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Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary,
use words. St Francis of Assisi, born on October 4, 1181, feast day October 4 Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister
Moon and the stars, It is no use walking anywhere to preach
unless our walking is our preaching. Where
there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor
vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor
avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety
nor doubt. If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow man. Saint Francis and Saint Benedight No man can be a
genius in slapshoes and a flat hat. |
The liberation from prison of Pietro d'Assisi (Giotto) |
Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a
long shot.
Buster Keaton
The only person who has the right attitude
about boxing in the movies for me was Buster Keaton.
Martin
Scorsese, director of
Raging Bull (1980)
As
children, imbeciles and criminals would be justly prevented from
taking any part in public affairs even if they were numerically equal
or in the majority; woman must in the same way be kept from having a
share in anything which concerns the public welfare.
Otto Weininger, Austrian philosopher who took his life on October 4, 1903; Sex
and Character
The
hatred of woman is always only the not yet overcome hatred of one's
own sexuality.
Otto Weininger
What then are the conditions of life which
produce `many-sided senses, spirit, intelligence', cooperation, love and
socialism? In one way socialism was always different from other ideals of
the same kind. Socialism has always contained the basic assumptions that
behaviour depended upon the historical conditions of life experience, and
that the `very best' and the `very worst' of individual and social
behaviour could be produced by appropriate historical conditions.
Unfortunately, however, socialism became limited in its view to economic
and class conditions. It seems to me therefore, and in
conclusion, that any group concerned about change – reform, or
revolution – should be concerned with the process of radicalising
human character, with the process of raising consciousness or
intelligence, and with ways of generalising it from the individual to
large numbers of people. Why is it that
all our institutions seem to be going through a simultaneous crisis?
Why is it that the health system's in crisis, the justice system's
in crisis, the education system's in crisis, the value system's in
crisis – you name it – why? There must be something that cuts
across all of these. ... And why is it happening in Tokyo and London
and Italy and so forth? Why is there a political crisis throughout all
the political countries? The answer is that we have sets of
institutions that were designed either for agrarian life ... as
parliaments were, or ... the Industrial Age, but no longer meet the
requirements of today. Man has a limited biological
capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity
is in future shock. October 4
is
the 277th
day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (278th
in leap years),
with 88
days remaining. (Southernwood,
Artemisia
aproxanum or Artemisia abrotanum, is
today's plant, dedicated
to this saint.) Born the son of a wealthy Italian cloth merchant, Francis was
rejected by his father for giving generously to Assisi's poor. His father
had him beaten and fettered because he was giving everything away to the
poor. He took Francis before the bishop, whereupon Francis renounced all
his rights of ownership and inheritance, and stripped off his clothes as
a sign of his taking up of poverty. The Portiuncula, Francis's small chapel, soon
became thronged with disciples. Francis of Assisi became famous for his
love of nature, preaching even to birds. His mendicant friars lived in
extreme poverty. If any part
of his habit was too soft, he darned it with pack-thread. He slept sitting
on the ground. He rarely ate cooked food, and when he did, he sprinkled it
with ashes. Yet he disapproved of indiscreet or insincere austerity. He
averted his eyes from women, and hardly knew any by sight. He cried
copiously and nearly went blind from tears. In one of his hymns, he spoke
of his brother the Sun, his sister the Moon, his brother the Wind, his
sister the Water. When dying, he said, "Welcome, sister Death". Leo,
his secretary, said that he saw the saint levitate while praying. He had
the stigmata (wounds
on his hands, feet and sides), although he at first tried to conceal
them, and he wrought miracles. Pope
Alexander IV (c. 1199 -
1261),
publicly declared that he had seen the stigmata, which had troubled the
saint in the last years of his life. Francis died at Assisi on October 3, 1226 and was canonized two years later by Pope Gregory IX. St Francis's patronage includes against dying alone, animals, Assisi, Italy, birds, ecology, environment, environmentalists, families, fire, Italy, lacemakers, merchants, diocese of needle workers, peace, tapestry workers, and zoos. In Medieval Europe, people who believed
they were possessed by Beelzebub called
upon the intercession of Francis, as it was believed that he was the
demon's opposite number in heaven.
Now is the time to discard these limitations.
Dr Jim Cairns, Australian Deputy Prime Minister
and Treasurer (1974-5) and writer, born on October 4, 1914
Cairns on
Revolution (1981)
Dr Jim Cairns, ibid
Alvin Toffler, American author, born on October 4, 1928 Source
Alvin Toffler
Alvin
Toffler
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Feast day
of St Francis
of Assisi (Giovanni Bernardone; Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone)
Jejunium Cereris, 
