Church Lady Attire for Every Occasion

Loaves and Fishes Sunday is coming, do you have the perfect accessory for your ensemble yet?

Source: MaorZabarHats on Etsy.

:)

 

 

I know - corny humor.  It does make me smile to imagine Benedict finally able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast.

 

Source

Naturally, I didn't run across this...

...until the last day of the Octave of All Souls'.

(source)

Oh well, maybe next year. I think I'd have to scrounge up some Protestant friends to invite over for the occasion. All in the name of ecumenism.

Christmas Cookie Recipe - New Translation!

Fr. Z. just posted an ineffable cookie recipe!

I hope that all the Pious Church Ladies will enjoy:

A reader shared this new, corrected translation of an old cookie recipe. I believe it was developed by some seminarians.

By using this new version, your cookies will be more enjoyable and more fattening than ever:

Christmas Cookie Recipe
(New, Corrected Translation)

Serves: you and many.

Cream these ingredients, that by their comingling you may begin to make the dough:
1 chalice butter, 2/3 chalice sugar

In a similar way, when the butter is consubstantial with the sugar, beat in:
1 egg

Gather these dry ingredients to yourself and combine them, so that you may add them to the dough which you have already begun to make:
2 1/2 chalices sifted all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the precious dough with your venerable hands.

Into the refrigerator graciously place the dough so that it may be chilled, for the duration of 3 or 4 hours, before the rolling and cutting of the cookies.

When, in the fullness of time, you are ready to bake these spotless cookies, these delicious cookies, these Christmas cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out the dough and, taking up a cookie cutter or stencil of your choosing, fashion the cookies into pleasing forms.

Sprinkle colorful adornments over cookies like the dewfall.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cookies have just begun to manifest the brownness that is vouchsafed to them by the oven’s heat.

May these cookies be found acceptable in your sight, and be borne to a place of refreshment at your table, there to be served with milk or hot chocolate, or with your spirits.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookie Recipe (New, Corrected Translation)

Helpful Culinary Hints

Dr. Boli shares some of his best kitchen tips, including:

If you have boiling water left over after making tea, it may be frozen and stored indefinitely, and then reheated when you need it to make tea again.

Aren't you glad we're here to pass along such useful information?

Find the rest here.

Before the solemnity of the seasons begins...

... I'd like to direct you to an old favorite on Ash Wednesday by John Zmirak.*

Ash Wednesday: Catholic Mating Identification Day

This is one of the most solemn days on the liturgical calendar, marking Jesus's departure to pray and meditate - and endure diabolical temptation - in the desert, in preparation for the culmination of His earthly mission, entry into Jerusalem, and death on the cross. Our Lord spent forty days in the desert - a profoundly symbolic number in the scriptures, which also marked the number of days the skies poured rain during Noah's flood and the years the Israelites wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt, before they found the Promised Land. (Look at a biblical atlas some time to see how they must have wandered; it's not that far from Egypt to Israel. Those Jews were good and lost. They were probably using Mapquest, which has sent the authors two hours astray in the snow on to service roads of Newark Airport, simply to avoid a seventy-five-cent toll on the New Jersey Turnpike. But we digress.)

To mark the onset of penance, the Church distributes ashes to Catholics which are rubbed on the forehead with the timeless warning "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return." This ceremony is so vivid that it has the power to draw people to church who almost never otherwise attend. (So Catholics like free samples - what's wrong with that? See you on Palm Sunday!) Our favorite Ash Wednesday anecdote concerns an old parish of ours near Grand Central Terminal that had a fire, and hence an abundance of ashes, but no place to hand them out. So the priests put on their stoles and stood in the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal - as fearless as Hari Krishnas in an airport - and smudged the foreheads of anyone who stopped by. This sort of "drive-through" Ash Wednesday service proved much more popular than any actual liturgies that day, and was soon discontinued. But it shows the enduring power of this public sign of penance, which serves to mark one's intention to lead a truly penitent Lent.

It's also a handy way for single Catholics to spot each other and meet. For one day a year, that cute intern you've been eyeing in the elevator, the distinguished executive who doesn't have a wedding ring, the pink-faced Polish waitress or Irish construction worker, walks around all day with a sticker on his or her head that says "Marriage Material." We know that there isn't the same opprobrium attached to mixed marriages as there used to be; mixed couples no longer have to hold the wedding ceremony in the rectory. But there is still something powerfully appealing about finding someone who shares your deepest beliefs about the world, who speaks in the same vocabulary of faith - and feels guilty about all the same things. It clears away any number of potential areas of conflict, such as which religious services you're going to attend, and to which sort of miserable school you're going to send your kids.

So if you're a single Catholic, take full advantage of the solemn fast we like to call "Mating Identification Day" by making a point of meeting those unhitched papists you've been ogling all year. Here is a list of classic "Catholic pick-up lines" that have been circulating in church vestibules and email inboxes for years, which Catholic writer Patrick Madrid sorted out, edited, and (most importantly) copyrighted in his delightful magazine Envoy. Clearly, they're designbed for Catholics of a particular sort - the serious, self-described "orthodox" believers who have probably already slammed this book shut with a guilty smile.

TOP TEN CATHOLIC PICK-UP LINES

10. May I offer you a light for that votive candle?

9. Hi there. My buddy and I were wondering if you would settle a dispute we're having. Do you think the word should be pronounced HOMEschooling, or homeSCHOOLing?

8. Sorry, but I couldn't help but noticing how cute you look in that ankle-length, shapless, plaid jumper.

7. What's a nice girl like you doing at a First Saturday Rosary Cenacle like this?

6. You don't like the Culture of Death either? Wow! We have so much in common!

5. Let's get out of here. I know a much cozier little Catholic bookstore downtown.

4. I bet I can guess your Confirmation name.

3. You've got stunning, scapular-brown eyes.

2. Did you feel what I felt when we reached into the holy water font at the same time?

1. Confess here often?

*From the highly recommended book "The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living" by John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak. (I'd link to it's Amazon page, but buy it from your local Catholic bookstore instead, okay? They can probably use your support.)

Check here for a good review, and if you haven't already read it, consider doing so as a little light reading this Lent. It's funny and informative and I suspect you'll find you're a better Catholic when you're done with it.

There's still time

to make this fashion statement before your annual family Thanksgiving gathering.

Or better yet, give it as a hostess gift. You'll be a popular guest!

Found here. And I'd like to note that the internet is an amusing place when you've had too much coffee and can't sleep at 3 a.m. Not that I'd know...

I love cooking with the liturgical year and all

But I am not making today's recommended dish for St Louis, King of France.

Directions
Cut the eel in rounds. Mix with it yolks of eggs, parsley, mushrooms, asparagus, soft roes, verjuice, or gooseberries if in season, and do not stint either butter, or salt, or pepper. Spread this on an undercrust and cover it with pastry. In order to hold it together, butter narrow bands of paper, and putting them around the pastry, bind them lightly on. Bake the pâté and, when it is cooked, mix the yolks of three eggs with a dash of verjuice and a little nutmeg; and when you are ready to serve, pour in your sauce into the pâté and mix it well. Open the pâté and serve with the crust cut in four.

Margaret Mary suggests French toast instead...

Image source

How NOT to pray a novena ...

In my recent search for novenas to Saint Martha I found a few wacky things. The "winner" was a novena that includes these directions for day nine:

On the ninth day, offer an eggplant (preferable to killing a goat) to St. Martha, and say: “I offer this living sacrifice (vegetables are living organisms) to you in exchange for granting me a safe and happy life. I will prepare it according to ancient ritual, and offer it to those I love as well as myself to consume. It shall contain your protection, and bring security, peace and protection to all who partake of this food. Holy Martha, hear my prayer and deliver my petition immediately, Amen.”

The following day, prepare the eggplant. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Sift these ingredients with your hands in front of the picture of St. Martha with a fresh candle to be burned all the while you are preparing the meal.

As you sift, you know you must empower every ingredient to ensure a favorable outcome. You concentrate on the earth energy rising through the soles of your feet, coursing through your body and exiting through your hands into the flour as you recite the ancient prayer: “Scongiuro te, o farina! Che sei il corpo nostro – senza di te non si potrebbe vivere – tu che prima di divenire la farina, sei stata sotto terra, dove sono nascosti tutti i segreti, porti i vostri segreti a questo pasto ed esponga coloro che desidera farmi danno.”

Confirming, once again, that the internet is a very strange place.

Spotted at the Conference

I know there's a bit of a hidden language in chapel veils with white indicating one is single and black for married women. If that's the case, however, I'm wondering what some of these are saying.

If the Saints Wrote Conversation Hearts...

A little seasonal fun from Acts of the Apostasy. (This one from Thomas Aquinas, of course.)

Visit them to see lots more and get the link to make your own.

Cloche Tip: And Sometimes Tea

How to get the holiday knitting done

Sheep are anxious for work!

No comment.

While I appreciate the concept of seeing Christ present in the everyday circumstances of life, that iron is in deplorable condition. (Okay, I guess I did have a comment.)

Mantilla the Hon

Famous ecclesiastical fashionista, Mantilla Amontillado (Father Longenecker's guest blogger, and one of his alter egos) uses her impeccable taste in all things ecclesial and her degree in Ecclesiastical Haberdashery from Salamanca University to comment on a wide variety of topics of interest to Church Ladies. Her basic philosophy is as follows:

I say, if you're going to be a Catholic look and sound like a Catholic. Throw out the polyester. Bring in polyphony. Those cheap see through cassock albs are surplus. Bring back the cassock and the surplice. Throw out the people of the parish parade. Bring in the procession with lots of brocade. Men should know their place: it's wearing lots of lace. Forget the reform of the reform. We're talking revolution of the reform.

Mantilla on Beauty and Truth: "Now I'm realizing that when I see that polyester chasuble with felt grapes on it, it's okay to be a little bit angry. When I see a church that looks like a cross between a slaughterhouse and a dunce cap and feel angry, that's okay, because ugliness is next to Godlessness. But when I see this nice brocade vestment or this antependium made out of this nice tapestry or I see a gothic chasuble in dark purple silk, or an altar boy wearing a lace cotta or a nun praying in a full habit it is okay for me to be happy because beauty is truth and truth beauty and this is all you need to know..."

Mantilla on Altar Dressings: "And what if you are going to visit someone important or maybe go to a wedding? Do you wear flip flops and a T-shirt? No you do not. You dress up you know? Well, it is the same thing with what you do with the chalice on the altar. You should make it beautiful, after all, you know the Mass is a kind of wedding banquet. It's the marriage supper of the Lamb. So you put the purificator over the chalice, and then the paten on top with the priest's host, and then the veil on top of that and then the burse with the corporal inside."

Mantilla Goes to Mass: "I go to this mass not long ago at another parish, and no, I'm not going to tell you which one, but Fr. Elvis comes in and he's got this kind of a game show approach to the liturgy. You know? I thought he was going to say, "Mantilla, today is your lucky day! Come on down and let's make a deal!" But he didn't he sort of saunters in and says, "Howya all doin' today? Anybody from Cincinnati? How are the Red Sox doin'? I heard this story once about this girl who wore red socks...The Lord be with you." You know what I mean? Well, I'm sitting there and my fan is going faster and faster, and it's not because of the flies I can tell you."

Mantilla on Clergy Hats: "I tell you someting. Listen. Whenever I see a priest in a hat it gives me what do you call it? Goose bumples. I get this shiver go right down my back and for the longest time I don't know why. Any other priest comes marching into mass and I maybe just yawn and flick my fan out and chase away a fly. Then we get this new priest in the parish and he's wearing the biretta. Wow! I give my friend Salsarita an elbow in the ribs, "Salsa, will you look at that new priest! He's wearing a biretta!" I haven't seen one these in years and it makes me think about priests in hats. I like it when a priest wears a hat, and maybe, you know, this is one of the nice things about being Catholic, that the priests put on headgear."

As you may have guessed, she has many more opinions and all are worth reading. Visit the Standing On My Head blog to read them all, and Father Longenecker - more Mantilla, please!

Feminine Genius

In case there was any doubt...

Yes, God is Polish.

If I should die before I wake

Please put this on my tombstone.

A whole new meaning to vanity plates

Sighted at Logan Airport last weekend. Ironically, the plate was on a tiny convertible.

Let us know if you spy any other of the seven deadly sins!

April showers

Some games to while away the April showers.

Mystery of the Abbey is a whodunit game with a twist. A monk has been murdered in a medieval French Abbey. Players maneuver their way through the Abbey trying examining clues and questioning each other to find out who is the culprit. A masterful game of deduction!

The Settlers of Canaan takes place in the territory of Canaan off the coast of the Great Sea. Each player represents a tribe of Israel seeking to settle in Canaan Guide your tribe through the fertile lands of Canaan. Each hex space will yield resources that you can cash in for roads, settlements and cities. Harvest resources of stone and ore from the land to help build Jerusalem and receive King David's blessing. Harvest timber, grain, wool, and brick to build more roads and settlements to expand your territory Work quickly Your opponents are moving to settle the most fertile parts of Canaan You also need to be wary a plague could come upon you at any time and destroy your harvest.

This 2nd expansion for Thurn and Taxis is actually two in one! In Audience, each player sends 5 clergyman to attend an audience with the Pope in Rome. The players endeavor to make certain the carriages with the clergyman arrive, but not too early! A player who arranges for his cardinal to arrive at just the right time will score more points than the player who manages the same with a simple priest. In Offices of Honor, the players try to use the office holders as evenly as possible, in order to receive different office tiles. The more different tiles a player can return at one time, the greater benefits he receives. All Roads lead to Rome contains two expansions. Whether you play Audience or Offices of Honor or both together with Thurn and Taxis, they will take you and the game to a new dimension.

I remember playing a board game called Limbo that was a Catholic doctrine version of Trivial Pursuit on high school confirmation retreats. Does anyone else?

Appropriately for Mardi Gras

Today I found Lenten advice...

... inside a chocolate wrapper.