bearing blog

Chicken and noodles.

Plain old comfort food, quite literally the way my mom used to make it.

Remove the skin from a couple of bone-in chicken breasts and simmer with water to cover, perhaps with a carrot, celery stalk, and halved onion thrown into the pot, until cooked through.  Remove solids.  Discard vegetables.   Remove chicken meat from bones, chop coarsely, and set aside.

Add to cooking liquid:  one or two thinly sliced carrots and one or two sliced celery stalks.  Bring to a boil and simmer a couple of minutes.  Add salt to taste and about half a package of wide egg noodles.  There should be barely enough liquid to cover the noodles.  Add water if it seems far too dry; but the idea is for the noodles to absorb most of the liquid.  It's not chicken noodle soup.

Cook on low, stirring frequently to prevent burning, until noodles and vegetables are cooked and most of the liquid is absorbed.  Return meat to pot and heat through.  Season to taste.

Nothing fancy, but it is nice, especially the next day after the noodles have released some of their starch and thickened the broth.

One thing I love about chicken soup:  You can simmer poultry scraps and bones and vegetables for seventy-two hours and get a wonderfully rich, concentrated, brown chicken stock that's fabulous in recipes.  Or you can simmer some chicken parts for one hour, with a couple of carrots thrown in, and you still get some very tasty broth.  I think that the one-hour broth tastes completely different from the seventy-two-hour broth, a lovely flavor on its own and a fine soup base.  Not that it isn't worth the trouble to let the stuff go for a few days --- it's just that you can start making something nice by dipping into it right away.

"Only say the word and I will be healed."

I liked this, from Disputations:

Last month, a priest spoke about what the faithful say just before receiving Holy Communion: "Only say the word and I will be healed."

The Eucharist is true food; It overcomes our weaknesses and makes us strong in the life of the Trinity, if we allow it. But how often do we really ask to be healed? Do we even expect anything from the Eucharist, beyond perhaps a good feeling and some bit of undetectable grace?

We can, if we like, come to Mass prepared to truly ask to be healed. Healed of a physical ailment, or an emotional wound, or a moral weakness. And what relic, what novena, what pilgrimage can add to the power made present at every Catholic altar in the world?

I think it's St. Faustina (probably others too) who wrote about asking Jesus to heal her tongue at the moment His body was placed upon her tongue.  That is, to heal it from its tendency to speak ill of others, to speak harshly to others, and generally from speaking too much at all.

When you consider how much sinning we do merely by speech, you realize how powerful this can be.  It's a good moment to ask Him to heal much of our impatience, our imprudence, our dishonesty, our cruelty, when we make of our mouths (briefly) a tabernacle for Him.

How to forgive.

We all know that not only are we supposed to forgive, our salvation is practically dependent on it. 

But it can be hard.  How, how, how to forgive when anger bubbles to the surface every day?

Waiting in Joyful Hope has a suggestion, and it sounds like a good one.

The first process is to make the decision to forgive, remembering that forgiveness is a decision not a feeling.

Once we have made that decision, we must remember all the things that have caused this need for forgiveness.

Then we must list all the other points that have been blessings from this person we need to forgive.

The next point is the most crucial of all, when anger surfaces, we must not bring the list of hurts to mind, but only the list of blessings, and then the anger will subside.

This of course is an ongoing process and one that I need to work on every day. I know in time that I will be able to automatically go to the blessing list and forget the injustice list. All this of course with God’s grace and Mary’s intercession.

Maybe this appeals to me only because I am such a listmaker.  Lists promise to solve so many problems.  Don't they?  Nevertheless, this formula seems worthy of effort.

(H/t Disputations, who adds:

We are, of course, obliged to pray for our enemies, an obligation that would seem to extend to those who aren't our enemies so much as people we flat don't like.

It is, I find, a very liberating experience -- animosity and anger being what we're liberated from -- to simply pray that God give them the graces they need to fulfill God's will for them, without reminding God what His will for them is.

That is, to pray, "Fill his heart with Your love," without adding, "so that he'll finally stop being such an idjit."

True.)

Intelligent design AGAIN.

A good post summarizing the problems with so-called "intelligent design" theory.  Neither new nor fangled, if you ask me.

If anti-religion evolutionists, and anti-evolution religionists, would just realize that the two ARE NOT MUTUALLY INCOMPATIBLE, a lot of this silliness could be avoided.

And by the way, specifically teaching in public schools that there is definitely no design behind the evolution of species (as in, e.g., the NEA "evolution platform" up to a few years ago)  is a breach of the church-state wall that is precisely equivalent to teaching that there definitely is design behind the evolution of species. 

Is there any harm in just steering clear of the whole idea of design, and letting students come to their own conclusions?

Catholics on the Court.

David Bernstein points out that if Samuel Alito is confirmed to the Supreme Court, there will be a Catholic majority on the Court:

This is an extraordinary development. It was, let's recall, only forty-five years ago that JFK's Catholicism was a major issue in a presidential campaign. As Ken Kersch and Philip Hamburger have shown, anti-Catholic sentiment played a large role in the development of modern establishment clause jurisprudence (in part through the influence of that old KKKer, Hugo Black). The leading separationist group after WWII was known as Protestants [now, Americans] United for the Separation of Church and State.

We can rejoice that Catholics are now such an accepted part of the American scene that it will hardly raise any eyebrows that a fifth Catholic has been nominated to the Supreme Court (joining, of course, two Jews).

It is rather amazing, isn't it?  Bernstein goes on to speculate that the reason we've come so far so fast is that, well, we've assimilated, and we really aren't all that different from the rest of America anymore.  A mixed blessing.

Office and officeholder.

As long as I'm commenting on the Sunday readings, let's add some commentary on the Gospel.  The whole reading was Matthew 23:1-12, which has a LOT of stuff in it, but the part I thought most important is in verses 1-3:

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples,

saying, "The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.

Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice...."

It's a stunningly clear exhortation to distinguish between the office and the officeholder.

There are applications in many situations:  religion, politics, the family, the military, even commerce.   Sticking with religion for the moment:  How many times have we heard corruption, hypocrisy, criminality among the hierarchy as an argument for why the Catholic Church cannot possibly be teaching the truth?  (It's not just Catholics of course; cf. televangelists.) 

Yes, there have been many bad priests.  Yes, bishops committed great wrongs.  Yes, we have had terribly corrupt Popes.  Doesn't mean that what they taught was wrong.  Do and observe whatsoever they tell you even if they are hypocrites.  (One can, of course, point out that great and humble saints have taught the very same truths that are preached by the hypocrites.)

When you run into someone, these days, who doesn't practice what he preaches, conventional wisdom says he should conform his preaching to his practice.  Rarely is this the case.  Much more often, the hypocrite in question should conform his practice to his preaching. 

Anyway, the Scripture passage is a reminder that the office deserves respect  --- and in some cases obedience --- even if the officeholder is contemptible. 

"Like a weaned child on its mother's lap, so is my soul within me."

An image in the psalm for today, Psalm 131, sparked my interest.  The whole psalm is only three verses; here it is:

A song of ascents. Of David.

LORD, my heart is not proud; nor are my eyes haughty. I do not busy myself with great matters, with things too sublime for me.

Rather, I have stilled my soul, hushed it like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother's lap, so is my soul within me.

Israel, hope in the LORD, now and forever.

That's it.  So, what do you think about the "weaned child?"  Very interesting!  Why has the psalmist stilled his soul like a weaned child on its mother's lap and not, say, like a nursing child on its mother's lap?  While the mother's lap is a place of comfort and happiness for any child, certainly a nursing child would be receiving even more comfort from its mother than a weaned child.

Well, let's see.  When you hear "weaned child" you should be thinking of a largish toddler or a smallish child, perhaps a three-year-old or a four-year-old.  My experience with three- and four-year-olds is that they can be VERY squirmy, more than many younger children.  But at the same time they are also (being older) beginning to be able to respond a little more to their parents' requests. 

Nursing children are indeed very easy to hush and to still; a child who is nursing is usually a quiet, calm child.  (Not always.  They can get into some amazing contortions when they have a mind to.  But often, nursing a child calms him immediately, and sometimes puts him right to sleep.  Right now, for instance, as I sat here blogging, I was nursing my youngest, and it took about 5 minutes for him to fall mouth-wide-open unconscious.)

I'm thinking that the psalmist didn't mean for us to imagine that his soul is idyllically still, that it is as easy to still his soul as it is for a nursing mother to offer her breast to still her nursling.    I'm thinking he meant us to imagine the mother's effort to hush and still her weaned child.  It's second nature to pop a nipple into a crying child's mouth.  It can be a little tougher to help an older, weaned child to calm down.

And a child who's actually in the act of suckling is not likely to get upset again, at least not while at the breast.  But sometimes, stilling and hushing a weaned child is a sort of dance:  just when you get him to settle down and his breathing begins to be regular, suddenly the snuffling starts again and you've got to rock him even harder, hug even tighter.

So that's one possibility.  Perhaps that soul, only recently "proud" and "haughty" and "busy," took some effort to settle down, to hush and to still, like a weaned child on its mother's lap.  Perhaps the psalmist knows that the soul won't stay still for long; tantrums will, eventually, return, and he will have to settle it down again, by an act of will.

There is another possibility in that word "weaned."  It could be meant to connote satisfaction or fulfillment --- that the weaned child has drunk his fill from his mother's breast.  He has been filled up for life. 

But the first possibility seems to work better with the psalmist's intent, which is to say --- I think --- that he has managed to quell (for now) worldly desires, pride, and the like, and found (for now) inner peace in the Lord.  What do you think?

(Something else interesting:  The nursing mother appears in the second reading for today, 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9,13.  It goes like this:

[W]e were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.

With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.

Compare and contrast.  Our very selves as well.)

Ordaining married men.

MrsDarwin considers the practical effect of opening the door to more widespread ordination of married men in the Roman rite, by looking at the "market" for Protestant clergy.

In sum, Protestants do not have a clergy shortage. However, they do have a lot of churches without ministers...

Liberal denominations have both a high vacancy rate (significantly higher, actually, than for Catholic parishes) and a lot of unemployed clergy.

The problem seems to be that while there are a lot of ordained clergy, many of the openings are only marginably able to support a minister.  The P[resbyterian] C[hurch] USA reports that 50% of their vacant churches have congregations of less than 100 adults, many of whom offer salaries in the 20k range for ministers. Many of these are also in rural areas, making it difficult for a minister supported by his or her spouse's job to fill the vacancy. Denominational polls of ordained Protestant clergy revealed very few were willing to go to rural areas, or in some cases to move at all, since in many cases they relied on a second job or a spouse's career to support their families.

Some good thoughts there.  Read the whole thing.  And it's worth repeating a question in the comments from the great post that sent her off on this tangent:  where are all these married men so anxious to serve the church in ordained ministry?

Sick.

Not very, just a little bug.  I am enjoined to stay in bed and rest, while Mark takes the kids out to picnic with friends.  Blogging may be exceptionally light, or exceptionally heavy, for a few hours.

UPDATE.  I'm not so sick that I can't host the Catholic Carnival this week!  Email your submissions to me at erinarlinghaus *cough* AT *cough cough* earthlink DOT net ...

Cyril of Jerusalem.

Part of a series.

Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) wrote around 347 a series of Catecheses for adults preparing to be received into the Church.   The whole series of Catecheses is very interesting to read.  What caught my eye was the description and instruction in the Liturgy of the Eucharist at Mass that appears in Lecture 23.

It begins with a description of the rite of hand-washing, then the kiss or sign of peace, then the familiar call and response:  "Let us give thanks unto the Lord,"  "It is meet and right."  (Today in English we respond "It is right to give him thanks and praise.")    The "Holy, Holy, Holy" hymn is sung. 

Then having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is surely sanctified and changed.

Prayers are said, again following a familiar pattern:

for the common peace of the Churches, for the welfare of the world; for kings; for soldiers and allies; for the sick; for the afflicted; and, in a word, for all who stand in need of succour we all pray and offer this sacrifice.

Then we commemorate also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petition. Then on behalf also of the Holy Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and in a word of all who in past years have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be a very great benefit to the souls, for whom the supplication is put up, while that holy and most awful sacrifice is set forth.

The "Our Father" follows.  Cyril expounds at length on each petition of that "Prayer which the Saviour delivered to His own disciples."  Then Communion:

After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Trust not the judgment to thy bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ.

In approaching therefore, come not with thy wrists extended, or thy fingers spread; but make thy left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a King. And having hollowed thy palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying over it, Amen. So then after having carefully hollowed thine eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, partake of it; giving heed lest thou lose any portion thereof; for whatever thou losest, is evidently a loss to thee as it were from one of thine own members. For tell me, if any one gave thee grains of gold, wouldest thou not hold them with all carefulness, being on thy guard against losing any of them, and suffering loss? Wilt thou not then much more carefully keep watch, that not a crumb fall from thee of what is more precious than gold and precious stones?

Then after thou hast partaken of the Body of Christ, draw near also to the Cup of His Blood; not stretching forth thine hands, but bending, and saying with an air of worship and reverence, Amen, hallow thyself by partaking also of the Blood of Christ. And while the moisture is still upon thy lips, touch it with thine hands, and hallow thine eyes and brow and the other organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks unto God, who hath accounted thee worthy of so great mysteries.

It is almost astonishing to see how little the Mass, with the underlying beliefs in it, has changed in the 1,658 years that separate us from Cyril's pen.   So much is the same, in the crucial core of the Eucharist, that almost any Catholic can respond with confidence and gratitude to Cyril's closing admonition:

Hold fast these traditions undefiled and, keep yourselves free from offence. Sever not yourselves from the Communion; deprive not yourselves, through the pollution of sins, of these Holy and Spiritual Mysteries.

We are not severed, and we do hold these traditions fast.  At least, what's good enough for 347 is good enough for me.

And the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:--To whom be glory and honour and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and world without end. Amen.