Month: August 2011

The promised apology

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This is my promised apology…

“Okay, Minion, you were right, and I was…less right” – Megamind

Okay, not that kind of apology… On Monday, when I put up the “Lectionary Notes” for yesterday’s Mass Readings, I said that later in the week I would try to do a slightly more apologetics-related post concerning Matthew 16.

Since this is an apologetics entry, if you haven’t read my Ecumenical Apologist post, I would invite you to read that first since it explains something of my perspective and my attempted approach with posts like this.

I was running a little low on time this week so I dug through my email and found a correspondence from a few years ago with a non-Catholic whom we will call “Jay”. Jay raised the question of the Pope early on in our correspondence, but I had resisted talking about the issue of the Papacy until we had covered some more fundamental issues (authority, the canon etc.).

Anyway, here’s what I said in response to his statements about Matthew 16…

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Stir Fry 2.0

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Continuing with my “chicken” theme, I got a new stir fry recipe and made it tonight:

Here’s the recipe:

1. Cut four chicken breasts/thighs into half inch strips.

2. Coat in cornflower (should be about 3 tablespoons).

3. Cover with soy sauce (about 2 tablespoons) and leave to marinade in the fridge for 30 minutes.

4. Chop vegetables: courgette, broccoli and carrot.

5. Chop onion long and thin. Spring onions are apparently best, but I used a red onion.

6. Fry onions in a wok without oil.

7. Once the onions start to soften, add the vegetables and cook for about 3 minutes.

8. Empty the wok. Start the jasmine rice.

9. Add oil. Peanut oil is apparently best, but I used olive oil (3 tablespoons).

10. Add the chicken and cook until it starts to brown, at which point add more soy sauce, honey (2 tablespoons), garlic (2 cloves) and a chili. A red birds eye chili was suggested, but I just used generic chili from the supermarket.

11. Allow this to simmer for 5-10 minutes to allow the cornflower to thicken the sauce.

12. When you are ready to serve, add the vegetables back in again, adding 2 tablespoons of coriander, finely chopped snowpeas and some almonds or cashew nuts.

Thanks Careina!

Catholic Bucket List #2: Try a Tridentine Mass

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Continuing my Catholic Bucket List series from the other day, this week’s suggestion is:

Bucket List Item #2: Attend a Tridentine Mass

A little background

So what’s a “Tridentine Mass”?

Well, when Joe Catholic attends a Mass today, he typically attends a “Novus Ordo” (“New Order”) Mass. This formulation of the liturgy was brought about in the Seventies through Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council.

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Hocus Pocus

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This was an interesting little tidbit I heard the other day…

Have you ever wondered about the origin of “hocus pocus”, the phrase commonly uttered by magicians?

Well, the story I recently heard was that it came from a corruption of the words of the Latin Mass:

“hoc (enim) est corpus meum”
“This is my body”

It sounded reasonable, but I went and did a little bit of digging…

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that this explanation was the conjecture of John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. It can be found in his rather nasty sermon in 1694:

“In all probability those common juggling words of ‘hocus pocus’ are nothing else but a corruption of ‘hoc est corpus’, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.”

It’s possible that the Archbishop is right here, but it’s clear that he isn’t exactly the most impartial judge!

It has been suggested instead that the phrase is simply “faux Latin”, a collection of nonsense words conjured up out of thin air 😉 to aid the magician in his stagecraft.  I’ve found references to a performer of the 1620s who called himself “Hocus Pocus” and who used the following incantation in his act:

 “Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo.”

Unfortunately, there’s a lack of definitive evidence to confirm with any real certainty the origin of this phrase – there really are quite a wide range of possibilities. Still, speculation is fun 🙂

The Gospel of John

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One of my goals with this blog has always been to put people into contact with decent resources to help them deepen and strengthen their relationship with God.

Today I’d like to to share a resource that Msgr. Pope blogged about a while ago:

“[Fr. Francis] has been a great teacher of mine though his retreats and tape ministry. He has also been instrumental in my spiritual life through his careful and clear articulation of a theology of transformation, and insistence that we, as Christians, come to know and live the normal Christian life, a life of on-going and total transformation by the grace of God. He is a humble and prayerful man of God, a holy priest”

Fr. Francis has a number of resources on his YouTube channel which include commentaries on the Sunday Mass readings. What I would like to draw your attention to here, however, is his series on my favourite Gospel, the Gospel of St. John.

So, if you’d like to work through John’s Gospel with a great teacher, now is your opportunity…

Talk 1: Part A | Part B
Talk 2: Part A | Part B
Talk 3: Part A | Part B
Talk 4: Part A | Part B
Talk 5: Part A | Part B
Talk 6: Part A | Part B
Talk 7: Part A | Part B
Talk 8: Part A | Part B
Talk 9: Part A | Part B
Talk 10: Part A | Part B
Talk 11: Part A | Part B
Talk 12: Part A | Part B

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