Feast Day Of Saint John Bosco

Posted on by bbarthelette1984

  • Health is God’s great gift, and we must spend it entirely for Him. Our eyes should see only for God, our feet walk only for Him, our hands labor for Him alone; in short, our entire body should serve God while we still have the time. Then, when He shall take our health and we shall near our last day, our conscience will not reproach us for having misused it.

    We do not go to Holy Communion because we are good; we go to become good.

    Be good. This will make your angel happy. When sorrows and misfortunes, physical or spiritual, afflict you, turn to your guardian angel with strong trust and he will help you.

     

We Three Kings . . .

Posted on by bbarthelette1984

Every year, on January sixth, we celebrate the Feast of the Three Kings or The Epiphany. This morning, the celebrant of the Mass reminded us of marking our doorways to bless all who enter our homes in the coming year.

With just a piece of white chalk and an inclination, you can notify the world that you believe in your faith and honor the Three Kings who traveled so far to meet the God they had been looking for many years.

Chalk in hand, write over your front doorway:

20+C+M+B+18

The numbers stand for the year – 2018.
The initials are for Caspar, Melchoir, and Balthazar

To finish off your mini-service/blessing:

Dear Jesus, as You led the Three Kings to You by the light of a star, please draw us ever closer to You by the light of Faith. Help us to desire You as ardently as they did. Give us the grace to overcome all the obstacles that keep us far from You. May we, like them, have something to give You when we appear before You. Amen

One time, I had some Jehovah Witnesses come to the door. I always stop my day to chat with them and get my two cents put forth. On this occasion, one of the gentlemen kept looking up over my head. Suddenly, he asked, “What is that writing over your door?” indicating my Three Kings marks for the year. I explained it to him and he was very taken with the idea and thanked me for telling him.

A few months later, the Jehovah Witnesses were at the door, again, and in the middle of our discussion, one of them pointed to the markings over the door but before he could verbalize a question, the other one exclaimed, “Oh, listen to this! When I was here she told me about it and this is really a neat idea!”

Apple Oatmeal Bars

Posted on by bbarthelette1984

There is the slightest bit of coolness most mornings now which we call cold in California! Apple season is upon us with a huge variety starting to grace the shelves of our grocery stores. Combine apples with cooler weather and upcoming holidays means cookies! And adding oatmeal can only give you claim to them being healthy so you can permit yourself to down several along with hot tea or a cold glass of milk.

Apple Oatmeal Bars

When Fall approaches, apples are in abundance. Nothing like a spicy apple and cinnamon concoction to put the sent of holidays into the air just a bit! This is a cookie-type bar cookie with a lot of taste and goes well as a snack or dressed up for dessert.

½ cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup rolled oats
2-3 green or tart apples, peeled and diced (about 2 cups total)
Juice and zest of one, small lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking pan (approximately 12x9x2-inches) with parchment paper or use vegetable oil spray.

Cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. In a small bowl, mix together the lemon juice, zest, vanilla extract, and the apples. Now stir in the rolled oats, apple mixture and nuts into the flour/butter mixture. Spread the batter in the prepared baking pan.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes. Cool in the pan on a cooling rack. Cut into desired-sized bars and either sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle with a lemon glaze. Goes well with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a generous portion of freshly-whipped cream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sounds of Silence . . .

Posted on by bbarthelette1984

We woke up this morning . . . to the sounds of silence. The Fourth of July is over and all is left is the scent of smoke, charred matches, burnt pieces of paper and dust which I hope blow away soon. For the last two weeks, we have been treated to preliminary testing of fire works every night and kept hoping these overzealous yet inconsiderate people would eventually lose interest or spend their last penny and sulk in the dark come the actual day of the Fourth. Unfortunately, no such luck.

Around six in the morning on July Fourth, the first round of ‘official’ fireworks made themselves known and continued sporadically throughout the day, just enough to keep every dog in the neighborhood aware and yowling.

Around seven, the real show began and given the carnival-like display of colorful explosions overhead, I think we were safe in assuming a lot of illegal fireworks were at hand. A look around the neighborhood showed a lot of children being kept far back from the curb while grown men got to light the fireworks . . . which is a good thing but after about 30 minutes of constant boom, boom, boom, I noticed children wandering off to play yet the dads and grandfathers just kept at it. A can of beer and hours of making things explode? A nearly idyllic evening. Someone did post on the internet something that probably described this aspect of the Fourth perfectly:

Children! Be careful around fireworks. Let the grownups in your life who have been drinking all afternoon set them off for you.