Liturgical Living: Not Like Any Other Night

April 18, Holy Saturday.

I spent most of the day Thursday cooking a (sort of?) traditional Sedar meal for our little family.  I've celebrated a Sedar meal before but never hosted one myself, but living intentionally and liturgically this past year has given me the courage to attempt bigger and bigger projects.  Also, I couldn't have done it without the Academy: my husband, John, who went out twice to different grocery stores to fetch me ingredients and the normally functioning oven, a great improvement to the Florida stove that burnt everything if I didn't shave off a fifth of the baking time in every recipe and the fire alarm that sounded at the slightest provocation and slight rise in temperature, not to mention normal steam and the occasional sparse smoking.

I got all the recipes from CatholicCulture.org, which has become a staple resource in my intention to live liturgically.

The matzah bread was so easy and came out beautifully, if not as flat as what you can buy in the store.  I don't think north Wales has a very large existing Jewish population.)  The only flour I had was self-rising flour, and we make use of what we have around here.  Especially after spending what we did on a leg of lamb.  (More on that later.)  My father-in-law called the "matzah" rustic (compliment).  It only uses three ingredients: flour, water, and salt.  It was so easy and tasty, I'm going to make this flatbread throughout the liturgical year, I think, and season it with green herbs, like this fresh thyme we have growing the back garden, and slathered with butter.

The matzah is the unleavened bread.  And, no, it is absolutely not a coincidence that this setup looks like the host and paten at a Catholic Mass.  The parallel is utterly intentional.

Chopped apples and nuts soaked in wine with sugar and cinnamon make charoses, meant to symbolize the mortar that the Hebrews made when they were slaves in Egypt.

The egg is for new life, and the "bitter" herbs dipped in salt water reminiscent of the bitterness of our Hebrew ancestors in slavery.  (We also couldn't find horseradish.)

Before preparing this time-consuming though uncomplicated meal, I printed out coloring pages for Afon from Catholic Icing, a great resource that I'm sure everyone's already heard of.  Maybe in a few years' time, we'll cut out the figures and make the small-scale of DaVinci's Last Supper.

He thought all the apostles were "Jesus."  You know, the beards and all.

I'd never made lamb before, so I opted for well done with only the slightest bit of pink around the bones.  The recipe calls for sweet marjoram and cloves, but neither were available, so I substituted oregano and some cinnamon.  We did have brown sugar.  Lots and lots of brown sugar.

That evening, John, as the patriarch of the household, enacted the role of the leader.  There comes a point in the ceremony when he breaks the bread and puts the larger part under a napkin where it is hidden, to represent the Messiah who has not yet come.  But as Catholics, we break from tradition, and eat of the hidden bread before the ceremony ends, reciting the words of Jesus at the last supper: "Do this in memory of me."

You see, our Jewish brethren come to the table of Passover with expectation and remembrance.  They are mindful of their suffering and how God liberated them when they cried out for help.  But we remember not only the exile in Egypt but the exile of Original Sin; how God offered us His Own Son as the spotless lamb to be sacrificed, to be eaten of, to spread His Blood on the wood of the cross rather than a lentil, in order to loose the chains of our spiritual slavery.  And He invites us to eat Him, each time a Mass is said, for "my Flesh is food indeed and my Blood is drink indeed."

"You see, Afon," I said, "this is what the priest does at church on Sunday, up on the altar.  It doesn't look quite like this, but this is what it is.  Only what we eat now is just a meal.  But what we eat at the Mass is not just a meal; it is true magic.  The kind of magic that makes flesh look and taste and smell and feel just like bread and blood look and taste and smell and feel just like wine.  So that Jesus can come into our mouths and go down into our tummy and be with us for the rest of the day, closer than our own heart, and nourish us there.  Because He loves us very much."

And throughout this pretty speech, Afon banged his fork and knife on the table and relocated to the couch.  But I figure after a few years of this, understanding--or, at least, the best kind of understanding a mere mortal can hope to have of the mysteries of the universe--will sink in by osmosis.

A blessed Easter Triduum to you and yours.

The Kitchen Alchemist: Fried Rice and Vegetables

April 1, Feast of St. Hugh of Grenoble, who lived in a Carthusian monastery for a time, whose rule forbids the eating of meat.  Once he found the monks assembled in the rectory with nothing to eat but fowl.  St. Hugh made the sign of the cross, and the fowl miraculously changed into turtles.  A fitting tale for Lent.

"In which I try to make healthful, affordable, easy meals:

in other words, throwing together ingredients in hopes of creating gold."

If you're just joining us, the idea for this continuing series is outlined very somberly here.  If you're new, it may or may not also be useful to know that during Lent, I give up all animal products except for fish on weekends.  Hence the extreme simplicity of the meal.  (Also, I'm a lazy creative cook.)

This meal was scrapped together from leftover rice and vegetables and turned out very well.  My favorite thing to do is to throw things together in a pan with oil.  So that worked out nicely.  Since they were leftovers, all I had were carrots and potatoes, but a more traditional recipe would use peas and other vegetables.

I always start my "stir-fry" with a glob of oil and chopped garlic.  Then I add onions, and that makes the base.  Since the carrots and potatoes had already been boiled the night before, they didn't need to be cooked through; I just browned them a bit in the pan.  Then I added a bit more oil and the rice--which, again, was already cooked.  It took about twenty minutes for the rice to fry up how I like it, but it was a pretty hands-off twenty minutes.

Vegetables taste especially nice with Worcester sauce (see my "You Know You're in Wales When" segment here), but the fish ingredient means I can't have it on weekdays.  Instead, I used vegan-friendly salt and chutney to punch up the flavor.  We ate it with salad greens and drank cherry brandy for dessert.  It was popular with our friend Glyn, who is joining the Eastern Orthodox Church this Easter, and so can't have animal products either.

Glyn, Afon, and Rupert having fun after dinner.

Report card time:

Time  //  B

Ease  //  A

Presentation  //  B+

Affordability  //  A

Health  //  A

Taste  //  B+

The time would have gotten a B+ or A- because it was pretty effortless, but I took into consideration that it only works if you have leftovers.  If you try this or something similar, let me know.

Five Favorites (vol. 51): Lenten Essentials

1  //  coconut milk

2  //  Annie's Naturals Goddess salad dressing

3  //  unsweetened almond milk

4  //  lentils

5  //  Vegenaise

Mid-Lent calls for a Lenten fast line-up.  I mentioned many of these last year, but I'm discovering how much I loved them now that I can't find them.  They or similar products are probably available at a bigger store like Tesco or Morrisons, but within walking-distance are Aldi or the Co-Op, and they limit their stock to English and Welsh staples.  Delicious!  But very buttery.

These products aren't just great for Lent but for any time, and I made use of them all year long.  The coconut milk (for cooking, not drinking) is an essential for Thai curry.  Lentils go in lots of soups and the occasional Indian experiment.  Vegenaise is a good substitute for mayonnaise; just don't expect it to taste exactly the same and enjoy it for what it is, and it's delicious!  And a tip from the experienced non-dairy milk drinker: if you get something like almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk, etc., look carefully at the label to make sure that it says unsweetened.  They sneak in a ton of sugar to make it taste nice, and I don't blame "them," but if you're aiming for a healthy option, there's no need for the extra calories.

Hope you're Lent is going well.  See more community favorites at Moxie Wife.

Theme Thursday: Riches

(and Letting Go of Little Luxuries)

March 20, Feast of St. Photina, the Samaritan woman whom Our Lord met at the well.  Her name means "resplendent" or "shining with light."

Wealth (noun): a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches.

Here's my green and gold.  I've had such a great quantity of these treasured things, though I don't know if you could call it having, except maybe in that mystical way, that because they are my Father's they are mine.  I feel like they're mine, anyhow.  I feel so very wealthy for daffodils.  I'd like to plant some in the indoors or in the back garden.

We have very little money right now, as I am not allowed to work in the UK as a visitor and my husband is on meager disability allowance.  Every little purchase has to be carefully monitored.  I thought this morning as I was walking to Mass that it would be nice to have cushions in my flat-soled shoes . . . and that the floor in the kitchen was awfully cold, and wouldn't a rug be cozy?  A cheap utility rug and some discount insoles at the local Aldi won't break the bank.  Then the Holy Spirit graciously ordered my discomfort to the good.  Instead of going to the store and buying the things I immediately thought of to make my life a bit more comfortable, I offered my minor discomforts up at Mass and will continually for the Lenten season.  And maybe by then, I'll decide I don't want-need them after all.

They're such little things, after all; we're so spoiled as a society for an abundance of possessions; and the possessions we can't pay for are exactly the ones we ought to.

“Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.”--G.K. Chesterton

Theme Thursday is hosted at Clan Donaldson.

Liturgical Living: Fat Tuesday, and Last Minute Plans for Lent

March 4, Feast of St. Casimir, patron of Poland, Lithuania, bachelors, kings, and princes; also, Shrove Tuesday.

Matthew 6:25-27

Today, we ate chocolate chip pancakes slathered in pure maple syrup, butter, and Nutella and lapped up the left-overs with pan-fried, greasy bacon.  What can I say?  I like to put the "fat" in Fat Tuesday.

Nothing like waiting 'til the last minute to prepare for Lent.  Those who follow regularly know we're in the middle of an overseas move.  When I woke up this morning and the full weight of 40 days could no longer be pushed aside and filed into the back of my mind, I almost panicked.  I've hardly given a thought to my Lenten plans, other than to half-heartedly resolve to the traditional Byzantine fast again.  I'm already anticipating the stress and bustle of the move weakening that resolve.  (Defeatist, much?)  And that makes my anxiety spike almost instantaneously.  I have to have a good start to something.  You see, I'm the worst kind of perfectionist--the kind that would rather not even start a project I won't master.  What a control freak!  It's a good thing Holy Mother Church doesn't depend on my readiness, nor does God's grace.

So I sort-of prayed.  The kind of SOS prayer that is more of a sending out of emotional feelers, and God responded very quickly, and very clearly, with a wordless answer:

Peace.

Peace so often escapes me, and why should it?  It's there for the asking.  If only I wouldn't get in my own way and let anxiety control me.  I didn't choose a word of the year in January, but I can be late to the party.  The Harry Potter book club is honing in on love this season, but I see no reason why peace shouldn't be my larger theme for 2014.  Peace and love can't exist without one another, so much so that they've become a platitude to slap on with a bumper sticker.  The truest, most obvious things are often the things we take for granted.

I'm still going to attempt fasting, because it did me good last year, but I'm choosing to make "peace" my overall focus during Lent.  Peace.  Stillness.  Resting in the bosom of God.  Stopping whatever I'm doing when I feel the anxiety begin to mount, to look at my precious son and will myself to be here.  Why am I getting stressed?  I'm alive, and the sun keeps rising, and the oranges are blossoming, and there's salt in the ocean and snow in the Arctic, and the world is wonderful-wonderful!  I'm much, much too young to be in a constant crisis-panic-survival mode.  What gives, anyway?  If all one has to do is reach out and pluck happiness like a fruit, why wouldn't he?  I'm going to at least try.

As for the rest of my Lenten spirituality, I aim to let it ebb and flow from peace.  Maybe I'll get in the meditations and spiritual readings; maybe I'll make it to Mass more than once a week; maybe I'll even grow in virtue and in discipline.  The only thing I do know for sure is that I won't get very far with any of that without peace.

Be still, and know that I am God.