Gathering Saffron

Saffron crocus flowers, represented as small red tufts,
are gathered by two women in a fragmentary Minoan fresco

I really love ancient art connected to the ordinary way of life, especially in food.

Some of the best reading in the world is found in cookbooks

Some of the best reading in the world, Mrs Appleyard says, is found in cookbooks. She ought to know because she began to read them as literature long before she took to wielding the egg beater. There have been frequent periods in Mrs. Appleyard's life when she was on short rations. Her doctor has told her to lose three hundred pounds and she has. No, she has not vanished in the process She is still moderately substantial. She has merely lost thirty pounds ten times. During those periods when her too, too solid flesh was melting, she has learned to sublimate her yearnings for chocolate cake and lobster Newburg by reading cookbooks. She has fortunately discovered that she can get a pleasantly stuffed feeling by moving her eyes rapidly from left to right over menus that begin with twenty assorted appetizers and end with Baked Alaska.

Louise Andrews Kent, Mrs. Appleyard's Kitchen

Amen, amen. And we may include Mrs. Appleyard's Kitchen in that wonderful reading.

Flitch of Bacon

Thomas and Ann Shakeshaft, awarded the Dunmow flitch in 1751,
being carried in procession through the town.
Etching by George Cruikshank. Wikipedia

The awarding of a flitch of bacon to married couples who can swear to not having regretted their marriage for a year and a day is an old tradition, the remnants of which still survive in Great Dunmow, Essex.

Okay, I never heard of this but it's fascinating to read about. And what is a flitch of bacon?

A flitch is the side, or a steak cut from the side, of an animal or fish. The term now usually occurs only in connection with a side of salted and cured pork in the phrase a flitch of bacon.

Who knew?

The Dark Meat of the Angel

Not that she is not enjoying the holiday [Spring Break] — as it is sometimes called. She really likes to see three helpings of mashed potato, thick slices of steak, and mountains of toasted angel cake with chocolate sauce systematically stoked into young furnaces. There was chocolate angel cake once: an innovation, a departure from tradition. Mrs. Appleyard had a read a rule in the paper. Even she is not proof against all human frailty.

It was Sally who summed it up politely.

"Thank you," she said. "I don't think I care for any more of the dark meat of the angel."

Louise Andrews Kent, Mrs. Appleyard's Year

This is such a charming and gently humorous book. I recently reread it as my pre-lights-out book. It was perfect for powering down before sleep.

St. Pio's Feast Day

I will stand at the gates of Heaven and I will not enter until all of my spiritual children are with me.

Today is St. Pio's feast day. I just love this guy, an Italian priest who knew how to throw his head back and laugh, who would scold a famous actress for being shallow, who suffered the stigmata for over 50 years, who knew (and could see) his guardian angel from the time he was a tiny child, who could bilocate and read souls, who was one of the greatest saints in living memory ... and who I share a birthday with (although his was 70 years earlier - May 25).

Finally I have found the original photo which attracted me to him when I was leafing through a book of saints in our church's library ... it communicates a sense of joy and light-heartedness that was striking. I thought, "Now there is someone I could talk to...that is what a real saint should look like."

Deacon Greg Kandra has, in years past, featured a 2009 homily he gave focusing on Padre Pio and tells this story which reflects the saint's fine sense of humor and irony.

One of my favorite stories about him happened during the early 1960s.

Italy was in crisis. The Red Brigade was sparking violence in Rome, and it was considered dangerous to travel around the country. For protection, people began carrying pictures of Padre Pio.

During this time, Padre Pio had to leave his village to visit Rome, and one of the other friars asked him, “Aren’t you worried about the Red Brigade?”

“No,” he said. “I have a picture of Padre Pio.”

Here is an extremely brief and incomplete look at the saint, which nonetheless is not a bad summary.

While praying before a cross, he received the stigmata on 20 September 1918, the first priest ever to be so blessed. As word spread, especially after American soldiers brought home stories of Padre Pio following WWII, the priest himself became a point of pilgrimage for both the pious and the curious. He would hear confessions by the hour, reportedly able to read the consciences of those who held back. Reportedly able to bilocate, levitate, and heal by touch. Founded the House for the Relief of Suffering in 1956, a hospital that serves 60,000 a year. In the 1920's he started a series of prayer groups that continue today with over 400,000 members worldwide.

You can read more about Padre Pio here.

Scott fearfully approached this book. Julie told him that "fearfully" does not mean what he thinks it means.

 Episode 388: Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God's Image by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast

Humility and the Devil

The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.

St. Vincent de Paul

This is St. Vincent de Paul's feast day. I haven't written anything special about St. Vincent but I hope to remedy that deficit in the future!

Cats on a Red Cloth

Franz Marc, Cats on a Red Cloth

Lutter & Wegner

Lutter & Wegner, Edward B. Gordon

Lagniappe: Henry James and Chocolate Peppermint Cake

Henry James has remarked that there are two different types of intellectual pleasure‚ the pleasure of recognition and the pleasure of discovery. Of course he took five pages to say it, but that was the idea. Chocolate-peppermint cake embodies both pleasures: the surprise of finding that something lurks in the chocolate ambush and the pleasure of recognizing that it is actually a peppermint.

Louise Andrews Kent, Mrs. Appleyard's Kitchen

I love both Mrs. Appleyard's Year and Mrs. Appleyard's Kitchen so much. They have the homey quality that makes good comfort reading along with the clever humor that surprises you with its intelligence.

Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions

I just love the example set by these holy lay people!

The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by lay people. This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution. Thus, in less than a century, it could boast of 10,000 martyrs. The death of these martyrs became the leaven of the Church and led to today's splendid flowering of the Church in Korea. Even today their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the Church of silence in the north of this tragically divided land.

St. John Paul II, canonization Mass in Seoul

Definitely go read the whole thing. It is moving and inspiring. I love the example of Agatha Yi.

And what did the seventeen-year-old Agatha Yi say when she and her younger brother were falsely told that their parents had betrayed the faith? "Whether my parents betrayed or not is their affair. As for us, we cannot betray the Lord of heaven whom we have always served". Hearing this, six other adult Christians freely delivered themselves to the magistrate to be martyred. Agatha, her parents and those other six are all being canonized today. In addition, there are countless other unknown, humble martyrs who no less faithfully and bravely served the Lord.

========

Excerpted from the Saint of the Day, Leonard Foley, O.F.M.

The first native Korean priest, Andrew Kim Taegon was the son of Christian converts. Following his baptism at the age of 15, Andrew traveled 1,300 miles to the seminary in Macao, China. After six years, he managed to return to his country through Manchuria. That same year he crossed the Yellow Sea to Shanghai and was ordained a priest. Back home again, he was assigned to arrange for more missionaries to enter by a water route that would elude the border patrol. He was arrested, tortured, and finally beheaded at the Han River near Seoul, the capital.

Andrew’s father Ignatius Kim, was martyred during the persecution of 1839, and was beatified in 1925. Paul Chong Hasang, a lay apostle and married man, also died in 1839 at age 45.

Among the other martyrs in 1839 was Columba Kim, an unmarried woman of 26. She was put in prison, pierced with hot tools and seared with burning coals. She and her sister Agnes were disrobed and kept for two days in a cell with condemned criminals, but were not molested. After Columba complained about the indignity, no more women were subjected to it. The two were beheaded. Peter Ryou, a boy of 13, had his flesh so badly torn that he could pull off pieces and throw them at the judges. He was killed by strangulation. Protase Chong, a 41-year-old nobleman, apostatized under torture and was freed. Later he came back, confessed his faith and was tortured to death.

I found the above excerpt at Catholic Culture which has more info including activities.

There is also a whole page on the Korean Martyrs at Wikipedia, which I found fascinating.

Lagniappe: Society of Drunkards

"Drink," said Amram cheerfully, as he poured wine and water into a cup; "it will hearten you, and your faith does not forbid the use of the grape, for have I not heard you styled the society of drunkards?"

"That is only one bad name among many, sir," said Rachel, as she took the cup."

H. Rider Haggard, The Pearl-Maiden

I didn't like the book enough to finish it, but I simply loved this comment made to a Christian maiden in hiding.

Mastoid (Drinking Cup)

Mastoid (Drinking Cup), 500-480 BC, Athens
via the Art Institute of Chicago

This cup was shaped to fit easily in the drinkers hand, and was likely used as part of the Greek symposium. Much like modern academic symposiums, in which people discuss a topic of common interest, debunking old theories and putting forth new hypotheses; the men of ancient Athens regularly got together in private homes to exchange ideas. Afterward the participants might continue the conversation, discussing their impressions in greater detail or simply socializing over a drink. As the evening progressed, participants engaged in other pleasures, including games, performances, and sex. Wine played a major role in fueling these evenings, and as such the myriad vessels used in the symposium often paid homage to drink.

Here, the god of wine Dionysos rides astride a donkey. Before and behind him satyrs - the gods half man half goat companions - are visually aroused by the scene; while a Maenad - their female counterpart - leads the procession while strumming a lyre. The background of this scene is decorated with winding vines, enforcing the themes of wine, revelry and music.

Art Institute of Chicago