Deuteronomy, Chapter 2, Verse 25
This day I will begin to put a
fear and dread of you into the peoples everywhere under heaven, so that at the
mention of your name they will quake and tremble before you.
This verse sounds a bit like in the beginning with Adam and Eve when God
puts the fear of man into all creatures. It appears that men that are devoid of
any connection with God who are nothing more than mere animals have a deathly
fear of God’s own. These animals may see God’s people as clinging to their guns
and their Bibles but in truth they have a fear of God’s people. Often this fear
is express in stubbornness in mind, obstructionism and obstinacy in heart that
eats its own young.
The
legend of how the croissant came to be is that in 1683, the Turkish Empire laid
siege on Vienna, Austria. The Turks made several attempts to conquer the city
by force, but were unsuccessful, so decided to try underground tunnels. The
bakers of Vienna, who worked in the basement storerooms, heard the sound of
digging and alerted the cities army. For their vigilance, the bakers received
high honors and thanks for their assistance in outwitting the Turks. In
celebration, they baked their bread in the shape of a crescent moon—the symbol
of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turks were defeated, it became custom to serve
morning coffee with the crescent-shaped pastry! The legend continues to say
that over a hundred years later, Marie Antoinette introduced the pastry to the
French who dubbed it a “croissant”. Celebrate Croissant Day in style by eating an abundance of this tasty
treat!
Recipe[2]
DIRECTIONS
Dissolve yeast in water.
Combine sugar, butter, salt and milk. Add milk mixture and egg to yeast when
cool. Stir in flour; beat well. Turn into greased bowl. Cover and let rise in
warm place to double in bulk. Turn dough onto lightly floured board; knead for
1 minute. Return to bowl and let rise again to double in bulk. Roll dough to a
very thin sheet, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 5-inch squares. Cut each square
diagonally into 2 triangles. Brush with melted butter. Roll triangles,
beginning on diagonal. Shape in crescent shape. Place on greased baking sheet,
let rise until light. Bake in 400° oven for 15 minutes.
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Evangelist Extraordinaire
136. In 1531, while half a world away the Protestant
Revolution was dividing Christ’s Church, the Mother of Our Lord started a
beautiful unification of divided peoples in America. A Native American man
named Juan Diego encountered the Virgin Mary as he was headed to a catechesis
class to learn his new Faith as a convert. There at a hill in what is now
Mexico City, named Tepeyac, Our Lady gave Juan Diego an odd and seemingly
impossible mission: approach and convince the local bishop, as a poor peasant,
to build a new church on this hill in a remote area. The bishop initially was
skeptical of his story. Embarrassed, Juan Diego tried to avoid encountering Our
Lady again.
137. But on the morning of December 12, Juan Diego
ran out of his house looking for a priest to administer last rites to his dying
uncle, and Our Lady appeared once again, saying: “Am I not here, who am your
Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not
happily within my fold? What else do you need? Do not grieve nor be disturbed
by anything.”
138. Mary assured Juan Diego that his uncle wouldn’t
die. In fact, he was already cured. Then, a miracle that would change the world
occurred. She instructed Juan Diego to cut a bouquet of fresh Castilian roses
from the top of Tepeyac hill, which were miraculously growing in the
high-altitude winter ground. Juan Diego cut as many as he could, placed them in
his overgarment, called a tilma, and headed to see the bishop.
139. Allowed again into Bishop Zumarraga’s
residence, Juan Diego displayed the content of his tilma. The flowers fell to
the floor and appearing on the garment was the image that we now know as Our
Lady of Guadalupe. At the sight of the image, the bishop and his advisors fell
to their knees in reverence. The bishop then proceeded quickly to build a
church at the site as Our Lady had requested.
140. Remarkably, as many millions were leaving the Catholic faith in
Europe due to corruption in the Church and the devastating rebellion of Luther
and others in the Protestant Reformation, within one decade of the miracle of
Our Lady of Guadalupe, some 10 million Native Americans came to the Faith with
the help of Jesus’ mother and a humble native man. The terrible pagan practice
of human sacrifice came to an end in America; the unconquerable divide between
the Spanish colonialists and the native peoples was conquered.
"Read
these counsels slowly. Pause to meditate on these thoughts. They are things
that I whisper in your ear-confiding them-as a friend, as a brother, as a
father. And they are being heard by God. I won't tell you anything new. I will
only stir your memory, so that some thought will arise and strike you; and so
you will better your life and set out along ways of prayer and of Love. And in
the end you will be a more worthy soul."
Atonement: this is the path
that leads to Life.
Daily Devotions
[2]https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/recipes/view.cfm?id=1105&repos=3&subrepos=4&searchid=1864685
[3]https://family.dphx.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/2018-Complete-My-Joy-Apostolic-Exhortation-English.pdf
[4]http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-point-1.htm
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