Sunday Afternoon

I have just started studying for my test at Biblical School tomorrow night.  I have a "test studying" book, it is a booklet of blank index cards, spiral bound, with perforations so that the cards may be removed if you like.

In it are my notes from a presentation by Scott Hahn I attended almost a year ago.  I thought I would read them, and there were so many things written there that were so meaningful - I wish I could remember these things, but I just forget!  One of the notes was so astounding, I thought I would share it here:

We don't break the law - the law stays in tact - we break ourselves against the law.

We are the ones who get broken when we try to go against the law of God.  Oh, how true this has been in my life!

Now I must get back to my books....

Posole

This is the finished product.  Posole is a soup or stew made from Posole, or hominy, pork, chiles, cilantro, onions, etc.  It is a traditional New Mexican dish for Christmas Eve (after midnight mass).  I would give a recipe (as Ros requested), but I used many and kind of played it by ear.  If you really want to make it, I would advise finding a recipe on the internet and going from there.  One piece of advice?  Do not use canned or frozen posole.  Use the dried posole, and cook it for hours and hours until it bursts and softens.  Oh, it is so good!  

It was nice to come home from mass tonight and have supper already made.  

Thanks for reading!

Cooking and Cleaning

Posole

My running group is on a one week break between the winter and "spring" sessions, so I didn't have to travel across town for an early morning run this morning.  I slept until nearly 7 a.m.!  That is so out of character for me, I am normally up between 4 and 5 a.m. whether I need to or not.  

I have been cooking (posole, yumm, yummm) and cleaning, I went grocery shopping, and will soon plant myself on the sofa to watch football.  I really do like Saturdays.  But I like Sundays better.  

I remember when I was a young mother, talking with another young mother in the neighborhood, she mentioned the "sabbath."  That was a concept so foreign to me at the time that I still remember it all these years later (probably 30 years).   

When I returned to the church in my early 40s, I kind of tip-toed in.  I went to mass every Sunday, but didn't do much else that was required.  It took me 3 years to muster the courage to go to confession!  Then that became a habit as well as Sunday mass.  There was still a large category of my behavior that I didn't acknowledge as sinful, and therefore did not feel the need to confess or change - oh my stomach turns when I think of this now!!  One small example of that was behaving as though Sunday were just another day.  I knew better - I knew the Ten Commandments!  But I thought that was just another antiquated idea, like the rest of the commandments which I found inconvenient.  

It is so embarrassing to admit how long it has taken me to realize that if I call myself Catholic, that means the whole thing.  I can't decide to ignore what I don't want to face.  I remember another conversation maybe 18 years ago, with a formerly Catholic man.  He called me a "Cafeteria Catholic," to which I responded that it was better than not being a Catholic at all.  

Now I wonder.  

But I am so grateful that I wasn't struck dead while I was pulling all those shenanigans.  I am grateful that I have been given the time to come into the fold.  I wish it hadn't taken so long.  But glad I am here now.

Thanks be to God.  

Who is in Charge?

There is a crocus that came up in my garden last spring.  I suspect it will do the same this year, in just a few short weeks.  My role in this?  I stuck a bulb in the ground nearly 10 years ago.  That is it.  I do not make it grow, I cannot make it stop (except by digging it up).  I am not in charge of this.  I do not order the rotation of the earth so that the seasons change.

I believe that there is an order to the universe, and it is not man-made.  I believe that we can make things better or screw things up, but that God is in charge.  It is He who makes nations rise and nations fall.  We have enemies, but we are either protected by God or not.  It is up to Him.

Nothing we do is without consequences.    But I am not in charge.  


There is comfort in this.  To me.  


Tomorrow I will go to mass and rosary on my way to work.  

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will.  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So every one who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.  -- Matthew 10:28-33

Winter Doldrums

Inspired by Kathy over at Moving on to the Past, I thought I would post my current knitting projects.  I am making socks for a friend for Christmas (yes, they are late - I gave her a card and a small ball of yarn with a small knitting project hanging off the ends of toothpicks to actually open at Christmas, with the promise of a pair of socks).  She had asked me to make her some, her grandmother used to knit her socks, so she has a fondness for hand-knit socks.  If you have never worn a pair, you have no idea what you are missing.  They are like a perpetual hug for your feet.  Also in the photo is a shawl I am knitting.  It is a lacy thing and so much fun to knit.  I usually have at least 2 projects going at any time.   I love to knit!

It seems I am entering some sort of winter doldrums.  I guess it would be called Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I do have this every year.  I also do suffer from chronic depression that I have to fight with all my might.  Some times the fight is just knowing the enemy and trying to outsmart him.   I am that rare endangered species - an unmedicated depressed person.  I don't take medications well, so my doctor and I agree that I am pretty good at "managing" my depression without them.

I find that if I have some major thing to look forward to, I get through the winter much better.  On Tuesday, I registered for a marathon - it is in Maine in October - which should be beautiful.  I said "never again" after my one and only marathon in October of last year, but I guess I have already forgotten the pain and want to do it again.  I have spent hours on the computer planning the trip in the last few days.  It does help.

I think I am going to have to turn off the television for a month or two.  At least the news.  I cannot tolerate it right now.  I am sickened at the whole thing.  I can't stand either side of the political equation in this country right now.  Do we really need to check our brains at the door when we join a political party?  If so, I will gladly relinquish my membership.  In my life, I have swung from one extreme to another, perhaps it is time to stand right in the middle.  I know I am a "social conservative," and that is non-negotiable.  But neither party really embraces that.

Last night when I went to bed, it was around 20º, when I woke this morning, it was over 40º.  I wish I could go outside and run, but the sun is up much too late, and I refuse to go out alone in the dark.  My workout for this morning is an hour on the treadmill.  I am grateful I can do this.  I am also grateful for my iPhone with videos on it because an hour is a long time to stare at a corner of my basement.

I am grateful that I know this place isn't my final home.  I am grateful I know that this life is just a moment, and I have all of eternity to look forward to.  If I thought this was it, I would not be able to bear it.

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. -- Romans 5:3-5

Back to Ordinary Time

I have just returned home from Biblical School.  I thought that when I did, I would be inspired to write something.  We reviewed the first half of the year's studies - because we take a test next week.  I realized with much humility that I had better study.  I am thrilled that I am now done studying the Old Testament.  I have loved much of it, but it has so many people to remember!  The New Testament has One Major Character, and I can easily remember him.  

So this week I have to study and I also have to memorize two verses of my choice.  One from Psalms and one from the other wisdom books we have studied this semester (Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Sirach).    Let me just tell you that I am leaning towards these verses at the moment:

Psalm 32:1-2  Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Job 1:21  And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

I like Psalm 32 (the entire thing) because my pastor told me to read it after going to confession.  It is a wonderful Psalm of God's forgiveness - if one is honest, confesses one's sins, and turns away from evil.

I love the entire book of Job, out of all of the OT, Job may be one of my favorites.  Tobit is #1 for me.  But Job is right up there.  So, Job just hears that all of his earthly wealth has been destroyed, and his children all killed.  And how does he respond?  With faith in the Lord.  Now, THAT is faith.

My eyes are nearly crossing I am so tired.  I better get to bed because 4 a.m. rolls around pretty early each day.  And 10 p.m. is too late to be awake when 4 a.m. is waking time.

Thanks everyone.

For the Love of God

And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

This morning I was reading a wonderful book, and re-read something I had heavily underlined a few months ago.  Funny, how I need to be reminded - I just don't remember things.    This seems to answer some of the questions I have  been asking myself over the last week.  So, allow me to quote a paragraph from the book "Three Philosophies of Life" by Peter Kreeft:

"Saint Augustine, in his sermon 'On the Pure Love of God', imagines God coming to you with a question similar to the one he asked Saint Thomas.  The point is kind of a self-test to find out whether you have the 'pure love of God', that is, whether you are obeying the first and greatest commandment, to love God with your whole heart and soul, in that deep, obscure center of your being where your 'fundamental option' decides your eternal destiny.  Augustine supposes that God proposed to you a deal and said, 'I will give you anything you want. You can possess the whole world.  Nothing will be impossible for you.  You will have infinite power.  Nothing will be a sin, nothing forbidden.  You will never die, never have pain, never have anything you do not want and always have anything you do want -- except for just one thing: you will never see my face.'  Would you take that deal?  If not, you have the pure love of God.  For look what you just did:  you gave up the world, and more -- all possible worlds, all imagined worlds, all desired worlds -- just for God.  Augustine asks, 'Did a chill arise in your heart when you heard the words 'you will never see my face'?'  That chill is the most precious thing in you, that is the pure love of God."

I am pleased to report that I have that chill.  I think you probably all do too.

Deo Gratias.