Happy Birthday, Dear Tom

This doodle looks like it would be the scene for a wonderfully romantic birthday evening, doesn't it?

Perfect for Tom (and me) then!

Tom has chosen Strawberry Cake. He truly loves it. And it's easy.

I have taken to baking the cake from Tres Leches Cake in 9" pans. Then you horizontally cut the layers so that you've got four thin layers of cake. Macerate 48 ounces of strawberries with plenty of sugar. Construct with layers of strawberries, syrup, and freshly whipped cream. Delicious.

Perhaps I should say the above Google looks perfect for a celebratory evening since we will not be alone.

We've got a wonderfully participatory family ranging from 1-1/2 to 5 and all the way up to 72. It will be a real party!

Opposition

Opposition, England, 1890
from the Library of Congress's Photochrom Travel Views collection

Hot Takes on the Classics podcast

Hot Takes on the Classics is no dusty, academic approach to great books. It’s a gossipy, exciting discussion about the best literature ever written. Hosted by Tim and Emily, who are veteran teachers and long-time friends, Hot Takes is packed with playful debate, meaningful speculation, and hearty laughs.

I'm a fan of podcasts that discusses a book over many weeks because they're taking a very close look at it. I love this. In fact, I first encountered this podcast's co-host, Tim, on Close Reads.

However, I was intrigued by the idea of covering a classic book in 40 minutes, complete with a hot take on the end. They did a really good job of giving the flavor of a book, a quick summary and then zeroing on the author's focus - the reason the book was written in the first place. After that context, comes the discussion about what that book means to us today.

I was even more intrigued when I discovered that they were selecting books as parts of series looking at different topics. The first series was War. The second was Love.

It's quick, lively, and fun. Try it!

Inspiration Point

 

Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park

We're making summer vacation plans and Bryce Canyon is in my future! Exciting! Click the link to see the photo better.

Psalm 149 — Song of Praise and Joy

 I had been covering the psalms in chronological order and eventually ran out of gas. Lately I have been reading a psalm a day, with commentary from Popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in Morning and Evening Prayer. It has reinvigorated my interest in the psalms. 

So we'll go forward, out of chronological order, just with whichever psalm hits me. (Or canticle.) Eventually, they'll all be done!

Here we go — almost to the very end of the psalms!

=======================

This is the next to the last psalm and it's fairly short but full of dancing, music, and singing. It's full of joy. The Lord is also joyful — I love these two lines.

For the Lord takes delight in his people.

He crowns the poor with salvation.

Psalm 149 in Hebrew
on a French parchment from the 13th century

John Paul II quotes St. Augustine on the greater meaning of the music and then follows up with his own commentary about what the poor refers to. I love the idea of harmony and works that Augustine reflects upon. And JPII's point that poverty can be not just physical but also spiritual.

St Augustine, starting with the reference of the Psalm to the "choir" and to the "drums and harps", commented: "What does the choir represent?... The choir is a group of singers who sing together. If we sing in a choir, we must sing in harmony. When one sings in a choir, one off-key voice strikes the listener and creates confusion in the choir".

Referring to the instruments mentioned in the Psalm he asks: "Why does the Psalmist take in hand the drum and the harp?". He answers, "Because we praise the Lord not just with the voice, but also with our works. When we take up the drum and the harp, the hands have to be in accord with the voice. The same goes for you. When you sing the Alleluia, you must give bread to the poor, give clothes to the naked, give shelter to the traveler. If you do it, not only does your voice sing, but your hands are in accord with your voice because the works agree with the words".

5. There is a second term which we use to define those who pray in the Psalm: they are the anawim, "the poor and lowly ones" (v. 4). The expression turns up often in the Psalter. It indicates not just the oppressed, the miserable, the persecuted for justice, but also those who, with fidelity to the moral teaching of the Alliance with God, are marginalized by those who prefer to use violence, riches and power. In this light one understands that the category of the "poor" is not just a social category but a spiritual choice. It is what the famous first Beatitude means: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5,3). ....

Commentary by Pope St. John Paul II 

Morning & Evening Prayer, John Paul II and Benedict XVI

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An index of psalm posts is here.

I'm With Mary — Let's Punch the Devil in the Face

This post ran in ten years ago but I've never forgotten it. A Catholic friend of mine, who majored in art history, affirms that the medievals had plenty of art showing Mary punching the devil. Excellent! 

My original post is below. Enjoy!

The Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil (13th century MS, British Library).
Via Gregory Wolfe and Catholic News Agency

I featured this artwork about a month ago. Today I got a complaint that it is not treating Mary reverently enough ... and also that it might be pop art.

For me this shows Mary as a powerful spiritual warrior, especially when I look at the expression on both faces. I'd like to think I could be like that.

I'll be fair. Mary could also be holding a seal of some sort with which she is marking the devil.

Looking around for a proper reference to prove it wasn't pop art I wound up at the Catholic News Agency. The bonus was this wonderful talk by Archbishop Chaput which used it as a springboard to exhort us to be like Mary.

“If we want to reclaim who we are as a Church, if we want to renew the Catholic imagination, we need to begin, in ourselves and in our local parishes, by unplugging our hearts from the assumptions of a culture that still seems familiar but is no longer really ‘ours,’” Archbishop Chaput said.

“This is why Mary – the young Jewish virgin, the loving mother, and the woman who punches the devil in the nose – was, is, and always will be the great defender of the Church,” he added.

Archbishop Chaput addressed the 2016 Bishops’ Symposium at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday. He spoke on “Remembering Who We Are and the Story We Belong To.”

He began his talk referencing an illustration, reportedly from the Middle Ages, of the Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil in the nose. “She doesn’t rebuke him. She doesn’t enter into a dialogue with him. She punches the devil in the nose,” he said.

Catholic News Agency

I love that guy. Read the whole thing. It's good medicine.

Hygieia

Hygieia, Great Hall ceiling of the Vienna University, Gustav Klimt

Just because it's so arresting.

How to Cook Without a Book

2000 edition

2018 edition

I bought the original book when it was released. It gave me a lot of good ideas for streamlining and for different combos of things I usually made (such as omelet ingredients, etc.), though I'd been cooking long enough to use the book as a reminder rather than all the time. I recently lent it to a young working mother who likes it.

Then I discovered this newer edition. 

I gave to it my oldest daughter who needs streamlining ideas, especially since she works a full time job and has two little ones. She's delighted with the book and has made several recipes. 

It especially speaks to her generation with some of the ingredient combinations, new cooking ideas (such as one baking sheet roasting all the dinner ingredients), etc. Yet it retains enough of the older information that it is useful to anyone. I mean, pasta sauce is pasta sauce for all right?

This is going to be the book I give to newly married couples and people cooking on their own for the first time. Truly invaluable.

Feast Day — St. Mark the Evangelist

Mark the Evangelist by Il Pordenone

We can get a lot of information about Saint Mark simply by reading the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.

The thing I'm most interested in is that the gospel he wrote actually comes from having been St. Peter's interpreter and going on the road with him. The people asked him to record St. Peter's teachings. No wonder there are such vivid details in it. This is as close as you can get to being straight from the horse's mouth.

.. we find Mark in Rome, this time helping Peter, who refers to him as my son Mark, thereby testifying to a long-standing close relationship. At that time Mark was acting as interpreter for the Prince of the Apostles, and this provided him with a privileged vantage-point which we see reflected in the Gospel he wrote a few years later. Although Saint Mark doesn't provide us with a record of the Master's great discourses, he makes up for it by giving us a particularly vivid description of the events of Jesus' life with his disciples. In his accounts we find ourselves once more in those little towns on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; we can sense the hubbub of the crowds of that follow Jesus, we can almost converse iwth the inhabitants of those places and can contemplate Christ's wonderful deeds and the spontaneous reactions of the Twelve. In a word, we find ourselves witnessing the events of the gospel as if we were actually there in the throng. Though his vivid descriptions the Evangelist manages to imprint on our souls something of the irresistible yet reassuring fascination that Jesus exercised on people, and which the Apostles themselves experienced in their life with the Master. Saint Mark in effect gives us a faithful account of Saint Peter's most intimate recollections of his Master: with the passage of the years his memories had not grown dim, but became ever more profound and perceptive, more penetrating and more fond. It can be said that Mark's message is the living mirror of Saint Peter's preaching.

Saint Jerome tells us that Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote down his gospel at the request of the brethren living in Rome, according to what he had heard Peter preach. And Peter himself, having heard it, approved it with his authority to be read in the Church. This was without doubt Mark's principal mission in life — to transmit Peter's teachings faithfully.

In Conversation with God, Francis Fernandez,
Special Feasts: January - June

Sin and Trampling on People

I've done many things that I thought I would never dare do because they were sins. But I didn't realize then that the consequence of sin is that you have to trample on other people.

Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

Kristin Lavransdatter was an incredibly rich read during Lent. This quote shows you a little bit of why that is.

Naples Sunrise

Naples Sunrise, taken by Valery at ucumari photography

Simply beautiful for the end of the work week.

Irises

Irises, John Henry Twachtman, 1896

One of my favorite flowers — the Iris.

My Latest Book Crush — The St. Paul Daily Missal

Incorporates the revised English text of the Third Roman Missal and features Scripture readings for cycles A, B, and C for all Sundays and Solemnities and Years I and II for weekdays. Spiritual reflections on the readings, an expanded Treasury of Prayers, and introductions to the liturgical seasons enhance prayerful participation in the liturgy.

The above description may only mean something to Catholics. And this is a seriously Catholic book crush I have going on. I've dabbled with the idea of a missal before but they seemed intimidatingly difficult. Four ribbons? How much flipping around was going to be happening? Year A, B, or C for Sunday - was that going to be hard to find? What about sorting out Year I or II for the daily readings? (See, this is already insanely complicated — and it's the part I understood!)

Also — so expensive! $75!

So for a long time I stuck to Magnificat (until I found out those weren't really the daily readings) or Word Among Us. Both were expensive. Finally I caught on to a bigger reality —  two years of either publication equaled the cost of the missal. Three years in, the book is essentially free by that reckoning. Okay, I read reviews and made my choice for an Easter gift to myself with this version from the Daughters of St. Paul. 

This is a wonderful resource. The readings are all in order of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, followed by Ordinary Time, with a special section for prayers and for the liturgies of the Mass and other special days. It's really easy to follow and find your way through.

I've been getting more out of the readings and am so happy that I bought this excellent book.