Month: August 2016

On Wednesday, I traveled to Colorado to speak at the monthly meeting of Silver Springs Legatus. Wonderful people, wonderful food, great conversation, and a really neat town. And I didn’t go home empty-handed!

First, the lovely Anna Keating presented me with a copy of the new book she wrote with her mother, Melissa Musick: The Catholic Catalogue: A Field Guide to the Daily Acts That Make Up a Catholic Life (Image, 2016).

[img attachment=”115225″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”Screen Shot 2016-08-06 at 7.36.53 PM” /]

The two run the popular website TheCatholicCatalogue.com, and their new book gives Catholics a whole year’s full of suggestions for how to incorporate Catholic traditions and practices into your daily life.

In an interview with America, Musick says:

There’s a whole generation of young Catholics who think they’ve been baptized into endless culture wars. We’re not denying the reality of issues that must be confronted and debated and struggled with or against, but we want to call them, and ourselves, back to the foundation of our faith, which is neither a political theory nor an ethic, but a daily life of prayer and work, fasting and feasting, of going out to encounter Jesus. Before we ever began fighting—and, granted, that began early—Christians were setting tables and welcoming guests, caring for the sick, burying the dead, receiving Eucharist, marking the hours of dawn and dusk, keeping prayerful watch through the night, honoring and remembering martyrs, just as we continue so to do 2,000 years later.

One reviewer describes the structure of the book well:

The book is divided into three main sections: Smells and Bells, Seasons of the Church Year, and Seasons of Life.

The first main section, Smells and Bells, deals with the things Catholics keep, wear, or use. This includes relics, holy water, vestments, scapulars, candles, and even daily prayer.

The second main section, Seasons of the Church Year, is subdivided according to the liturgical year. The subsections are Ordinary Time, Advent, Christmas, Winter Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, Summer Ordinary Time, and Autumn Ordinary Time. Each of these subsections has between three to nine chapters on various topics. Some of these topics include the Liturgy of the Hours, feast days, and various traditions.

The third main section is Seasons of Life. The subsections are Childhood to Adolescence, Young Adulthood, and Adulthood. These are the sections that deal with the sacraments. There are also chapters about spiritual direction, pilgrimages, and vocations.

The tone is lively and encouraging, without making the reader feel panicked or guilty about not following every suggestion. It includes prayers, stories, and tidbits from history, and gives simple directions for how to enrich our lives with crafts, celebrations, rituals, song, and food. The Catholic Catalogue is less of a regimented meal plan and more of a smorgasbord: “Just look at the feast before us!” is the message. The book would make a lovely wedding gift for any Catholic couple.

I was also presented (and I apologize for not catching the name of the woman who gave it to me!) with a lovely steel cross, just the right size to hold in the palm of my hand. It’s etched with “JESUS” on one side and says “P – T – J – F” etched on the other side, for the four cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude.

[img attachment=”115224″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”steel cross flip side” /]

The accompanying laminated card explains each virtue in a few lines, and the card and cross fit neatly into a linen drawstring pouch.  It would fit into a pocket, a wallet, a pencil box, or a dashboard compartment.  (The cross does not seem to be available for sale online yet, but I will post about it when it is. The company is Thomas Peters Designs in Colorado Springs, Colorado.)

A simple thing, but what if it went with you everywhere you go? So often, I begin the day with all the best intentions. I make a morning offering, and it’s all going great . . . and then the first time I’m challenged, it all goes out the window. Half the time, I don’t even realize I blew it until much later.

The steel cross and the book both have the same goal: to imbue our daily lives with reminders of what makes our life meaningful. Ideally, it should be hard to tell where our religious practices begin and our everyday life ends. One way to encourage more seamless incorporation of faithful practices in our lives is to surround ourselves with reminders of who we are and what we believe, every day and every place we find ourselves.

I’m working on filling the house, and even the car, with more religious items: little crucifixes, icons, statues I find at yard sales. I used to be terribly fussy, and would only deign to use the most tasteful and striking visual reminders of our faith. But now I’m casting a wide net. My goal is to make it hard to go anywhere or do anything and forget that I’m Catholic! I need all the help I can get.

 

[img attachment=”98244″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”whats for supper aleteia” /]

Last friday was all about raffles and NFP, so I skipped the Friday food post. There was only really one meal worth reporting on last week anyway, but it was a doozy:

Coconut curry shrimp on basmati rice.

Eh? Eh? I used Pioneer Woman’s Coconut Curry Shrimp recipe, which she claims is “scrumptious and exceedingly fast/easy.” AND IT WAS. The thing that took the longest was peeling all the shrimp. The rest of it went together in no time, and it was swoonfully delicious.

[img attachment=”115088″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”shrimp curry” /]

Next time I will use less honey and more curry, but man oh man. Next time shrimp is on sale, look out! (I’m talking to the shrimp, I guess.)

We had leftover coconut milk and leftover lime juice, so we threw it in a blender with some sugar, ice, and some rum. It was okay — a little too “Tahitian Tee-Hee” for my tastes,

but I could have used less sugar and more ice. I mean, I drank two of them, but I didn’t like it or anything. Needed more ice. We never have enough ice. Those rotten kids eat it all day long, and then when the adults get home and really need some ice, there’s only a little bit left.

***

SATURDAY
French dip beef sandwiches, broccoli, farro

Completely delicious again. I splurged a little so we could have a nice meal together before I went away for a speaking gig in Colorado. My husband slathered the steak with melted butter, salted and peppered it, and put it under the broiler, then sliced it thin. We piled the meat on rolls with provolone and sauteed onions and mushrooms. I put horseradish sauce on mine, and put the whole thing under the broiler to toast it up.

[img attachment=”115087″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”french dip sandwiches” /]

The French dip was made of beef broth with pan drippings and scraping from the meat, plus Worcestershire sauce and some bourbon. In the picture, you’ll see that I had my French dip in a drinking glass. This is not because I was just drinking it straight, no sir. I would never!

I think the broccoli was just served raw. I think I may have dipped it in the French dip.

The farro was completely unnecessary. I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough food, even though there was actually leftover steak — leftover steak — after everyone was staggering around with round bellies like Rotten Ralph after his tragic catharsis is complete and his family gives him lobster and cupcakes because they still love him, even though sometimes he is hard to love.

But I ate the farro anyway. I doused it in French dip, too.

***

SUNDAY
Grilled chicken and salad, oven fried potatoes

I made a marinade out of fresh garlic, fresh basil, freshly ground pepper, salt, oregano, oil, and fresh lime juice. I hate how much of a difference it makes to use fresh ingredients. Boo! Work! Boo!

My husband sliced the potatoes up thin and fried some on the stove top, and mixed up the rest with oil and seasonings and put them under the broiler. It was one of those meals where you don’t have enough of something, so you decided to stretch it, but then it turns out to be more work than you expected, so you use another method, but you’ve already committed to the first method, so you end up having not quite enough food, but twice the effort. At least it’s an ethos!

Oh, the salad was organic baby arugula. What have I become?

***

MONDAY
Tacos, tortilla chips

Nothing to report.

***

TUESDAY
Hamburgers and chips

This was the first day of my trip. My husband is an excellent cook (cf. above: “slathered the steak with melted butter”), but we thought it made sense to keep meals simple while I was gone.

So I’m in my hotel enjoying a fine dinner of Dasani and granola from a pouch (I like to keep it simple when I’m gone, too), and I get this missive from home:

[img attachment=”115078″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”hamburger and ketchup” /]

Protein and a vegetable! And I’m pretty sure someone ate the plate, too, so fiber.

***

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

They had pizza. I had stuffed mushrooms and hot crab dip, blushingly tender beef medallions, baked potatoes stuffed with cheese, bacon, and green things, tournée-cut zucchini*, and what may have been caramel flan with white chocolate garnishes. I had to abandon my dessert because they apparently wanted me to give a speech, not just sit there shoveling food into my face.

*I just spent a good ten minutes looking up what you call vegetables cut into that football shape. I told my husband that I desperately hope this kind of pointless attention to pointless detail is essential to my writing, and he said that since I was the only one who had vegetables this week, he wasn’t going to argue. I did eat both my little footballs.

***

THURSDAY
Chicken burgers and cheez items

Nothing to report. I got home before dinner, and was not technically still on a trip, but frozen chicken and bags of orange things that my husband put on the table still seemed like a good life choice.

***

FRIDAY
I think we are having spaghetti or something. 

Or granola from a pouch.

Last week, for NFP Awareness Week, I recorded a podcast of Humanae Vitae. I regret that I waited so long to read it myself for the first time, because it’s so short, so easy to understand, so profound, and, most of all, so encouraging. I really wanted other people to enjoy it, too.

The podcast is hung up in Techno-Idiotland, because I guess I pressed a button while editing, and a big chunk of it is missing. Duh. I’ll get back to it as soon as I can, and will post it on this blog when it’s ready.

In the meantime, I wanted to share just a small part of what Paul VI says toward the end of the encyclical.

After he acknowledges where we are at as a society, and acknowledges that population is growing quickly, and kids are expensive and exhausting, and after he reaffirms the Church’s authority to speak on matters of human sexuality, and after he gives a fair hearing to all the reasons the Church ought to rethink her teaching, he talks about what human beings are, and what love is, and what marriage is. (I’m serious, you gotta read it.) Then he famously predicts what will happen if we abandon the Church’s guidance in favor of embracing contraception (and he was right).

And then, he encourages public figures, scientists, doctors, priests, and bishops all to be courageous and faithful in specific ways.

This is the part that kept coming back to me this past week. He says:

[G]reat fruits are to be expected when the divine law is kept by a devout soul. The most outstanding of these fruits results from the frequent desire of spouses to share their experience with other spouses. Thus it happens that a new and especially worthy kind of apostolate is added to the already ample vocation of the laity: like will minister to like. That is, spouses fulfill their apostolic mission [munus] in behalf of other spouses by becoming guides for them. Among all the forms of Christian apostolate this apostolate seems most suitable today.

That is exactly what I’ve seen happen. Everyone likes to complain about how the internet has ruined society, turned us self-centered and crass, and made people cold-hearted toward each other. And yes, it has done those things.

But it has also opened up a great, wide avenue for “like to minister to like” in ways that would have been totally impossible before. Pope Paul VI would approve.

Just think: last week, six people, whom I’ve never met, shelled out $200+ dollars to help six other people, whom neither of us have ever met, to use Marquette NFP. This is not something you do because you want a line or two of ad space on some housewife’s bloggy blog. This is something you do because you are on a mission.

And I’ve seen more: Women encouraging other women when their husbands are not on board with NFP. Men encouraging other men to do the right thing, even when all their pals got “fixed” and think he’s a freak of nature for using NFP (and for not using porn, going to strip clubs, etc.). NFP instructors advising and encouraging strangers when they’re baffled over confusing fertility signs. And people praying, praying, praying for each other.

And making jokes about NFP to encourage each other. And weeping on each other’s shoulders when they are struggling with infertility, or horribly-timed pregnancies, or repeat miscarriages, or the cruel judgment of people who don’t understand why we do what we do. And praying for each other some more.

Imagine how encouraging it is for a fearful NFP newbie to search for an online support group, and to discover that there are hundreds and thousands of us out there (even if they are spread all around the world).

Like is ministering to like, and God is with us.

When I mentioned that I was thinking of recording a podcast of Humanae Vitae, someone asked, “Really? Just for funsies?” Nah, no real funsies involved. It’s just that I realized I’m never going to be an NFP teacher, because, in the words of NFP Barbie, science is hard. I’m never going to be a scholar or an academic, because I make too many butt jokes. However, I do have a mic on my computer. I do spend tons of time on Facebook. I do know a thing or two about love. So I’m going to do what I can do with where I am right now.

So good job, everyone who contributed even in the smallest way to spreading the word about NFP!  And that includes people who are willing to admit that they’re struggling, because you can’t spread the truth if you’re not going to be honest.

If you’re talking about the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, reaching out, praying for each other, asking for prayers, willing to answer questions honestly, and picking yourself up and trying again when you fail, then you’re doing what you’re supposed to do. Paul VI specifically asked us to do just this. Paul VI knows it’s hard, and it makes you feel weird, and it’s not what everyone else is doing. Paul VI just wants you to try, because he loves you, and so does God.

I’m on a mission, and so are you.

***

So, about the picture. I’m far from home and didn’t sleep much and gotta get dressed and find a shuttle to get to town to give a speech, and I had a long, draw-out nightmare all night about trying to get an unwilling  Mother Teresa to buy me lunch. So I Googled “on a mission” and this is what came up with no copyright issues.

You clicked, right? Ha! Mission accomplished!

By Yves Tennevin (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I’m headed to the airport on the way to Colorado Springs, so this will be a quickie!  I seem to be on a jaunt back to my childhood of the late 70’s and early 80’s in my spare time. Here’s what I’ve been enjoying lately:

I’m watching . . . 

Stranger Things, that Netflix original series. Love it. As several people have noted, this is by far the most authentic early 80’s world I’ve ever seen recreated on the screen. (Everybody’s smoking! When I was little, my father used to turn out the light and spell out our names with the end of his cigarette, and it was wonderful.) This series grabs and exploits all the sensations of movies of this era, but somehow boils off all the cheapness, so it feels like you’re meeting very familiar, beloved movie that’s grown up since you saw it last.

And who knew Winona Ryder could act? I’m only up to episode 3, so don’t spoil anything for me, but wow, what an episode. No wasted scenes or dialogue, and it’s truly creepy and thrilling. You care about not one but several characters. Top notch. Recommended for age 12 and up. The first few episodes have a sex scene or two to skip over (although they nicely portray casual fornication as cheap and depressing).

Here’s the trailer:

I’m reading . . . 

Live Free or Die by Ernest Hebert. This is book five in the Darby series, the first of which I recommended earlier as the ultimate “yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like where I live” book.  Live Free Or Die is set in the late 70’s, a “two world collide” kind of book (rich and poor, upper and lower class, wilderness vs. development, etc.), and I’m a little disappointed. He keeps telling you what the characters are thinking and why, and explaining what it means that it’s uphill from one part of town to the other, and I already got it. Oh well. That “show, don’t tell” advice is really worth taking, even though it means lots of readers will miss important stuff. Unless you’re writing for a newspaper or for Ikea, it’s okay to let the reader do some work, as long as you do your work.

I’m listening to . . .
ABBA.  What? I’m not made of stone. This is the music of my childhood, when my neurons were still fresh and malleable, and when my high school-aged sisters looked like they were seven feet tall and moved around in a cloud of disco awesomeness. The little kids and I sometimes watch music videos when Daddy is working late, and ABBA is a huge favorite. Check out “Take a Chance On Me”

So. Much. Winking. I love how the blonde lady can’t actually dance at all; she just kind of swoops back and forth.

Okay, and now “Mama Mia”

But beware the permanent retinal impression of Benny Andersson in ruffled shorty overalls that you’ll bear with you for the rest of your life. WORTH IT.

 

In the US, the winner of Friday’s contest, sponsored by St. Clement ePress, is:

Kelly Heffron

and in the UK, the winner of Friday’s contest, sponsored by an anonymous UK donor, is:

Vicky Davila. 

Congratulations to the winners! I’ve sent you an email with instructions about what to do next. Thanks, once again, to all the generous donors who made last week so great.