I didn’t know much about St. Patrick until college. My studies started to focus on medieval French literature influenced by Celtic legend and suddenly St. Patrick was everywhere. My first real introduction to him was The Tales of the Elders of Ireland, a 12th century text about ancient Irish heroes framed by St. Patrick’s return to Ireland to evangelize and being told the old legends as he … [Read more...]
St. Scholastica and a Snow Day
Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of St. Scholastica, twin sister of St. Benedict. Her feast day is actually February 10th, but Wednesday wasn’t my day to cook (we live in community and take turns cooking, more on that some other time). So we celebrated late. I’m not sure that’s allowed, but at least I'm honest. We used recipes from here: And here: Have I mentioned that I love … [Read more...]
Polenta for Candlemas!
February 2nd is the Feast of Candlemas. It celebrates the presentation of Christ at the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary forty days after Christmas. This is the event described in the Gospel of Luke when the Virgin and St. Joseph present Jesus at the Temple and the faithful Simeon and Anna behold and recognize Jesus as the Messiah they have been waiting for. After seeing the … [Read more...]
How the Michaelmas Feast Turned Out
NOTE: these are all pictures from my phone so they are less than stunning. Hopefully pictures from our actual camera will be uploaded later. Because my obliging husband bought groceries between his classes, at 5pm we were ready to head home and begin cooking the feast. The turkey took a bit longer to cook than we expected so the little boy had his own feast of sweet potato and some banana … [Read more...]
Carrots for Michaelmas – September 29th
Until this year, my only exposure to Michaelmas was a reference in Jane Austen novels and films. What is Michaelmas, you ask? Good question. As I’m just now discovering these traditions and attempting to observe them, I expect that a good deal of what I say will be inaccurate rubbish. Feel free to correct what I’ve gotten wrong and take everything else with a grain of salt. That … [Read more...]
