Jeff Culbreath at Hallowed Ground reports good results from an experiment in making cantaloupe jam.
Cantaloupe jam?
Yes. Cantaloupe jam.
And I'm fortunate enough to have received a quart of it when I met the Culbreaths after Mass this morning. I'm quite eager to get home and try some; as well as to make a report on the latest traditionalist apostolate I've visited, the parish of St. Stephen First Martyr in Sacramento. Hopefully the pictures I took on my phone of their beautiful renovation of an old Lutheran facility will turn out (not that even my pictures at their best turn out). I was warned that St. Stephens wasn't in the best part of town. Really it wasn't that bad. I was also told it was rather plain--just an old protestant church that they acquired. Again, someone was simply being modest. The church itself was beautiful. The high altar and reredos, and the communion rail, looked like they'd always been there. There wasn't room for side altars, but whomever they used to redesign the church did a wonderful job of working in the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph into niches in the main (only) sanctuary, and also side shrines for Our Lady of Fatima and the Sacred Heart image towards the back. The windows were ingeniously done--small windows with blue glass and beautiful little medallions in them. The statuary was something else, too. They had new statues in the mission style (very well done) of St. Stephen, flanked by Ss. Peter and Paul (as well as the BVM and St. Joseph, mentioned above). The Stations of the Cross were in the same style, and again were very well done.
The parish (and they ARE a real canonical parish BTW--a personal parish) had a number of classrooms (plenty of room for a school, although I gather its opening has been postponed at least a year), a well-stocked shop with homeschooling materials, Catholic books and gifts, a nice hall, and best of all, a shaded courtyard where parishioners could gather and visit after Mass. How nice that was! Some of the folks that were driving long distances even ate a picnic lunch there as they visited. Oh, to have a parish home of ones' own!!! Of course, the one problem with St. Stephens was the size of the church itself. Built for a protestant community for which Sunday observance was optional, and for which contraception was all the rage, it was grossly undersized, compared to the school buildings and the hall. It must have only seated about 200 people. It wasn't terribly crowded for a the summer low Mass (one of three Sunday Masses), but I'm sure it must be packed in the fall and winter during high Mass, and almost impossible to get into on major feastdays. I would fear that they'll outgrow their beautiful home quite soon.
As for the Culbreaths, and everyone else I met after the 10:30am Mass...they were delightful. Interesting how the collection of traddies in any city has so many similarities to the collection of traddies at home. In Phoenix and in Rockford and even (although to a lesser degree) in Washington, I've seen and met so many of the same sorts of folk as in the two "regular" traditional communities in Kansas City. They've got so much in common with each other, and so little in common with the people one typically meets on the street or in a nightclub or an insurance salesmen's convention or in a typical suburban Catholic church. Meeting such similar people, so far away from home, makes me dream again of a great American traditional Catholic migration, wherein we all head to the same place and push the modernists and protties and infidels out. Waa haahaaahaaahaaahaa! (If we could only all agree on where that would be and figure out how we'd make a living once we got there!)
Anyways, wish me luck getting the jam home on the plane, by the way. Hopefully the airport security goons won't confiscate it and blow it up on the tarmac because they think it's a bomb. IT'S JUST JAM, YOU STUPID GOVERNMENT MORONS!!!! Now go back to taking water away from little girls!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Mr. Curmudgeon, whatsoever you do to the least of "YOU STUPID GOVERNMENT MORONS" you do unto Me.
Sounds great-both the trip and the jam.
I hope you did get through with it okay, since it could technically be considered a gel. Nevermind that cell phones and laptops can be used as detonation devices for bombs in checked luggage are still allowed.
Hey first anon, maybe you ought to get a better job where you don't make your living groping people and otherwise being the arms and legs of Big Brother.
Second anon, keep your thoughts worries to yourself. Those bastards have made things as miserable as it is.
Hey, second anon, read a little closer. The frist anon was using the word "Me" and I believe implying something which anon aptly put about Christian charity. The anon is not anonymous but has a name. I should give up comments altogether because it's amazing on how people can't get the meaning of something.
Second anon, keep your thoughts worries to yourself. Those bastards have made things as miserable as it is.
If this is directed at me, even though I'm not anonymous, I'm merely pointing out the illogical nature of airport security. Our host brings up a good point: bottled water is considered more important than something worse. I still plan on flying with little to no worries since that's an area where Faith come into play.
I sincerely apologize for contributing to a debate on a post about what sounds like a wonderful trip.
I'd like to stay informed of the location of the migration.
I'm back.
First of all Jeff (with all due respect to my new real-life friend) ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? Calling for a traditional Catholic migration to anywhere in California is like calling for a temperance and chastity rally at Sturgiss. I'm sure Orland is a beautiful place, but it's in California. No dice. Unless you have a plan to get the other 40 million nutcases to leave first, of course. Then we're all in. Barring that, let's think of someplace like Montana or Wyoming.
I think that second anon was probably talking to Terry when he said "second anon." And I agree with him. Let's not make air travel less humane than it already is. The Curmudgeon's policy for airport security is much simpler: (a) quit meddling in other nations' affairs and financing the destruction of other peoples' homes so they have no direct reason to retaliate and no outrageous stories to tell their young recruits for suicide missions, and (b) allow people to arm themselves when they travel by air (if even 15 people randomly dispersed in a planeload of 200 are armed, the chances of one or two of them successfully hijacking a plane are miniscule. An armed society is a polite society.
And for the first anon who was, apparently, attempting to play the pacificist or impersonate our Lord (and who invoked a memory of that hideous newfangled Glory & Praise-type hymn I endured as a child), once we conquer our enemies, we will treat them with charity (most of them, anyways). We won't round up all the TSA goons and put them in giant dehydrators or cook them in giant microwave baggage screening devices once we've subdued them (however much fun it would seem to be now). Yet, while they oppress and hound us, we will scorn them as enemies--the arms and legs of an oppressive and unjust central government which has exceeded the rule of law.
Well Jeff, I apologize. I overstated my case.
There are 26,453 people in sensible Glenn County. There are 33,871,648 people in California. That means there are only 33,845,195 nut cases to remove before I stake out my homestead in Orland. Forty million was a gross exaggeration.
As for "starting over from ground zero" in Kansas, first of all, Kansas has a solid mission history. Granted it's pre-flaked out Jesuit mission territory, not Franciscans, and it's a century or more younger, but there's some Catholic heritage here.
But I wouldn't vote for starting out from Kansas in any case--I like the idea of the Mountain West. More fun wholesome things to do up there in Montana and Wyoming, and fewer prots and infidels to outbreed and otherwise run off.
Cheers!
BTW, what about cantaloupe wine?
"There are 26,453 people in sensible Glenn County. There are 33,871,648 people in California. That means there are only 33,845,195 nut cases to remove before I stake out my homestead in Orland. Forty million was a gross exaggeration."
Hi from Cali. . .well, if we have that great big earthquake everyone's been expecting forever, then half of California will drop off into the ocean anyway, getting rid of about half those nut-cases, giving us Trads beach front property, and we can have our Catholic named towns, streets, and buildings back.
Just kidding by the way. . .
But it would be cool. . . .
Anyway, I've been to St. Stephen's (Easter of 2005 with Fr. Berg was still there), and I agree. It's very well done, and I was very impressed. I believe they also have a Schola? When I was there, the Easter High Mass utterly breathtaking.
Post a Comment