*Today is the feast of the Archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel. It's also my brother's birthday! He's living in Virginia right now but we made sure we sent him cards and presents. This year he got a pepper mill, cupcake pan, cupcake liners, and one other gift from my mom. We usually buy for him together and then ship it to him.
(https://www.iconograms.org/sig.php?eid=279)
* I did finally finish my Tea Shop mystery, so I'm finishing up three magazines that my parents loaned to me before I go to the library again. I'm hoping to go sometime next week, as I should finish the magazines this weekend.
*Sunday we went to Homegrown for lunch and got Chinese for supper. For having food poisoning the day before, my stomach has done really well.
*Monday was red pepper soup, about a half batch, made with roasted red peppers from two jars. This was fine, pretty good, but not amazing--and that's okay!
*Tuesday I made mini meatloaves with brown butter mashed potatoes and a bag of green beans. These are quite good, better for us made with milk instead of buttermilk. Next time I need to cut down on the mustard in the meatloaves as it's a little too much for us.
*Last night I made a lentil salad with carrots and cilantro that was quite yummy. We ate almost all of it; there's a little bit left, just a half serving. The sweetness of the carrots is nice against the earthiness of the lentils. The Son made some apricot muffins all by himself; they were not the most evenly mixed but were still tasty.
*Tonight we are grabbing fast food, but on Friday we are going to make Pasta Caprese for the first time.
We selected a new, different all choir piece this week. The previous piece was a little more syncopated and thus a little too hard for all our choirs; instead, we're going to to "I Want To Be Ready" arranged by Moses Hogan, and I think this will be a great fit for our choirs.
We've been slowly working on purging, and about a month ago started going through pictures. I found this one of my favorite Bauer, Marie, holding my son. She died not too long after this photo, so I really appreciate that she got to meet him at least a little bit before going to her eternal reward.
The Bauers were actually friends of my parents, four sisters and a brother who lived together and never married. They belonged to the parish my dad joined when he moved to Omaha, and my mother met and then joined the Catholic Church there. They babysat us growing up and served as godparents and surrogate grandparents for us. Their love and dignity was astounding.
Padre Pio or St. Pio of Pietrelcina was an Italian Capuchin who lived from 1887 to 1968. I first attended school at St. Frances Cabrini in Omaha, and we had parishioners who had known him. A modern saint but one with documented stigmata, bilocation, and mysterious odor of sanctity, he has a lot to commend us to him today and to help us wonder about the value of these "old-timey" signs of sanctity. The following prayer was one he wrote for after communion.
Stay with
me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You.
You know how easily I abandon You.
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not
fall so often.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life and without You I am without fervor.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light and without You I am in darkness.
Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.
Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.
Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much and alway be in Your
company.
Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.
Stay with me, Lord, as poor as my soul is I want it to be a place of
consolation for You, a nest of Love.
Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close
and life passes, death, judgment and eternity approaches. It is necessary to
renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need
You. It is getting late and death approaches, I fear the darkness, the
temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus,
in this night of exile!
Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers, I need You.
Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so
that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the
darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.
Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to
You, if not by Communion, at least by grace and love.
Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your
Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but
to love You more and more.
With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue
to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen. --
Found at catholicsaints.info
