Franciscan Cards - Catholic Resources for sharing and spreading the Good News!

Saint Francis Caracciolo, Founder of the Minor Clerks Regular
Saint Francis Caracciolo lived only 46 years - but his life was so marked with the love of God that they called him just that! "The Preacher of the Love of God." When he preached, which was often, his sermons would always be about the great love that God had for us, the great lengths to which God would go to save even one sinner. Francis also spent many long hours hearing confessions and reassuring those who came to him how much God loved and cared for them.

Francis was twenty-two when he had the great conversion of his life. A noble young man, he was devout and a good son but nothing out of the ordinary. Then he came down with a bad skin disease that was likened to leperosy. His case became so bad, that he was given no hope of surviving. He prayed to God and promised that if he was allowed to live he would devout his whole life to serving God. He recovered so rapidly that it was immediately called a miracle. True to his word he decided to become a priest and went off to Naples to study for his ordination.

After becoming a priest - God directed him by a strangers mistake to begin a new order! What happened was that two priests had decided to start a new way of religious life and sent a letter off to another friend of theirs. But the letter got sent by misktake to Ascanio as Francis was then called. Opening the letter thinking it was for him, he was so moved by the plans of these two priests because 'their' ideas were so close to 'his'! He went quickly and made contact with the one who had written the letter.

How inspiring it is for us to see that God truly does turn all things to good as he has promised. Even simple mistakes can become the catalyst for God to work!

Text & art by Sister Patricia Proctor, osc

For further information on Saint Francis Caracciolo visit the Saint of the Day

To send this card: Saint Francis Caracciolo

To read the Full Joynotes June 4

Quote for the Day:

You don?t need to use many or high-sounding words.
Just repeat often, ?Lord, show me your mercy as you know best.?
Or, ?God, come to my assistance.?

St. Macarius of Alexandria

Quote from the book, "101 Inspirational Stories of the Power of Prayer"

Note: If you have not been getting JoyNotes messages and you are using either AOL or Bellsouth and a few others.... they have updated their Spam Controls and JoyNotes is apparently a victim. I will leave this message up for a while.. because a lot of folks are wondering. Also for many people on these systems.. it doesn't work for me to email you back.. because my emails are blocked. So if you have another email address you might want to subscribe on that one.

Jacob's

I am going through some rather interesting experiences right now by sharing my dreams with my Spiritual Director. Amazing. When you pay attention to your dreams - its kind of like having a private window into your soul. Sometimes when you share with another person about yourself.. that is one thing...you are speaking about where you think you are coming from .. and how you think you are interpreting things.. but when you share a dream its quite different. Because the dreams reveal things that we don't often see so clearly ourselves.. and if you share your dreams sometimes others help to interpret them in ways you don't see yourself. Of course not everyone can interpret your dream correctly.. but getting different insights on what the dream "might" be saying - is at least a step in a direction you might not other wise consider.

This is the third dream I have been working on. It's rather fun. Not only that I've been sharing my dreams and my directors insights with the other sisters! We are having great fun going over my soul. Anyway since we are such a close community I'm sure they see more "into" me than I do.. so they might as well let get some benefit from my hopeful growth.

I remember reading a long time ago about some native peoples who belonged to a very peace filled tribe (I think in Africa) anyway dreams were a big part of their life. And if someone had a dream in which they were angry with another member they were taught to go and talk it over with that person. Interesting huh? Dream therapy now - seems to point more in the direction of everything coming from one's own self - in that even if you dream of other people they are often other aspects of yourself.

Though I think sometimes there are different kinds of dreams.. like prophetic dreams...or dreams that warn you about things with other people - for instance I dreamed of my Dad going into dementia I think before I could actually recognize it's reality right before me. And I remember my mom told me that she saw me "entering the monastery" months before I actually made the decision to do so. Which I thought was rather amazing because my mother is not Catholic.. though I think she is in, in heart and soul!

Well, this is another long one... so better quit. I heard from the printer today that the "Free" Publicity books will be going out tomorrow. So if you wondered why you haven't received it yet.. its because its still in process. Life always takes so much longer than we think it should! (I think we have reached our quota though of giving away the free books.. still have a few to process in though so if there are any left below the 1000 limit.. will let you know).

Blessings of Peace and All Good,
Sister Patricia and all the Sisters

Sr Patricia