"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
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In this week’s Gospel we pick up where we left off last Sunday. Last week Peter gave his confession of Faith, but in today’s reading he doesn’t fare so well….
However, I think the real jewel this week is the Second Reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Every word of this passage is rich with meaning and worthy of meditation.
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…
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!
Continuing my Catholic Bucket List series from the other day, this week’s suggestion is:
Bucket List Item #2: Attend a Tridentine Mass
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.
“Heaven awaits us – let this be the only stirring hope in your heart. Do not plant your feet too deeply in the soil of this world for our eternal destiny calls us home.”
Thanks Pam 🙂
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 🙂
