Volume II/Issue 37/May 2019

Conversion

When we think of conversion, we think of someone coming into the true Church of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church. However, there is what spiritual authors often call the second conversion. This is when we get serious about living the Catholic way of life. For those of us baptized in our infancy, there comes a time, when we must take the Catholic way of life seriously. If we do not, then we will become worse than the pagans surrounding us. We will be worse than the Pharisees, whom Jesus called whited sepulchers. (Matthew 23:27) In fact, we can become proud of our apparent Catholicism, which consists of external practices only rather than in a heart that is ready and willing to serve God and do whatever He may ask of us.

Father Ralph Pfau, the first priest in AA writes: “In the middle ages this change was called a conversio mores which literally meant a complete change of customs and habits.” This conversion requires us to move from a lax life of self-indulgence to a life of sincere service of Almighty God. How many of us are half-hearted at best in the spiritual life?

The Holy Ghost says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Apocalypse 3:15-16) Rather strong words, but words we need to take to heart. Lukewarmness comes on most of us imperceptibly. We find that we have slacked off from our spiritual life into a life of lukewarm self-indulgence.

Let us look seriously at our life and see where we truly are. Let us not deceive ourselves, but be brutally honest and come before God. “Dear Lord, I find that I am not where you would have me be. Bring me home, no matter what it may cost me. I am ready and willing for you to change my heart into what it should be. Change me, dear Lord.”

Soon we will begin our meditations on the Passion in Holy Week. We will read all of the events of our salvation. Jesus was not half-hearted, but desires to give His all for our salvation. How do we return this selflessness? Are we selfish or selfless. As we consider what all Jesus suffered, let us ask ourselves, what am I willing to suffer for Jesus and for my neighbor?

Saint Ignatius of Loyola said: “Of a hundred persons devoted to prayer, more than ninety are self-willed.” Let us consider this well. We may have a prayer life, but if we are still selfish and self-willed, we are not where we should be. Saint Alphonsus says: “All bad passions spring from self-love.” Self-love leads to selfishness and being self-willed. Basically these are all fingers on the same selfish hand.

Louis of Granada writes in his work, The Sinner's Guide: “St. Thomas gives us a profound reason for this. All sin, he says, proceeds from self-love, for we never commit sin without coveting some gratification for self. From self-love spring those three branches of sin mentioned by St. John: “The concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (I John 2:16), which are love of pleasure, love of riches, and love of honors. Three of the deadly sins, lust, gluttony, and sloth, spring from love of pleasure, pride springs from love of honors, and covetousness from love of riches. The remaining two, anger and envy, serve all these unlawful loves. Anger is aroused by any obstacle which prevents us from attaining what we desire, and envy is excited when we behold anyone possessing what our self-love claims.”

When we truly convert, we must put away our life of sin, especially our pet sins. We must stop making excuses and ask God to purify us completely. Jesus prayed in the garden: “Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22:42) Let us make this prayer our way of life.

The Funny Pharmacy

A joyful mind maketh age flourishing: a sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones. - Proverbs 17:22 

 

 

The Pope Speaks: May 2019

Devotion to Mary

Saint Ignatius of Loyola said: “Of a hundred persons devoted to prayer, more than ninety are self-willed.” This month we will hear many exhortations to pray the Rosary and wear the scapular. However, there is more to devotion to Mary than the recitation of prayers or the wearing of the scapular and other similar devotions.

Saint Louis de Montfort wrote an excellent work, True Devotion to Mary. In it he discusses false devotees to Mary. Let us begin with external devotees. “External devotees are persons who make all devotion to our Blessed Lady consist in outward practices. They have no taste except for the exterior of this devotion, because they have no interior spirit of their own. They will say quantities of Rosaries with the greatest precipitation; they will hear many Masses distractedly; they will go without devotion to processions; they will enroll themselves in all sorts of confraternities, without amending their lives, without doing any violence to their passions, or without imitating the virtues of that most holy Virgin. They have no love but for the sensible part of devotion, without having any relish for its solidity.”

Let us consider Mary's own devotion to Almighty God. We find it in Sacred Scripture: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:48) Mary's devotion consisted in the devotion of her whole self, body and especially soul. Our own devotion must mirror hers. Let us ask Mary to give us a heart like unto hers and like unto her Divine Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Devotion to Mary leads us to her Son.

External devotees miss one very important point of devotion. For instance, the Rosary is not merely the repetition of fifty three Hail Marys with the Our Father and Glory Be sprinkled in on a regular basis. The Rosary is a series of meditations on the Life of Jesus Christ and the Life of Mary. In fact, the First Saturday devotion consists of the recitation of the Rosary in addition to a quarter of an hour's meditation on the Mysteries of the Rosary.

For instance we begin with the Annunciation, which will include a meditation on these words from the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:48) The Sorrowful Mysteries begin with the Agony in the Garden, where we meditate on these words: “Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22:42) In both cases we are reminded that the Christian way of life includes complete submission to the will of God. Devotion consists in being ready to do whatever God asks us to do, no matter how much it goes against our own will. Mary was ready for this, and when asked, she readily submitted to the Divine Will. Are we ready to imitate Mary in this devotion?

Let us consider another form of devotee, which is quite common. “Presumptuous devotees are sinners abandoned to their passions, or lovers of the world, who, under the fair name of Christians and clients of our Blessed Lady, conceal pride, avarice, impurity, drunkenness, anger, swearing, detraction, injustice, or some other sin. They sleep in peace in the midst of their bad habits, without doing any violence to themselves to correct their faults, under the pretext that they are devout to the Blessed Virgin. They promise themselves that God will pardon them; that they will not be allowed to die without confession; and that they will not be lost eternally, because they say the Rosary, because they fast on Saturdays, because they belong to the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, or wear the scapular, or are enrolled in other congregations, or wear the little habit or little chain of our Lady. They will not believe us when we tell them that their devotion is only an illusion of the devil, and a pernicious presumption likely to destroy their souls. They say that God is good and merciful; that He has not made us to condemn us everlastingly; that no man is without sin; that they shall not die without confession; that one good Peccavi at the hour of death is enough; that they are devout to our Lady; that they wear the scapular; and that they say daily, without reproach or vanity, seven Paters and Aves in her honor; and that they sometimes say the Rosary and the Office of our Lady, besides fasting, and other things.”

Let us consider the story of a priest, who was just such a devotee. In his church he made sure there were always flowers before the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary kept there. In fact, he assigned his staff the duty of keeping these flowers always there and fresh. However, this priest was a liar, a thief, a pedophile and even participated in murder.

One Sunday he gave a sermon, taking a story from the Cure of Ars, but changing it slightly. Let us consider his version of the story. A man was very lax about his religion and a sinner, but he had a habit of bringing flowers and placing them before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which he passed regularly along the road. One day he jumped off of a bridge and committed suicide. According to this priest, the Cure of Ars went to console this man's widow. He told her that before he died the man had repented and gotten right with God. Now let us look at the real story. The man actually fell off of the bridge and his injuries caused his death, and he did indeed repent before he died.

Placing flowers before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary is indeed good, but without a heart that strives to imitate he Immaculate Heart all of the devotions in the world are worthless.

Let us return to Saint Louis de Montfort: “I confess that, in order to be truly devout to our Blessed Lady, it is not absolutely necessary to be so holy as to avoid every sin, though this were to be wished; but so much at least is necessary, and I beg you to lay it well to heart: 1. To have a sincere resolution to avoid, at least, all mortal sin, which outrages the Mother as well as the Son. 2. I would add also that in doing violence to ourselves to avoid sin, to enroll ourselves in confraternities, to say the Rosary or other prayers, to fast on Saturdays, and the like, is wonderfully useful to the conversion of a sinner, however hardened; and if my reader is such a one, even if he has his foot in the abyss, I would counsel these things to him. Nevertheless it must be on the condition that he will only practice these good works with the intention of obtaining from God, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, the grace of contrition and the pardon of his sins, to conquer his evil habits, and not to remain quietly in the state of sin, in spite of the remorse of his conscience, the example of Jesus Christ and the Saints, and the maxims of the holy Gospel.”

Our devotion must aim at our perfection. Jesus advises us (Matthew 5:48): “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.” Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary will help us towards this goal, if we are truly devoted to her, asking her to remove all that is not of God from ourselves and our lives. We should aim to be able to say with Saint Paul: “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me.” (Galatians 2:20) Mary will bring her Son to us, when she has helped us remove all that is displeasing to Jesus Christ from us. She will ask Almighty God to send us the graces and tribulations we need. Yes, God works through tribulations in order to purify us. Saint Paul told the Romans (5:3-5): “And not only so; but we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.” Through accepting tribulations, we learn patience.

 

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Saints from East and West

Saints whose feasts are celebrated this month

May 15 (Byzantine) - Saint Pachomius the Great.

The Monk Pachomius the Great, together with Anthony the Great, Macarius the Great, and Euthymius the Great, was both an exemplar of wilderness dwelling, and a founder of the monastic "life-in-common" coenobitism in Egypt. The Monk Pachomius was born in the third century in the Thebaid (Upper Egypt). His parents were pagans and he received an excellent secular education. From youth he had the traits of good character, he was prudent of sensible in mind. When Pachomius reached age twenty, he was called up into the army of the emperor Constantine (in the year 315). They settled the new conscripts into the edifice of a city prison under a guard of sentries. The local Christians came with supplies of food, and they fed the soldiers and took sincere care of them. When the youth learned that these people acted thus for the sake of their God, fulfilling His commandment about love for neighbour, this made a deep impression upon his pure soul. Pachomius made a vow to become a Christian. Having returned from the army after the victory, Pachomius accepted holy Baptism, resettled himself into the lonely settlement of Shenesit and immediately he began to lead a strict ascetic life. Sensing the need for spiritual guidance, he turned to the Thebaid wilderness dweller Palamon. He was fondly accepted by the elder, and he began to proceed through monastic efforts on the example of his instructor.

One time, after ten years of wilderness life, the Monk Pachomius was making his way through the desert, when he halted at the ruins of the former village of Tabennis and here he heard a Voice, ordering him to form at this place a monastery. Pachomius reported about this to the elder Palamon, and they both considered the words heard to be a command from God. They set out to Tabennis and began by building there a small monastic hovel. The holy elder Palamon blessed the beginning foundations of the monastery and made a prediction of its future glory. But soon also the Monk Palamon expired to the Lord. An Angel of God then appeared to Saint Pachomius in the form of a schemamonk and entrusted to him an ustav-rule of monastic life. And soon his own elder brother John came and settled there together with him.

The Monk Pachomius underwent many a temptation and assault from the enemy of the race of man, but the Monk Pachomius bravely warded off all the temptations by his prayer to God and endurance.

Gradually there began a gathering of followers to the Monk Pachomius. Their teacher impressed everyone by his love for work, whereby he managed to accomplish all kinds of monastic tasks: he cultivated a garden, he conversed with those that arrived seeking guidance, and he tended to the sick. The Monk Pachomius introduced a monastic rule of "life-in-common," making everything the same for everyone in food and attire. The monks of the monastery were to toil at the obediences assigned them for the common good of the monastery. Among the various obediences was the re-copying of books. The monks were not to possess their own money nor to accept anything from their kinsfolk. The Monk Pachomius considered that an obedience, fulfilled with zeal, was higher than fasting or prayer, and he demanded from the monks an exact observance of the monastic rule, strictly chastising flaggards.

To the Monk Pachomius one time came his sister Maria, who for a long time had wanted to see her brother. But the strict ascetic refused seeing her and via the gatekeeper he gave her the blessing to enter upon the path of monastic life, promising his help with this. Maria wept, but did as her brother had ordered. The Tabennis monks built her a hut on the opposite side of the River Nile. And to Maria also there began to gather nuns, and soon there was formed a women's monastery with a strict monastic rule, provided by the Monk Pachomius.

The number of monks at the monastery grew quickly, and it necessitated the building of seven more monasteries in the vicinity. The number of monks reached 7,000 - all under the guidance of the Monk Pachomius, who visited at all the monasteries and administered them. But at the same time Saint Pachomius remained a deeply humble monk, who was always ready to comply with and accept the remarks of each brother.

Severe and strict towards himself, the Monk Pachomius had great kindness and condescension towards the spiritually immature deficiencies of monks. One of the monks was ardent for the deed of martyrdom, but the Monk Pachomius swayed him from this yearning and instructed him quietly to fulfill his monastic obedience, taming the pride in himself and training him in humility. One time a monk would not heed his advice and went off from the monastery, during which time he was set upon by brigands, who under the threat of death forced him to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods. Filled with despair, the monk returned to the monastery. The Monk Pachomius ordered him to pray intensely night and day, keep strict fast and live in complete solitude. The monk followed his advice, and this saved his soul from despair.

The monk taught to avoid against judging others and he himself feared to be judgmental of anyone even in thought.

It was with an especial love that the Monk Pachomius concerned himself over the sick monks. He visited them, he cheered up the disheartened, he urged them to be thankful to God and put their hope in His holy will. For the sick he lightened the fasting, if this should aid in their recovery of health. One time in the absence of the monk, the cook did not prepare the monks any cooked food, on the presumption that the brethren loved to fast. Instead of doing his obedience, this monk plaited 500 mats, something which the Monk Pachomius had not encouraged. In punishment for the disobedience, all the mats prepared by the cook were ordered burnt.

The Monk Pachomius always taught the monks to have hope only upon the help and mercy of God. At the monastery it happened that there was an insufficiency of grain. The saint spent the whole night at prayer, and in the morning there came from the main city a large quantity of bread for the monastery, at no expense. The Lord granted the Monk Pachomius the gift of wonderworking and healing the sick.

The Lord revealed to him the ultimate fate of monasticism. The monk learned that successive monks would not have such zeal in their efforts as did the first, and they would walk in the darkness of not having experienced guides. Prostrating himself upon the ground, the Monk Pachomius wept bitterly, calling out to the Lord and imploring mercy for them. In answer he heard a Voice: "Pachomius, be mindful of the mercy of God. About the monks to come, know that they shalt receive recompense, since that they too shalt have occasion to suffer the life burdensome for the monk."

Towards the end of his life the Monk Pachomius likewise fell ill from a pestilence that afflicted the region. His closest and beloved disciple, the Monk Theodore, tended to him with a filial love. The Monk Pachomius died in about the year 348 at age 53, and he was buried on an hill near the monastery.

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May 15 - Saint John Baptist de la Salle.

The founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools was born at Rheims on April 30, 1651. His parents were both of noble family.

From the instructions of a devout mother, the boy, John Baptist, early gave evidence of such piety that he was designated for the priesthood. He received the tonsure when he was only eleven, and became a member of the cathedral chapter of Rheims at the age of sixteen; in 1670 he entered the seminary of St Sulpice in Paris, being ordained priest in 1678. A young man of striking appearance, well connected, refined and scholarly, he seemed assured of a life of dignified ease or of high preferment in the Church. But God in His providence had other designs for him, of which he himself had no presentiment, apparently not even when one of his fellow canons on his deathbed committed to his care the spiritual direction of a girls' orphanage and school as well as of the sisters who conducted it.

But in 1679 he met a layman, Adrian Nyel, who had come to Rheims with the idea of opening a school for poor boys. Canon de la Salle gave him every encouragement, and, somewhat prematurely, two schools were started. Gradually the young canon became more and more drawn into the work and grew interested in the seven masters who taught in these schools. He rented a house for them, fed them from his own table, and tried to instil into them the high educational ideals which were gradually taking shape in his own mind. In 1681, though their uncouth manners repelled him, he decided to invite them to live in his own home that he might have them under his constant supervision. The result must have been a great disappointment. Not only did two of his brothers indignantly leave his house - a step he may have anticipated, for "ushers" were then ranked with pot-boys and hucksters -but five of the schoolmasters soon took their departure, unable or unwilling to submit to a discipline for which they had never bargained. The reformer waited, and his patience was rewarded. Other men of a better type presented themselves, and these formed the nucleus of what was to prove a new congregation. To house them the saint gave up his paternal home, and moved with them to more suitable premises in the Rue Neuve. As the movement became known, requests began to come in from outside for schoolmasters trained on the new method, and de la Salle found his time fully engrossed. Partly for that reason, and partly because he realized the contrast his disciples drew between his assured official income and their own uncertain position, he decided to give up his canonry. This he did.

The next question for consideration was the use he should make of his private fortune, which he no longer wished to retain for his own use. Should he employ it for the infant community, or should he give it away? He went to Paris to consult Father Barre, a saintly man greatly interested in education, whose advice had helped him in the past. Father Barre was strongly opposed to the idea of endowment. "Si vous fondez, vous fondrez" ("If you endow, you will founder"), he said, and the saint, after fervent prayer for light, determined to sell all he had and to distribute the proceeds to the poor - who at that time were in the direst need, as a famine was raging in Champagne. His life from that time became even more austere. He had naturally a very delicate palate, but he deliberately starved himself until hunger enabled him to swallow any food, however coarse or ill-prepared.

Four schools were soon opened, but de la Salle's great problem at this stage was that of training teachers. Eventually he called a conference of twelye of his men, and it was decided to make provisional regulations, with a vow of obedience yearly renewable until vocations became certain. At the same time a name was decided upon for members of the community. They were to be called the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The first serious trial that befell them was illness amongst the brothers. De la Salle seems to have attributed this visitation to his own incapacity to rule, and he consequently persuaded his disciples to elect another superior. No sooner, however, did this become known than the archiepiscopal vicar general ordered him to resume his office. His wisdom and his guiding hand were indeed necessary, for external pressure was about to cause unforeseen developments in the new congregation - developments which would greatly widen its field of operation. Hitherto recruits had been full-grown men, but now applications began to be received from boys between the ages of fifteen and twenty. To reject promising lads at a malleable age might mean losing them altogether, and yet they were not old enough to be subjected to a rule framed for adults. De la Salle, in 1685, accordingly decided to set up a junior novitiate. He lodged the youths in an adjoining house, gave them a simple rule of life, and entrusted their training to a wise brother, whilst retaining supervision of them himself. But soon there appeared another class of candidate who also, like the boys, could not well be refused and who likewise required to be dealt with apart. These were young men who were sent by their parish priests to the saint with a request that he would train them as schoolmasters, and send them back to teach in their own villages. He accepted them, found them a domicile, undertook their training, and thus founded the first training-college for teachers, at Rheims in 1687; others followed, at Paris (1699) and at Saint-Denis (1709).

All this time the work of teaching poor boys had been steadily going on, although hitherto it had been restricted to Rheims. In 1688 the saint, at the request of the curé of St Sulpice in Paris, took over a school in that parish. It was the last of seven free schools founded by M. Olier, which had eventually been compelled to close for lack of satisfactory teachers. The brothers were so successful that a second school was opened in the same district. The control of these Paris foundations was entrusted to Brother L'Heureux, a gifted and capable man whom de la Salle designed to be his successor, and whom he was about to present for ordination. It had been his intention to have priests in his institution to take charge of each house, but Brother L'Heureux's unexpected death made him doubt whether his design had been according to God's will. After much prayer it was borne in upon him that if his order was to confine itself strictly to the work of teaching, for which it had been founded, and to remain free from "caste" distinctions the brothers must continue to be laymen. He therefore laid down the statute - perhaps the most self-denying ordinance which could be imposed upon a community of men - that no Brother of the Christian Schools should ever be a priest, and that no priest should ever become a member of the order. That regulation is in force to this day. Troubles which had affected the work during the founder's absence in Paris led him afterwards to take a house at Vaugirard to serve as a retreat where his sons could come to recruit body and spirit; it also became the novitiate-house. Here, about 1695, de la Salle drew up the first draft of the matured rule, with provision for the taking of life vows. Here also he wrote his manual on the Conduct of Schools in which he sets forth the system of education to be carried out - a system which revolutionized elementary education and is successfully pursued at the present day. It replaced the old method of individual instruction by class teaching and the "simultaneous method." It insisted on silence while the lessons were being given, and it taught in French and through French - not through Latin. Up to this period the schools opened by the brothers had all been intended for poor children, but in 1698 a new departure was made at the request of King James II of England, then an exile in France. He wanted a college for the sons of his Irish adherents, and at his request the saint opened a school for fifty boys of gentle birth. About the same time he started for the benefit of youths of the artisan class the first "Sunday academy," in which more advanced instruction was combined with religious teaching and exercises, and it at once became extremely popular.

St John Baptist de la Salle had not been able to carry out all these schemes without experiencing many trials. He had heartrending disappointments and defections amongst his disciples, and bitter opposition from the secular schoolmasters, who resented his intrusion into what they regarded as their special preserves. At one time the very existence of the institute seems to have been jeopardized through the injudicious action of two brothers occupying posts of authority. Complaints of undue severity towards novices reached the archbishop of Paris, who sent his vicar general to make investigations. The brothers unanimously exonerated their superior from blame in the matter, but the vicar general was prejudiced and drew up an unfavourable report. The result was that St John Baptist was told to regard himself as deposed - a verdict he received without a murmur. When, however, the vicar attempted to impose on the brothers a new superior - an outsider from Lyons - they indignantly exclaimed that M. de la Salle was their superior, and that they would one and all walk out of the house rather than accept another. Though the saint afterwards induced them to make a formal submission, the fresh appointment was allowed to lapse, and the founder remained in charge of his congregation. Somewhat later than this the removal of the novitiate from Vaugirard to larger premises inside Paris, together with the opening of new schools in connection with it, led to a violent organized attack on the Paris schools in which the lay schoolmasters were joined by the Jansenists, and by those who, on principle, were opposed to education other than manual for the children of the poor. St John Baptist found himself involved in a series of lawsuits, and obliged to close all his Parisian schools and houses. Eventually the storm died down, the persecution ended as suddenly as it had begun, and before long the brothers were able to resume and even extend their educational work in the capital.

Elsewhere the institute had been steadily developing. As early as 1700 Brother Drolin had been sent to found a school in Rome, and in France schools were started at Avignon, at Calais, in Languedoc, in Provence, at Rouen, and at Dijon. In 1705 the novitiate was transferred to St Yon in Rouen. There a boarding school was opened, and an establishment for troublesome boys, which afterwards developed into a reformatory school. From these beginnings grew the present worldwide organization, the largest teaching order of the Church, working from primary schools to university colleges. In 1717 the founder decided finally to resign; from that moment he would give no orders, and lived like the humblest of the brothers. He taught novices and boarders, for whom he wrote several books, including a method of mental prayer. St John Baptist lived at an important period in the history of spirituality in France, and he came under the influence of Berulle, Olier, and the so-called French "school" of de Rance and of the Jesuits, his friends Canon Nicholas Roland and the Minim friar Nicholas Barre being specially influential. On the negative side he was distinguished by his strong opposition to Jansenism, illustrated positively by his advocacy of frequent and even daily communion. In Lent, 1719, St John Baptist suffered a good deal from asthma and rheumatism, but would give up none of his habitual austerities. Then he met with an accident, and gradually grew weaker. He passed away on Good Friday, April 7, 1719, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

The example of St John Baptist de la Salle may well lead everyone of us to ask himself: "What have I done to help and to encourage this most necessary and divine work? What sacrifices am I prepared to make that the Christian education of our children may be carried on in spite of all the hindrances and hostilities which beset it?" The Church has shown her appreciation of the character of this man, a thinker and initiator of the first importance in the history of education, by canonizing him in 1900, and giving his feast to the whole Western church; and in 1950 Pope Pius XII declared him the heavenly patron of all schoolteachers.

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Books to feed your faith!

Sister Alma Mae's Chicken Fried Rice

Ingredients
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
1 onion
1 1/2 pounds cooked, cubed chicken meat
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 large carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, diced
3/4 cup fresh pea pods, halved
1/2 large green bell pepper, diced
6 cups cooked white rice
2 eggs
1/3 cup soy sauce

Directions

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute until soft, then add chicken and 2 tablespoons soy sauce and stir-fry for 5 to 6 minutes.

Stir in carrots, celery, red bell pepper, pea pods and green bell pepper and stir-fry another 5 minutes. Then add rice and stir thoroughly.

Finally, stir in scrambled eggs and 1/3 cup soy sauce, heat through and serve hot.

 

Brother Argus Parker's Strawberry Banana Bread

Ingredients
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups strawberries, mashed
1 cup mashed bananas
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 9x5 inch pans.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, strawberries, bananas, orange peel, and oil. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed for 2 minutes. Add flour mixture, and stir just until moistened. Stir in walnuts.

Bake for 1 hour, or until loaves test done. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Video sermons and instructions: Timeless timely truths for living the Faith

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VIE CATHOLIC RADIO EVENTS FOR MAY

 

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How To Gain A Clear Conscience When We Have Offended Someone Part 1