I ran across this video and knew I had somehow discovered a secret Congressional video planning their latest course of action with a nod towards any thought of reaching across the aisle!
Secret Video Exposed . . .
Just Preparing for the Holidays!
I’m not sure I even have the evidence of last year’s holiday season properly stored away and here it is time to drag all that stuff out again! Well, the spiral notebook is coming out and my holiday lists begin. Over the last few months, my tidy table in the workplace has been piliing up with completed gift projects, books for avid reader friends, Post-It notes to remind me where the Post-It notes are stored, ingredients for holiday menus, piles of ‘gotta try this’ on Thanksgiving/Christmas, and a bouquet of artificial flowers. I do not care for artificial flowers but my cats are afraid of them so that is my cat repellant of of choice.
I do have most of my shopping done as I started the week after Christmas last year. I never see something and think, “Remember to get one of those for whoever,” but always purchase it at time of sighting because I will either forget to put in on the list . . . or lose the list!
My freezer is ready for holiday baking . . . mostly. Butter is expensive so I’ve been stockpiling it in the freezer since June along with chocolate chips and baking chocolate. I have way too much Christmas wrap so don’t NEED to buy any but probably will if it is a.) unique and different, b.) on sale or c.)both.
I just finished packing my Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Shoeboxes and ended up packing two more than planned . . .overpurchased as I can’t resist buying for little children since mine are all grown up.
Hopefully and happily looking forward to Thanksgiving, my favorite meal to prepare of the year. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve years old and look foreward to it every year especially if I have a crowd around the table. And, that gives me the opportunity to start another list. My Thanksgiving list turns into the plural as I need the shopping list, the prep list for timing the food preparation, and the timing list for the actual day as my husband and I have some differences of opinion on who gets the oven first.
Times do be a changing, however, when it comes to holiday meals as one of our guests is a vegetarian, one is a total vegan, and my husband doesn’t eat sugar or gluten. My family and guests, however, are not overall picky eaters and you will find the carnivores enjoying some of the vegan/vegetarian options, too.
Idols and Ideas . . . Where Is the Synod Trying to Push the Church . . .
To me, it sort of seems like one of the main goals of the recent Amazon Synod was to work women into aspects of the liturgy historically reserved for men – you know to ease off the patriarchal aspect of the Church over the last centuries! I’m not going to argue the case here as there are people who can do that better than I but here are a few thoughts of those in the know and I think the current leanings coming from Rome could have them rolling in their graves.
St. Paul in 1 Cor. 14:34 writes: “Women should remain silent in Churches” – a law which was followed in the Church until various interpretations of the Second Vatican Council saw women reading the Scriptures at Mass but not the Gospel.
Pope Benedict XIV’s 1755 encyclical Allatae Sunt summarizes the history and teaching of the Church, saying:
“Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: ‘Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.’ We too have forbidden this practice in the same words in Our oft-repeated constitution Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 21.” (Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Allatae Sunt, July 26, 1755, n. 29)
As to a suggestion for women “deacons,” Pope John Paul II stressed the impossibility of female “ordination” in the 1994 document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis:
Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.
Pope John Paul II also pointed to Our Lady as the that women were not meant to be in ordained ministry for, as he suggested, were Christ to have chosen any woman in history for ordination it would have been His Mother.
The Ultimate Cure!
The Older We Get, the More This Means …
Graphic . . . Don’t Drink and Drive . . .
And So Went the Week . . .
Samaritan’s Christmas Shoebox Time!
Where has the year gone! It is already reminding us that Christmas is around the corner AND time to start packing Christmas Shoeboxes for the mission children overseas and other needy places. If you check out the pictures on the site, you will not be able to stop smiling as the children open their boxes to more fun and treasures they have probably seen in a lifetime at this point in time.
The computer site gives you all the information you need down to where to buy/order the necessary shoeboxes, what and what not to include, and many suggestions for shopping ideas. Don’t forget to include your young children in the process. It helps them to realize the blessing they have in life as they help you make a few, small dreams come true for children in other countries.
Addresses for times and drop-off places are are the site. Since a convenient one is near my husband’s office, he has been my carrier for the last few years and has come to enjoy the experience. They even have the people who come in join in a prayer for their own intentions and for the children who will be receiving the boxes.
My helpful suggestion. It is best to use one of the prescribed boxes but when you go shopping for items to fill the box, borrow a plastic shoebox from the store shelf as you go along to get an idea of how much you can put in a box about that size. The second half of my suggestion? Even though you CAN use a plastic shoe box, the new boxes you can order from the site are a bit bigger and easier to fill, festive and colorful. AND, you can always put some pretty stickers on the outside of your box, too.
I just ordered my shipping stickers for eight boxes this year. My husband is retiring next year and income will be less so we are going with sending extra this year.
Happy Feast Day!
Crazy Quilts, Catholics & Cookies 