Congratulations and Welcome! 
You are reading one of the missions you can do to help spread the writings and words of the saints throughout the world. This sort of work is work for Heaven, that lasts forever, unlike so much other work, this work leads to greater eternal happiness, and spreads it beauties throughout the world.
The work is very simple and very beneficial to the spiritual life. Each potential mission is both similar and different.. they all have to do with the writings of the saints in various ways.
Remember the motto of St. Benedict: Pray and work! But this sort of work is in many ways hardly work at all. 
Please do as much or as little as you please, and collaborate as much or as little as you like. Enjoy the work.
Here we have a rather detailed explanation of a simple mission, Mission #1. If you find other ways to do the work than as suggested that you find easier, that is fine as long as the minimum criteria are fulfilled. Saints' Books - Volunteer WorkMission #1 This mission is basically reading books and correcting all the typos and formatting problems with them.
The problem is we have many books in text format for Saints' Books that are not quite ready for uploading because of these problems. Some we provide instead them in PDF format, which is a very big book that takes up too much space on the computer and is not that easy to read either.
So we need to fix up these books, and there's a list of them in the next post!
So as you go through the book you correct it for ease of reading, so everyone especially people who have difficulty reading or give up easily will be more able to read it!
Basically choose a book you want to read and enjoy, and want to fix at once!
This mission is a long mission. It's as long as a book.
But there is a secret to having immediate results from it. And that is doing one chapter at a time. This pacing of yourself allows you to see the results of your work. Also, if you email me the partial results, I can work on it too. And best of all..
For many of the works extracts of these can be used for the Meditations page on Saints' Prayers, the Sermons page on Saints' Works, and as sources for prayers, quotations, the newsletter, email forwards, and more! The writings of the saints are always useful in more ways than one!
So even if you never finish correcting an entire book, your work will be fruitful far before this and lastingly.
How do you correct the books?
Step by step. . .
1. Pick a book!
The book should be by a saint, or blessed or venerable, or a devout religious author such as but not limited to those on Saints' Books. There are many public domain electronic books not yet provided!
Pick a book, and tell me which one you picked.
2. Let me know which book! Then I will look it over and make the formatting decisions. Make any suggestions about this you please!
3. Once we've decided on the format for the book, which is where to bold, italics, how to space and correct, and so forth, then the work begins!
4. Step by step correct the typography, spelling and formatting errors, page by page. Pace yourself, and do your best, and think of the rewards!
You will profit from reading bits of what you are working on, if not all.
Let's look at the before and after of what a book looks like in this work. Just skim it!
First a book in good initial shape that requires less work than some, this may be the best to work on -- ones with many spelling errors are more advanced work!CALAMITIES, CHASTISEMENT,
AND
THE LOVE OF GOD
By ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI
From THE ASCETICAL WORKS
Volume XVII: MISCELLANY, pp. 320-420:
NINE DISCOURSES FOR TIMES OF CALAMITIES
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN
EDITED BY REV. EUGENE GRIMM, C.Ss.R.
LONDON, DUBLIN
1890
CONTENTS (page numbers as in text)
I. God threatens to chastise us in order to deliver us from chastisement, 321
II. Sinners will not believe in the divine threats until chastisement has come
upon them, 331
III. God is merciful for a season, and then chastises, 342
IV. The four principal gates of hell, 354
V. Devotions are useless if we do not cleanse our souls from sin, 368
VI. God chastises us in this life for our good, not for our destruction, 378
VII. God chastises us in this life that he may show us mercy in the next, 388
VIII. Prayers appease God, and avert from us the chastisement we deserve,
provided we resolve to amend, 401
IX. Most Holy Mary is the mediatrix (intercessor) of sinners, 410
PRAYERS
INDEX
FIRST DISCOURSE
God Threatens to Chastise us in order to deliver us
from Chastisement
"Heu! consolabor super hostibus meis, et vindicabor de inimicis meis."
"Ah, I will comfort Myself over My adversaries: and I will be revenged
of My enemies." Isa. 1.24.
SUCH is the language of God, when speaking of pun-
ishment and vengeance: He says that he is constrained
by his justice to take vengeance on his enemies. But,
mark you, he begins with the word Heu, "Ah": this
word is an exclamation of grief by which he would
give us to understand, that if he were capable of weep-
ing when about to punish, he would weep bitterly at
being compelled to afflict us his creatures, whom he has
loved so dearly as to give up his life through love for
us. "'Alas!'" says Cornelius a Lapide, "is uttered by
one who is lamenting and not insulting; God signifies
by this word that he is grieving, and that he is un-
willing to punish sinners."1 No, this God, who is the
Father of mercies, and so much loves us, is not of a dis-
position to punish and afflict, but rather to pardon and
console us. For I know the thoughts that I think towards
you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of affliction.2
1 "Heu! dolentis est, non insultantis; significat Deus hac voce
se dolentem et invitum punire peccatores."
2 "Ego enim scio cogitationes quas ego cogito super vos, ait Dominus,
cogitationes pacis, et non afflictionis." Jer. 29.11.
[322] But some one will say, since such is his character,
why does he now punish us? or, at least, appear as if he
meant to punish us? Why so? Because he wishes to
be merciful towards us: this anger which he now dis-
plays is all mercy and patience.
Quite a mess isn't it? Actually there are much worse, no spelling errors in this excerpt! There are still problems -- But we can fix it.. let's see. . first we use THIS handy tool:
Line Break Remover [Choose remove line breaks only]
Put the whole book in if it fits, and push the button!
That will connect up all the sentences but leave the paragraph breaks in place. But we have to fix the '- 's that break the words. Well there's a quick way for that in 'Wordpad' the software we use for this, free on every Windows PC! We do a search for a '- ' a dash and a space, you make sure you put that space in there, and then replace it it with.. nothing. Then 'replace all' and that will connect the words. By the way it helps to save different drafts so if you make a saving mistake you can go back. I save the work so often this happens!
And then you do a little bolding, italicizing, and 'superscripting' for the footnotes (that little 'x' icon up there on top in Wordpad), minor editing and wa-lah!The result is:
THE LOVE OF GOD
by ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI
from THE ASCETICAL WORKS Volume XVII: MISCELLANY, pp. 320-420: NINE DISCOURSES FOR TIMES OF CALAMITIES TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN EDITED BY REV. EUGENE GRIMM, C.Ss.R. LONDON, DUBLIN 1890
CONTENTS
I. God threatens to chastise us in order to deliver us from chastisement
II. Sinners will not believe in the divine threats until chastisement has come upon them
III. God is merciful for a season, and then chastises
IV. The four principal gates of hell
V. Devotions are useless if we do not cleanse our souls from sin
VI. God chastises us in this life for our good, not for our destruction
VII. God chastises us in this life that he may show us mercy in the next
VIII. Prayers appease God, and avert from us the chastisement we deserve, provided we resolve to amend
IX. Most Holy Mary is the mediatrix (intercessor) of sinners
PRAYERS INDEX
FIRST DISCOURSE: God Threatens to Chastise us in order to deliver us from Chastisement
"Heu! consolabor super hostibus meis, et vindicabor de inimicis meis."
"Ah, I will comfort Myself over My adversaries: and I will be revenged of My enemies." Isa. 1.24.
SUCH is the language of God, when speaking of punishment and vengeance: He says that he is constrained by his justice to take vengeance on his enemies. But, mark you, he begins with the word Heu, "Ah": this word is an exclamation of grief by which he would give us to understand, that if he were capable of weeping when about to punish, he would weep bitterly at being compelled to afflict us his creatures, whom he has loved so dearly as to give up his life through love for us. "'Alas!'" says Cornelius a Lapide, "is uttered by one who is lamenting and not insulting; God signifies by this word that he is grieving, and that he is unwilling to punish sinners."1 No, this God, who is the Father of mercies, and so much loves us, is not of a disposition to punish and afflict, but rather to pardon and console us. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of affliction.2
1 "Heu! dolentis est, non insultantis; significat Deus hac voce se dolentem et invitum punire peccatores." 2 "Ego enim scio cogitationes quas ego cogito super vos, ait Dominus, cogitationes pacis, et non afflictionis." Jer. 29.11.
Quite a difference isn't it? A great deal more readable! Now I can enjoy this book! And happily sigh at the work done.It looks even better when you read further and further but I can only quote so much here!
Now you see the beautiful mission of volunteering for Saints' Books.
It's rather like those monks who sit down and with pen and paper carefully copied over holy writings. Beautiful thought no? They made beautiful books by the grace of God.
So shall you if you are willing!
There is little more to say.
We use the Wordpad program included in every PC, as noted. Check your 'start' bar and look through the 'programs' and 'accessories' folder and it should be right in there! Or if you have a different word processing program, we can use that too almost all will work. We save the files in 'RTF' format, which is 'rich text' so we can have all the bolding, underlining, and rarely even pictures or links in a nice small package for sharing.
Benedice! That means, God bless you! I pray!
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