Thoughts for the Final Weeks of Lent

When I was listening to EWTN Radio on Saturday I happend to catch the homily from the mass that day.  He gave a list of things to do for the less than two weeks of Lent that we have left.  This is the gist of what he said:

1.  Fix your eyes on Jesus.
-repeat his name during the day

2.  Praise the Lord especially at mass.  Go to mass as often as you can.

3.  Repent with humble and contrite heart/go to confession.

4.  Weild the sword of the spirit-Read the Word of God.  Do this every day even for just a few minutes.

5.  Attack the evil one through prayer and expecially fasting in accordance with church teaching.  Do not make your fast too strict or you will become discouraged.  The church teaches two small meals and a larger meal.  The two small meals should together be less than the larger meal.  (Of course we are only required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday but I think he was suggesting more than this but still using the guidelines that are used for those days.)

6.  Surround yourself with Christian community so you are not isolated in spirital warfare. Don't try to do it alone.  This includes receiving the sacraments, surrounding yourself with holy friends, praying with your husband and family.

7.  Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say it -Rejoice! Let your Christian joy be seen by others.

Why Bart? Why?

 Why did Bart Stupak cave so easily for an executive order after standing so strong for so long?  I'm really disappointed.  I had been thinking how admirable Bart Stupak was for standing his ground under such immense pressure from his own party and then this...  It seems to me that he and the other pro-life Democrats that were standing with him could have really done a lot better than an executive order.

It appears to me that Obama had been snubbing Stupak up until the last minute when he saw that Bart and his followers could be a real threat to the passage of this legislation, indicating that Stupak and his followers had a lot of power, more than anyone was expecting them to have, I think.  Had they held their ground the bill may not have passed but just think how much could have been gained if they had used this power for the betterment of the Democratic party and the country with their pro-life views.  Unfortunately they threw away any real influence they could have had in this reagard. 

And to top it all off Stupak accused the pro-life Republicans Chris Smith, Joseph Pitts and another whose name I don't know of trying to kill the bill by speaking out against the fact there are no provisions actually written into the bill itself to prevent federal funding for abortion or for conscious protection.  He should know that Chris Smith and the others are sincerely pro-life and protection for the unborn is their first concern. Did he just want to regain the approval of his fellow Democrats?  Democrat first, pro-life second.  I guess now we know.  Heartbreaking.

A St. Joseph's Day Meal

With St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day both in the same week, this week of Lent has been filled with lots of feasting rather than fasting.  Today is St. Joseph's day and it looks like I will be making a few goodies.  Once again I have truned to Catholic Cuisine for some feast day food ideas so today we will be having these rasberry cream cupcakes and this minestrone soup along with some frozen dinner rolls.  Apparently cream puffs are a traditional St. Joseph's Day food though I haven't taken the time to research the background of this.  Italian food is also traditional St. Joseph Day fare as St. Joseph's Day started in Sicily when upon praying to St. Joseph the people were rewarded with rain after a long drought.

St. Joseph pray for us!

Today is St. Patrick's Day.  I am going to make Irish Beef and Guiness Stew as found on Catholic Cuisine along with Shamrock Pretels also found on CC.  I have been making menu plans for the past four weeks.  I plan two weeks at a time as I go grocery shopping every two weeks.  The actual planning takes a long time to do.  I am thinking about planning for just one week at a time as this may be less stressful or maybe I just need more practice. 

"Winging it" isn't really descriptive of the meal planning I had been doing before.  Although I hadn't  really written out an official menu for each week, I had certain groceries I got on a regular basis for the meals that I made at least once during the week making sure I made a list of the groceries I would need for a few new dishes for the week as well. 

It is nice knowing what I am going to fix for supper on any given day though I think I make more labor intensive dishes than I would if I had a looser plan.  This means that I have been expending more energy on cooking and perhaps have less time for other things like blogging or reading blogs.  This may be one reason why I haven't posted in a while.

Anyway, it is a work in progress.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!