Tuesday, June 4, 2019

END OF RAMADAN-COGNAC DAY

1 Chronicles, Chapter 16, Verse 25

For great is the LORD and highly to be praised; to be feared above all gods.

What is the meaning of above all gods? Do we as moderns have gods? Have we like the ancient Baal worshipers cheapened life (abortion, contraception, etc.) and offered our children to the fire? Have we engaged in ritual hedonism? Have we place creation before the creator?

Don’t Worship Mother Nature[1]

Our old dog eats deer poop. The neighborhood cats stalk, torture, and kill our chipmunks. The spider whose web I see in front of my window stings the butterfly caught in his web, wraps it with silk, and later comes back to eat it alive. Your knee hurts. Your eyes begin to go. Cancer cells eat up the body of your closest friend. The earth shifts suddenly, and flattens part of a crowded island, and thousands and thousands die. There’s nature for you. It is sometimes only disgusting, like the dietary habits of our aging mutt. It’s sometimes just annoying, like your aching knee and fuzzy vision. But it is also cold, brutal, and merciless. Nature is entirely selfish and utterly amoral. It’s doesn’t care about anyone’s pain. It’s soaked in the blood of the innocent. And yet some people say that we ought to abandon the religions we have, like Catholicism, and worship nature instead. The Church is corrupt, they say, and obsessed with sex, and full of rules, and run by old men, and medieval, antiquated, and completely out of step with the modern world. But nature, nature is cool. It’s natural, for heaven’s sake. We hear this all the time. Writing on the website of a serious English magazine, someone calling himself (or herself) “Pagan Artist” wrote in a cheerful Mary Poppins kind of way: “What is wrong with worshipping God’s creation itself? The sun, the moon, the stars, the air, the trees, the rivers, the sea — we cannot live for a day without them.” He then explained why this made him want to worship nature and reject the god of any established religion: “For me, that makes them divine because they give us the ultimate gift of life. Organized religions on the other hand have given us nothing but death and destruction. Nature gives us life. Organized religions give us death. Which one should we hold divine and worship with reverence?” Let us set aside the claim that “organized religions” have given the world lots of bad things and no good things. It’s just silly. Walk around any major city and note the number of hospitals with names like “Mercy Hospital” and “Our Lady of . . .” and “Beth Israel.” The modern hospital come from the medical care dispensed freely by the monks of the Middle Ages.Note how many missions go around the world to feed the poor, build them homes, and give them health care when they’re sick. Remember those missionaries who got ebola because they kept helping people at the risk of their lives? They’re not unusual.

Look at the modern pagan’s case at its best. It claims that we ought to reverence nature because it gives us life, as Pagan Artist said. You can easily think of all sorts of wonderful things to be found in Nature with a capital “N.” The Christian would say that the wonderful things we find are wonderful gifts given us by a loving God, but let that go for a second. The first thing to be said about this modern nature worship is that it is very, very dim. Dumb, even. Sure, we find in nature pretty sunsets, and cute little bunnies and kittens, and warm sunny breezy spring days, and the awe-inspiring mechanics of life on earth and the equally awe-inspiring movement of the stars and galaxies. But we also find physical decay, cancer, earthquakes. Those cute kittens grow up to eat the cute bunnies. The weather that produces the beautiful spring days will also produce killing cold snaps and hurricanes that destroy everything in their path. The mechanics of life on earth produce death as much as life, and indeed depend on death to maintain the balance. What is to you a horrible death from cancer is for Nature simply a way of adjusting the population. I don’t know why anyone would want to worship this. The real pagans worshiped nature because it could kill them. They wanted to try to make Nature like them and spare them its worst. It was a bully they had to pretend to like. That’s not worship as we understand it. It’s bribery, and desperate bribery at that. Some of the ancient pagan religions would do almost anything to bribe the nature gods, including sacrificing their own children. Think for a moment what fear men would have to feel to toss their own infant children into a furnace. That is how frightened of nature were the people who knew it best. Not for them the cheery “Nature gives us life” and the chipper question, “What is wrong with worshipping God’s creation itself?” That’s the talk of someone who lives far removed from nature, in a modern city in a modern house with modern heat and modern plumbing, with modern medicine and everything else that protects us from nature as she really is. If he really met mother nature, he wouldn’t like her. As my grandmother said about a bad man she knew, he’d crush just as soon as look at you.

End of Ramadan/Eid-al-Fitr[2]

· What is Eid? Eid al-Fitr is an important Muslim celebration that marks the breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan.

· Family and friends gather to eat and pray together during the festival that lasts up to three days in many Muslim countries.

· Mubarak Eid, or Blessed Eid, is a common greeting used during Eid al-Fitr.

Cognac Day[3]

There are many forms of distilled alcohol that carry a distinct nobility to them, a bit of culture and of social grandeur that just can’t be claimed by other alcohols. When you think of beer, the concepts that arrive in your mind are often cheap bars and backyard BBQ’s, with wine the themes are the same but generally of a higher social class. Mention Bourbon, Scotch, and Cognac, however, and suddenly the rich red of mahogany and distinguished gentlemen in high-class study’s and dens come to mind. Cognac Day is dedicated to one of these rich beverages, and perhaps one of the most distinguished.

History of Cognac Day

To begin with, let’s talk about what Cognac actually is. Cognac, in a way, is what happens when wine grows up and develops character, though we may be biased. Cognac begins with a white wine produced in one of six designated growing regions, and it’s worth noting that if it wasn’t produced from a white wine grown in those regions, it’s not considered a real Cognac. The white wine from which it starts is considered by most connoisseurs to be entirely undrinkable. There’s a further distinction in which a Cognac must be produced from 90% Ugni Blanc, a form of white wine grape, to have a specific designation. It all starts with the grapes being pressed and left to ferment for three weeks in the wild yeasts that grow naturally in those regions without the addition of sugar or sulfur. This wine is then distilled in alembic stills and placed into Limousin oak casks for two years where it goes from being nearly 70% alcohol to 40% alcohol. There are multiple grades of Cognac, and exploring them can be a great way to spend Cognac Day.

How to celebrate Cognac Day

Ahhh, this is certainly one of the grandest celebrations. Cognac Day can be celebrated by taking a trip to your local liquor store and selecting a few varieties to try out. Get together a few friends and you can have a positively thrilling taste test with dozens of varieties to choose from. Cognac is far and away an improvement over the simply fermented grape, distilled and cultivated down to its ultimate final form. While you’re sampling this drink, you should look into the various forms of glassware that are specially designed for serving Cognac. Fill a glass, take a sip, and savor the luxuriousness that is Cognac, you won’t regret it!

HOLY SPIRIT NOVENA-FIFTH DAY

(Tuesday, 7th Week of Easter)

Light immortal! Light Divine! Visit Thou these hearts of Thine, and our inmost being fill!

The Gift of Knowledge

The gift of Knowledge enables the soul to evaluate created things at their true worth--in their relation to God. Knowledge unmasks the pretense of creatures, reveals their emptiness, and points out their only true purpose as instruments in the service of God. It shows us the loving care of God even in adversity, and directs us to glorify Him in every circumstance of life. Guided by its light, we put first things first, and prize the friendship of God beyond all else. "Knowledge is a fountain of life to him that possesseth it."

Prayer

Come, O Blessed Spirit of Knowledge, and grant that I may perceive the will of the Father; show me the nothingness of earthly things, that I may realize their vanity and use them only for Thy glory and my own salvation, looking ever beyond them to Thee, and Thy eternal rewards. Amen.

Our Father and Hail Mary ONCE.
Glory be to the Father SEVEN TIMES.
Act of Consecration, Prayer for the Seven Gifts (See page 168)

Daily Devotions

· Drops of Christ’s Blood

· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

· 90 Days for our Nation, 54-day rosary-Day 23

· Day 6 Novena to the Holy Face