Love does not envy others

[Rich]

Love does not envy others

Envy and jealousy, its counterpart, are sinful because they lead us to
sorrow over what should make us rejoice--namely, our neighbor's good.
The reason we may grieve over our another's good is that somehow we
see that good as lessening our own value or excellence. Envy forms
when we believe that the other person's advantage or possession
diminishes or brings disgrace on us. Envy is contrary to love. Both
the object of love and the object of envy is our neighbor's good, but
by contrary movements, since love rejoices in our neighbor's good,
while envy grieves over it.

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May 28th - Bl. Margaret Pole, Royal Martyr
(1473-1541)

By birth, Blessed Margaret Pole was a Plantagenet--a member of the
royal family that ruled England from 1154 to 1485. Kings Edward IV and
Richard IV were her uncles, and by marriage she was a first cousin to
Henry VII Tudor. Her royal blood was the cause of both her prominence
and her death.

King Henry VII gave Margaret in marriage to one of his favorite
knights, Sir Richard Pole. Richard and Margaret had five children. One
of them was Reginald Pole (1500-1558). Reginald felt called to the
clergy, was made a cardinal in 1536 and in 1549 came close to being
elected pope. He was a leader in the Catholic Reformation spearheaded
by the Ecumenical Council of Trent. Named papal nuncio to England in
1554 when Catholic Mary Tudor succeeded King Edward VI, Cardinal Pole
formally received that country back into union with the Holy See and
died as the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury.

Henry VII had at one point charged Margaret’s brother with treason and
confiscated his property. When his son, young Henry VIII, became king,
he repaired this injustice to the Poles by returning to Margaret her
brother’s estates and creating her Countess of Salisbury. At that
time, Henry had only praise for this noble matron. He even called her
the saintliest woman in England. Since she was now a widow, the
monarch invited her to come to court and serve as governess to his
daughter, Mary Tudor.

After a while, however, the king determined to get an annulment of his
marriage to Princess Mary’s mother, Queen Catherine of Aragon.
Catherine had not given him a male heir. Furthermore, he was attracted
to a woman of the court, Anne Boleyn. When the pope declared himself
unable to grant the annulment requested, Henry broke not only with the
pope but with the Catholic Church. He had the Protestant Archbishop of
Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, issue an invalid declaration that the
marriage to Catherine was null; and Henry VIII proclaimed himself head
of the Church in England.

While seeking opinions favorable to his divorce, Henry had asked
Reginald Pole for his view. Pole wrote a respectful but strong
denunciation of the King’s arguments. Henry now turned against
Reginald’s whole family. To revenge himself, he executed Margaret’s
other son, Lord Montague, as well as her nephew, the Marquis of
Exeter. In 1539, the king got Parliament to pass a law declaring the
Pole family guilty of treason. Margaret had approved her son
Reginald’s statement on the royal marriage, and since she disapproved
of the ruler’s attack on the papacy, she withdrew from the court. But
she could not escape his vindictiveness. A board of inquiry that
subjected her to a long interrogation could find nothing treasonable
in her actions. Nevertheless, she was jailed in the wretched Tower Of
London, and held prisoner for two years.

There never was a trial. Quite likely, the authorities realized that
no jury would convict the respected Countess Margaret. Finally, on May
27, 1541, on only an hour’s notice, Margaret was led out into the
square and beheaded. Since the official headsman was not present, his
amateurish assistant plied the axe, causing further grief by his
clumsy hacking.

Thus died Margaret Pole, a commanding matron of 70 years, for her
loyalty to the pope. She was truer to her royal blood than the
misguided king who shed it. On December 29, 1886, Pope Leo XIII
declared this queenly woman a blessed martyr. She is a glory of
Catholic motherhood and widowhood. Her feast day is May 28.
–Father Robert F. McNamara


Saint Quote:
Listen to me for one moment and you will see that only the service of
God will console us and make us happy in the midst of all the miseries
of life. To accomplish it, you do not need to leave either your
belongings, or your parents, or even your friends, unless they are
leading you to sin. You have no need to go and spend the rest of your
lives in the desert to weep there for your sins. If that were
necessary for us, indeed, we should be very happy to have such a
remedy for our ills. But no, a father and a mother of a family can
serve God by living with their children and bringing them up in a
Christian way. A servant can very easily serve God and his master,
with nothing to stop him. No, my dear brethren, the way of life that
means serving God changes nothing in all that we have to do. On the
contrary, we simply do better all the things we must do!
-- St. John Vianney

Bible Quote:
6 The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,
and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. [2
Corinthians 9:6] RSVCE


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“If I’m not willing, to change my schedule,
so that I can, spend time with Jesus,
than I’m not really, a disciple of His.”
“If you follow Jesus,
you’re going to get into some trouble!”
“If not YOU,
then WHO?
If not NOW,
then WHEN?
--Fr Mike Schmitz