stronghold, her calm, invincible
charity was a bulwark of strength to all.

With her own funds, Zedislava determined to build a church (Priory of
Saint Lawrence) where God might be fittingly worshipped. As an act of
zeal and penance, she herself carried many of the heavy beams and
materials that went into the building. She did this at night so that
no one would know of her hard work.

Zedislava experienced visions and ecstasies during this time. She also
received Holy Communion nearly every day in an age when this was not
customary.

Her death came soon after the completion of the church. The mourning
people who knelt by her deathbed could see evidence of her strong
Christian virtues in the monuments she had left: her children, her
church, and the inspiration of a saintly wife and mother. She consoled
her husband in life and appeared to him in glory after death, which
strongly encouraged his desire for conversion.

Numerous miracles are ascribed to Saint Zedislava, including the
raising of the dead to life, though Pope Pius X did not refer to these
in his approval of the cultus given to her in her native country
(Benedictines, Dorcy, Farmer).

In art she is depicted as a Dominican tertiary with a crucifix wound
with roses, lying in the place of a sick person in bed (Roeder).
Venerated in Bohemia (Roeder).


=E2=80=9CIf anyone does not believe that Holy Mary
is the Mother of God,
he is severed from the Godhead.
If anyone should assert that He passed through the Virgin
as through a channel
and was not at once divinely and humanly formed in her
(divinely, because without the intervention of a man;
humanly, because in accordance with the laws of gestation),
he is in like manner godless.=E2=80=9D
--St Gregory Nazianzen (330-390)

Saint Quote:
One of the most excellent allotments of the gift of faith, is for a
man to be certain of the petition of his prayer through his trust in
God. Certainty of faith in God is not the soundness of a man's
confession (although this is the mother of faith), but a soul that
beholds the truth of God by the power of her disciplines.
--St. Isaac the Syrian

Bible Quote:
My spirit hath rejoiced in God My Savior, because He hath regarded the
humility of His handmaid. (St. Luke 1:47-48)


<><><><>
PRAYER TO CHRIST CRUCIFIED

=C2 =C2 Keep us in peace, O Christ our God,
=C2 =C2 under the protection of Thy holy and venerable Cross:
=C2 =C2 save us from enemies visible and invisible
=C2 =C2 and account us worthy to glorify Thee with thanksgiving,
=C2 =C2 together with the Father,
=C2 =C2 and the Holy Ghost,
=C2 =C2 now and ever and world without end.
=C2 =C2 Amen.

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