15 years ago today: A New Catholic Family

Happy Anniversary to us! 

We were blessed to be married on Pentecost Sunday in the year of the Holy Spirit. This is my parents' Roman-rite parish, a beautiful country church with its original statuary; we were blessed to have both the marriage rite and the Divine Liturgy that day. Bishop John-Michael Botean along with Fathers Frank Knusel and Kurt Burnett presided. 

Our deacon just celebrated 50 years of marriage, so 15 years seems like nothing. Still, there are many stories to be told even with 'only' 15 years. God's grace is abundant!

You Know You're a Priest's Kid When...

...the oldest lady in church causes you great pain and you must grin and bear it!

We Romanian Byzantine Catholics commemorate the deceased a lot. We have the funerals (plural because there is more than one service) when the person dies and then we pray for them again at six months and a year. After a year, the deceased person is remembered with the rest of that family's departed with a yearly parastas.

The parastas is a simple ceremony before the final blessing with prayers, songs, bread (normally a challah-type loaf), and wine. At the front of the church and in front of the icon screen, a few men will raise the small table with the bread and wine, bobbing it gently up and down in time to the chant. While singing, the people put their hands on each others' shoulders. It is a beautiful ritual.

One of our jobs as clergy family is to help the bereaved have a beautiful ceremony. This means that we need to swallow our emotions and sing the songs boldly because the family will probably not be able to sing much as they are thinking of their loved ones. 

So we sang and the people came closer to the parastas table. They put their hands on each others' shoulders. The wife of the remembered put her small, withered, 95-year old hand on Girl #1's shoulder. But the old lady needed the support of her cane as well. She shifted her cane until it came to rest on top of Girl #2's foot. Girl did nothing, afraid that the old lady would fall if she moved. And she kept the cane there for the duration of the ceremony, occasionally resting her weight fully on the cane. 

Girl #2 joked that it was good that Mrs. P is very light. 

It wasn't until our old lady was invited to pour a bit of wine over the bread- in the shape of a cross while the priest says "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness therein"- that Girl #2 was free on the cane impaling her foot.

Sometimes this is what we do as clergy family. We support our church family members and sometimes we suffer a bit for it. We try not to be doormats, but Girl #2 wanted to support Mrs. P in her grief without embarrassing her in her age and frailty. And since this is a semi-anonymous blog, I thought I could be proud of my daughter's actions and share without embarrassing our Mrs P. Eternal memory to Mr. P!

Pentecost Gospel- Come, Holy Spirit!

 image from maronite-heritage.com

On the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, “Truly this is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.”

But some said, “Will the Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?” So there was a division among the people because of Him. Now some of them wanted to take Him, but no one laid hands on Him.

Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”

Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?” They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.” Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 7:37-52; 8:12)

7 quick takes- I'm hungry! edition

Today is my last evening of teaching classes, so perhaps we will get back to normal in terms of dinner.

1. Every evening is different, so I rely on my crock pot and rice cooker. The other day, I was running out the door and I realized that my husband would be home in an hour and hungry from not eating lunch. I put brown rice, coconut milk, skinless chicken thighs and onions in the rice cooker....covered it with water and added garlic powder and some dried herbs. It was pretty good!

2. A very quick soup...I put about 3 cups of pre-sliced crimini mushrooms in a saucepan, covered it with water and let it cook down a bit. Then, I added 2 diced zucchini and let it cook a bit more. Then, add some garlic and onion powder along with some salt and no-salt seasoning mix. I had some half and half in the fridge, so I put that in to make a sort of cream of vegetable soup. Put chopped fresh tomatoes on the top of the bowl. It was good and took about 5 minutes.

3. Most of the food I make doesn't just start life in a crock pot. I usually have to brown some onions first, but I still like to clean up and then let the dish stay warm in the slow cooker until whoever is home for dinner gets home. Last night we had potatoes, three-color bell peppers, onions and some browned pork sausage from the crock pot. It was pretty good. It was missing some freshly chopped Italian parsley, however.

4. If you are going to live out of rice cookers and crock pots like I do, please have a fresh salad as well. In the old country, they have lettuce and tomato at every meal during the summer. In the winter, one must do with a fresh cabbage salad. It certainly lightens up a meal!

5. I am such a victim of marketing. I didn't know what quinoa or chia was three years ago, now we consume and enjoy both products quite frequently.

6. Are you a paleo eater? Are you a fruit and grain only vegan? Are you gluten-free? Do you eat right for your type? Are you sensitive to lactose? I am trying to eat well. It's not going well. All these conflicting messages are too much. I have some natural remedies for my lupus and Sjogren's, but they conflict with other ways to eat. And then there is the fasting requirements and 'ancient' ways of fasting to conform to. It's all too much. This is the ultimate 'first world problem.' So- I will just do the mixed-up diet- whole grains, no fast food, meatless on Wednesdays and Fridays in non-fasting seasons. That's all I got.

7. I haven't written a pretty happy funny real in a long time...but you have to run over and read their mojito recipe. I am superbly jealous of their lilacs, but they deserve them and the sun after a long winter- all the better to drink a mojito!

If you have a super quick 5 minute prep meal, please share in the comments!

more at conversion diary!

be merciful as the Heavenly Father is merciful

"I also will pray. I will beg our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ that he condemn this man to the deepest darkest pit of hell. I will beg Saint Michael Lord of the Host to intercede to keep this most demonic man in external pain and damnation separate from union with our Lord. We are all sinners, and I am one of the worst, but the Church teaches us there are different types of sin. This man had so many times to change course. Father Emmons prayed with an entire prayer circle for this demonic witch-doctor for over 15 years, yet for more than 15 years heaven had to watch the souls of the unbaptized innocents torn apart. 

This man kept the severed feet of babies on his desk, for Pete's sake. 

I will pray, I will pray hard for the external damnation of Gosnell and all murderers of the innocents like him, who right now, after complete knowledge of what just happened are tearing apart babies as we speak!"

This is a comment from 'The Bard' at Creative Minority Report, responding to a post which stated that Gosnell will receive life in prison instead of the death penalty for his crimes against the young. I was shocked that someone would take credit for such a comment and link their blog to it. 

I am not reflecting today on whether Gosnell should have received the death penalty. Abby Johnson doesn't feel that Gosnell should receive the death penalty while 'The Crescat' feels that society has the right to call for this.

I am not a philosopher able to answer the question "can God make a stone too large for Him to lift up?" but St Michael will not, cannot intercede to aid someone in going to hell. 

Pro-lifers are hurting; they hurt whenever one of these horrible abortion stories is on their newsfeed. Pro-lifers are weary of praying and working for the millions of hurting, exploited women. They sometimes cry themselves to sleep, mourning the loss of that baby they couldn't save that day at the abortion clinic. 

But we must be merciful as our Father is merciful. We must emulate Jesus and pray "not my will, but Your will be done." God wills that all will beg for His mercy. We have no right to pray for someone's eternal damnation. As a convert, one of the aspects of the Catholic Church that I love is that she declares persons saints- basically that person is officially in heaven. The Church does not officially declare anything about the state of the soul of a sinner. The Church lives in hope. Shouldn't we do the same?