Happy belated feast of Saints Peter and Paul!
I can never decide which saint has a personality closest to mine…I think I lean towards St. Paul. Hmmmm.
June 2009
Monthly Archive
June 30, 2009
June 30, 2009
(Sorry I did not post yesterday — WP just wasn’t working for me.)
This past weekend can best be described as P-A-N-D-E-M-O-N-I-U-M. It roughly went like this:
My cousins arrive from NY, a family of 10. Thankfully, my uncle is equipped with some yummy port wine.
Crash into bed.
Work on Thursday. Meanwhile, my cousin S. (+ baby inside) and her husband D. arrive at the house.
Change into formal dress at work and drive with my dad to the rehearsal dinner at Mount Vernon.
Michael Jackson dies. The guy with whom I am walking into the dinner gets the news on his blackberry. Very sad. I say a prayer.
Rehearsal dinner for cousin B. and his lovely fiancée M.
Finally make the deposit on the rental apartment in Paris.
Get everyone (10+2+6 = 18 people) dressed and caravan down to VA for the wedding. Barely make it because of traffic.
The wedding. Congratulations B. and M.!
Stop by the Marine Corps exchange to buy those Jessica Simpson heels I couldn’t stop thinking about.
The wedding reception. Several very drunk Marines in attendance. Otherwise a great PARTAY.
Drive home and crash into bed.
Up early, cooking baking cooking baking cleaning cooking baking.
More cousins arrive. The boys leave. Now 18 women in the house.
Baby shower for S.
Drive down to Southern MD to join the boys for a picnic dinner. Awesome group of 25. After dinner, wading in the Patuxent River.
Drive home and crash into bed.
Up earlier, for 7:30AM Mass. Happy Birthday Fr. Mark!
Playing games with the cousins and chasing the little ones = happiness.
Brunch for 25.
Cousins leave to go home to NY, minus one who is staying a couple extra days. Some downtime for us with the VA cousins.
VA cousins leave for home.
Cleanup and naptime. What a weekend! I wouldn’t change it for the world.
June 25, 2009
Hahahaha…YES.
I am trying hoop earrings today, but I’m not sure they are me even though they go with my outfit. There are lots of cousins at my house for the weekend, and I have a migraine this morning. Oh well. This too shall pass. Hopefully in time for my cousin’s rehearsal dinner tonight! :)
I’ve posted a new playlist. This time it is a :::drumroll::: Michael Jackson playlist!!!!!
June 24, 2009
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption to his people.
He has raised up a horn for our salvation within the house of David his servant, even as he promised through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old: salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our fathers and to be mindful of his holy covenant and of the oath he swore to Abraham our father, and to grant us that, rescued from the hand of enemies, without fear we might worship him in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace. (Luke 1: 68-80)
Let us take the words of Zechariah as an inspiration to bring the Love of Christ to others through a “forgiveness of their sins”, to be prophets in our own place through love, mercy, and charity.
June 24, 2009
I would love to get married in this dress…
It reminds me of a gorgeous wedding I read about awhile back on Once Wed. The bride’s long dramatic but at the same time casually knotted string of pearls, and the adorable t-strap shoes, are surprising and lovely touches.
In another life, I think I would have been a wedding planner instead of a chemist. :)
June 24, 2009
I’m still not certain I like this Twitter thing…trying it for my grandfather.
This is a really gorgeous shoe:
You know, I find collecting shoes can be a rather expensive hobby…
Chinese Laundry is one of my new favorite brands. Also check out the vintage-y Twins, cute Katy, and very coy Trixy.
I got to try on a pair of these fabulous stilettos by Jessica Simpson at the Marine Corps Exchange the other day. AMAZING. We are going back there this weekend; I may have to jump through hoops to justify another shoe purchase.
Speaking of justifying shoe purchases, I am wearing a pair of Strictly Comfort pumps today (available at JC Penney’s, apparently) that I bought new at a thrift store for $7. No justification needed there! For the record, they are comfortable.
Some people work to travel. I work to buy shoes.
June 23, 2009
Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him. When this awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long to be enlightened by the divine light, and this longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself and is entirely transformed by the love of God.
Such a man lives in this life and at the same time does not live in it, for although he still inhabits a body, he is constantly leaving it in spirit because of the love that draws him toward God. Once the love of God has released him from self-love, the flame of divine love never ceases to burn in his heart and he remains united to God by an irresistible longing. As the Apostle says: If we are taken out of ourselves it is for the love of God; if we are brought back to our senses it is for your sake. (Diadochus of Photice, bishop)
Such is the life of the mystic. Mysticism is a confusing topic, especially these days when certain forms of Eastern mysticism are so trendy. In his book Truth and Tolerance, Pope Benedict XVI calls each of us to be a mystic to some extent in our lives through prayer and contemplation. What does this mean for the faithful? Since mysticism is something given by God – a grace – to imagine that one could “practice” it would be a misunderstanding of the meaning of Christian mysticism. In this series of posts I will try to flesh out what I think the Holy Father means by this “call to mysticism”.
But first, what is mysticism? You can read the Holy Father’s points yourself here at Google Books. In a nutshell, the key difference between Eastern and Western mysticism is that Eastern mystics desire an annihilation of the individual by the personal accomplishment of union with the divine; on the other hand, Western and Christian mystics desire not an annihilation of the individual, but for God to reveal Himself intimately in the through revelation. Note that God is the one performing the action – a gift of grace – and it is not based on merit of the individual.
The Catholic Encyclopedia puts it this way:
The Catholic Church, as guardian of Christian doctrine, through her teaching and theologians, gave the solution of the problem. She asserted the limits of human reason: the human soul has a natural potentia obedientialis), but no exigency and no positive ability to reach God otherwise than by analogical knowledge. She condemned the immediate vision of the Beghards and Beguines, the pseudo-Mysticism of Eckhart, and Molinos, the theories of the Ontologists, and Pantheism under all its forms, as well as the vital Immanence and religious experience of the Modernists. But she teaches that, what man knows by natural reason, he can know through revelation; that what he cannot attain to by his natural power he can reach by the grace of God. God has gratuitously elevated human nature to a supernatural state. He has assigned as its ultimate end the direct vision of Himself, the Beatific Vision. But this end can be reached only in the next life; in the present life we can but prepare ourselves for it with the aid of revelation and grace. To some souls, however, even in the present life, God gives a very special grace by which they are enabled to feel His sensible presence; this is true mystical contemplation. In this act, there is no annihilation or absorption of the creature into God, but God becomes intimately present to the created mind and this, enlightened by special illuminations, contemplates with ineffable joy the Divine essence.
(Read the rest of the article on mysticism here.)
That general overview of Western mysticism is all for now. Stay tuned for parts II-V in the future!
June 23, 2009
I was going through things on my computer yesterday, trying to make some space on the hard drive, and I came across these photos from my family’s last trip to California in 2006. My grandfather’s Croatian cousins (my third cousins) S. and J. live in Southern CA outside LA, and their home is one of my favorite places on earth. It is literally a slice of heaven: on their little plot of land that is mostly hillside, S. has built a network of tiered gardens. These gardens are filled to overflowing with vegetables – tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers – and especially fruits – kumquats, oranges, lemons, plums, grapes, and even hybrid fruits. S. tends these plants like they were his children and doesn’t use pesticides, so we could eat the fruit right off the tree. I have very fond memories of S. pulling bunches of grapes off the vine and placing them right into my open hands. I’d never seen fresh grapes before.
S. and J. have flowers too…big, beautiful blossoms as you can see in the photos below. S. cut one for each of my sisters and I and we had an impromptu photoshoot.
C. looks slightly disturbed
The flowers are attacking E.!
Three sisters
With S., the Adam of this Garden of Eden
June 22, 2009
I had heard this was soon to occur. The year I spent interning for the President’s Council on Bioethics was one filled with the finest experiences of my life. I can attest to the bipartisanship and spirit of open dialogue and healthy disagreement that the Council encouraged. I learned so much when I was working there.
From the Catholic World Report:
Within the recesses of the US Department of Health and Human Services, the President’s Council on Bioethics quietly went about its work, as it had done, under various titles and different mandates, for over 30 years. However, during the week of June 8, 2009, council members received letters from President Obama letting them know their services were no longer required. The present council will be shutting its doors.
Not related to HHS, but only housed there for administrative reasons, the present council was established by President George W. Bush’s executive order in November 2001. The 18 members were chosen by Bush from among a group of leading scientists, doctors, ethicists, social scientists, lawyers, and theologians. The council was chaired by Dr. Leon Kass, MD, PhD for its first four years, and by Edmund Pelligrino, MD during Bush’s second term.
