A Public Lenten Service: Russian Marinated Mushrooms

I have had an unfortunate week. More particularly, my wife has had a terrible week. I’ve taken her in to the local hospital for her radiation treatment, and she has experienced such pain that yesterday most of that day was spent in the Emergency Room to get her IV anesthesia against the pain. The doctors have also prescribed for her three different types of rather serious painkillers: morphine sulfate being the least of them. It also looks as though she is going to go through more radiation for at least one more location. Assuming that anyone actually reads this blog, please pray for her.

It is also Great Lent. Most people are busy telling you what to eat, or how to eat, or, like the redoubtable Fr. Z., going on about his escapades at a Chinese Restaurant. They can do what they want. I will instead, on occasion, give recipes which are both lenten and which taste good. Russian marinated mushrooms are one such.

The Blood is the Life, Part II

In the first part of this essay, I have indicated that the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church can best be described as a immune deficiency syndrome in the Body of Christ, in that part of the Body which has been described as the Church Militant, and among those who are alive in the world today. By this, I mean that the part that the clergy play in that Body can best be described as providing the circulatory system (the deacons), the hematological system (the priests), and the immune system (the bishops). By an immune deficiency syndrome, I mean that the functions of the deacons, priests and bishops have been greatly impeded or interrupted.

The Blood is the Life, Part I

I have noted that a great number of people have in turn noted that not all is well with the Roman Catholic Church. Some of those, who are that Church’s enemy, are rejoicing over what they term to be proof of its schism, heresy, or apostasy. Others, like me, are sorrowing over its sickness, as one would over the illness of one’s mother, and would wish that there were some way that it might be cured of its woes. Yet others sorrow, but have come to the conclusion that there is no cure, that the disease is fatal, and that the only thing to do is to seek refuge in a Church which still lives.

Because I believe that the RC Church is still a part of, if not the whole of, Christ’s Church on earth, and because I believe that our Lord Christ has promised that the gates of Hell (i.e., sin, error, and death) will not prevail against that Church, I must therefore do what I can to assist that Church, both for Her and my own sake. And so, I offer the following meditation, in the hope that those who read it will consider what I have to say, to accept it to the extent that it is true, and to correct me to the extent that it is false.

An Apology

I would like to apologize to my faithful readers (all two or three of them) for my prolonged silence, both in this blog, and my old one at pauca_lux_ex_oriente. This is due to several things: I am taking care of my aged mother, who is making that long, slow decline into eternity. I am also taking care of my wife, Elizabeth, who is suffering from a grave disease. I would prefer not to speak further. I am also suffering from a depression which began with the death of my first wife, Carolyn,  who fell asleep in the Lord nearly twenty two years ago. I suppose that my mood can be read from the fact that I am listening to Jacqueline du Pre’s performance of Sir Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto.

But, as Jerry Pournelle, and any number of others in the Christian tradition have remarked, Despair is a sin.This is the first day of Great Lent for those who dwell in the East but use the Western Calendar. And so I shall begin again to write.