Nope, I don't have this week's P&P discussion. I'll try for Monday morning.
I do have some thoughts on "Master and Commander" up over at Popcorn Critics, though, if you're interested.
Today I went to Lowe's and picked up a shop light and a couple of flourescent tubes. It's time to start thinking about starting seeds! Today was a lovely, sunny day and I am getting spring fever.
from Steven: Can We Achieve Holiness by a Plan?
brought to us by TSO: Matthew Kelley's Seven Pillars
An oldie but goodie: The Seven Habits of Holy Apostolic People
Without a plan of life you will never have order. --St Josemaria Escriva
Wouldn't it be a cool thing if we lived in a society where planner pages came preprinted with check-boxes for Mass, Angelus, Rosary, etc?
Summa Mama Terry is having a birthday! For a present, why not send her a little spiritual bouquet? She's even dropped a hint as to her favorite flower.
Secret Agent Man fisks recipes:
Canned mushrooms are used by people who've never tasted real ones. I don't think a seriously-miseducated palette is going to hit on a good recipe by anything besides coincidence, and since the recipe already has canned mushrooms, I don't like the odds....Pot-Roast, my friends, is pot-roast and it will remain pot-roast even if it's been slathered in Miracle Whip or poached in root beer. The only thing such trickiness will produce is pot roast with an odd taste, like it was made with Miracle Whip or root beer. God has decreed a universe in which Filet and Sirloin are very, very good and in which pot roast is . . . well . . . what you have to eat a couple of times each month. Trying to reverse that order by jazzing up pot roast is the culinary equivalent of schism.
Summa Minutiae has moved to stblogs.org. Welcome to the neighborhood!
over at Sparki's.
Thanks, Alicia, for the heads up.
Thanks to Alicia for the heads up -- and congratulations to her on her nomination.
And thanks to whoever nominated us!
Terry muses on the sin of gluttony.
Gluttony (an ugly name for an ugly sin) seems to be a stealthy sin, like sloth. It's easy to ignore it, to rationalize it away, especially by focusing not on gluttony itself but on being fat. And, as we all know, there are only two deadly sins in this culture: smoking and being fat. (Well, maybe three if you include failing to recycle.)
But gluttony is everywhere in our society. The Catholic Encyclopedia quotes St Thomas as giving five species of gluttony: wanting to eat too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, or too daintily.
Omnipresent vending machines and snack shops offer us plenty of opportunities to eat "too soon." Food is cheap and plentiful in our society; it's easy to eat "too much." Rushed meals and the neglect of the family dinner hour tempt us to eat "too eagerly," wolfing down food while we do something else. Screwtape gives us a famous example of another way gluttony is expressed in our society, in delicacy:
While working your hardest, quite rightly, on other fronts, you must not neglect a little quiet infiltration in respect of gluttony.... They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are 'properly' cooked. What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence — it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes — 'puts him out,' for then his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy. Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Chapter 17
Is it possible to be overly delicate with regard to the healthiness of food? I'm thinking of a birthday party I attended recently, where one of the children's mothers made a huge production of declining the punch because it had artificial coloring. Now, I know that there are some kids who are honestly sensitive to artificial colors, and if her kid has that senstivity of course she should decline. (A phone call to the hostess ahead of time, or a thermos in her own purse, might have also been a good idea.) But if he didn't, was it really necessary to make such a huge deal about it?
Is there a place for wanting to prepare food well, and with delicious, wholesome ingredients, without falling into delicacy? Perhaps this is where detachment comes in, to be able to eat with a smile whatever is set before you, whether it be handmade pasta with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Velveeta and elbow macaroni.
This is also where fasting comes in. Our society wants to feast constantly without fasting. If you fast for the sake of your arteries or waistline, that's okay. But if you fast for the sake of your soul, there's something wrong with you.
A constant feast becomes boring. The palate becomes dull, and more and more exotic and tasty treats are required. If you have a latte every morning, then it becomes no big deal, and only the triple mocha will be a real treat.
From an English Dominican site:
To someone who eats primarily food prepared commercially, the taste of ‘plain or home cooked’ food is bland, dull, unexciting. Where’s the pizzazz? Look at the cereal aisle in the store, everything, except wheatabix and cornflakes, are improved, flavour-enhanced, jazzed up. Oatmeal, surely that’s a wholesome, natural food, right? Now there are oatmeal bars in London and New York... the standard order is for Oatmeal with raisins, maple syrup and other added flavours. A far cry from the plain bowl of salted porridge.
Fasting sharpens our appreciation of the good things God gives us -- we're easier to please -- and helps us break our attachment to them.
Finally, Screwtape is certainly not the first writer to note the link between gluttony and impurity. Our society equates gluttony with being fat -- if you don't get fat, then gluttony isn't a problem -- in fact, you're considered lucky to be able to eat whatever you want and not gain weight. It's kind of like a culinary contraceptive mentality -- the desire to have sex whenever you want without any consequences; to eat all you want and not get fat.
Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies
