Adoration, coffee and resurrection

Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, a peculiar brew, and a conversion story

Feb 01, 2023

Hello friends, and welcome to Issue #10 of Peregrino! This week I bring you field notes from eight visits to the Blessed Sacrament, a fancy cup of coffee, and the story of how a French atheist’s soul was resurrected. Here we go.

Adoration

Exodus90 encourages men participating in this program to do a daily holy hour. As I mentioned here, the previous times I have done it, I was content with doing the alternative 20 minutes of prayer and calling it good. However, this time around, I decided to attempt a daily holy hour. Here are some field notes from these visits.

Monday, January 23rd

I’m signed up for the 4:00 am hour on Mondays, and boy, was it hard to stay awake this time. I didn’t set myself up for success and went to bed late, knowing my alarm would go off at 3:30 and then again at 3:45. I made it in time to relieve the 3:00 am adorer, but the more I tried to be contemplative, the more my eyes would close. I won’t say my snoring woke me up because I don’t remember it happening, but it is possible it did.

Tuesday, January 24th

Lectio Divina on Exodus 7:8-13 where Aaron’s staff turns into a snake that swallows the serpents fashioned by Pharaoh’s magicians. I learned that in Egyptian art, snakes represent the divine power of the Pharaoh. So this symbolizes God’s power over Pharaoh and foreshadows the Egyptians being swallowed by the Red Sea.

Wednesday, January 25th

Opportunities to grow in love and gratitude abound; look for how God acts in your life. In each of God’s actions, He leaves room for human choice. We can accept or reject graces, be grateful or ungrateful.

Thursday, January 26th

Lectio Divina on Exodus 7:25-8:15, the plague of the frogs. “But the magicians did the same by their magic arts and made frogs overrun the land of Egypt.” I don’t understand why the magicians created MORE frogs. Wouldn’t it make more sense to make the frogs disappear? *shrug*

Am I able to see God’s love amid chaos? We see all the plagues and where they led to in the end, but think about the Israelites living in the midst of it and not knowing how the chaos will deliver them. This convinced me to search for God’s love amid the chaos in my life.

Friday, January 27th

Lectio Divina on Mark 4:26-34, the mustard seed. I jotted down “quiet, constant growth.” I’m getting comfortable with silence. I learned about the Greek word hesychia, which can be translated as stillness, rest, quiet, silence. The Jesus prayer has helped me practice stillness.

Saturday, January 28th

I attended a social with other men from my parish where I smoked a cigar. Since I was already on campus, I popped into the chapel. I quickly realized I reeked of smoke, to the point that the lady beside me covered her nose and mouth with her mantilla. I prayed in thanksgiving for the day and decided to cut my holy hour short. I should’ve known better.

Sunday, January 29th

Lectio Divina on Matthew 5:1-12a, the beatitudes. I focused on meekness. Lately, I’ve been learning more about this virtue and how it is the antidote for wrath. Reading Ephesians 4:26-31 has also helped.

Monday, January 30th

Lectio Divina on Exodus 9:8-12, the sixth plague, boils. The reflection I read talked about control and how men’s leadership must be a participation in Christ’s leadership. When trials come, it is easy to jump into problem-solving mode and eliminate the hurdles. But do we stop to ask the Lord how these hurdles are at the service of our salvation? I know I don’t do that very often.

Intrinsic cherry

Remember how during lockdowns, everybody took walks more often? Thanks to these walks around the block, I met one of my neighbors. It turns Turns out we share an obsession with coffee. We talk about coffee, nay we geek out. I tell him about the coffee I’m roasting. He tells me about the coffee roasters he has discovered. Sometimes we meet for coffee. Sometimes we swap coffee beans, or he drops by with disposable coffee cups filled with freshly brewed coffee for me to try. I like my neighbor.

He’s really into the, let’s call them funky, kinds of coffee. The ones that are tea-like. The ones that taste like tropical fruit or wine. The ones that are processed in a new and experimental way.

I was cleaning my garage when he walked by. Immediately after he said hi, he told me about this coffee he got that tasted like cherries. He said he’d go home and grab a little bit for me to try. A few minutes later, he produced a resealable bag with enough coffee beans for a 16 oz cup.

Photo was taken from Brandy Wine Coffee Roasters’ website.

I ground the coffee in haste, boiled water, and got the French press ready. I brewed the grounds for four minutes in anticipation of tasting something new and exciting. This cup did not disappoint; it straight-up tasted like cherries.

Brandy Wine Coffee Roasters in Wilmington, Delaware, roasted this coffee perfectly. For those that want to geek out, this coffee comes from the region of Palmira Arriba, Boquete, in Panama. It’s grown at an altitude of 1400 M.A.S.L. The varieties of coffee in the bag are Catuai, Caturra, Geisha, and Pacamara.

From Brandy Wine Coffee Roasters: “Here we ferment the cherry in the very same bags they come in. It is in this way our process maintains the essence of each micro-lot. The bacteria and yeast strains are unique and vary in each batch, and by involving them in the fermentation, we let the essence of the cherry shine. We open the fermentation environment to the air and allow nature to guide the temperature, which averages 30° Celsius. In this case, we just keep an eye out to keep temperatures below 45° Celsius to prevent the cherries from overheating. We keep the fermentation times between 12 and 72 hours because the soaring temperatures of our natural environment result in drastic changes in the cherry cell structure and rapid embryo death, completely changing the cup profile.”

This coffee processing method is called Intrinsic Cherry. This is the first time I have heard about it. You’d typically see natural, washed, wet-hulled, or honey, but this is something else. I can appreciate innovation like this.

Have you had exceptional coffee lately? Please don’t keep it to yourself; let me know in the comments.

Resurrection

Jesus wept, John 11:35. This short sentence is part of the gospel of John that deals with the death of Lazarus. Jesus being fully man and fully God could experience all of our human emotions. I knew Jesus loved Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. However, further reading this chapter, I see I missed an important detail. It seems like Mary Magdalene's tears would have triggered Jesus’ reaction. This comforts me because I can relate to that; God knows I have cried when other people start crying.

In chapter four of Fr. Sean Davidson’s book on St. Mary Magdalene, he tells the story of a famous atheistic journalist, André Frossard, and his marvelous spiritual resurrection. He entered a perpetual adoration chapel after seeing a friend going in. He did not know the kind of chapel this was. Upon looking at the monstrance, his intellect was infused with mysteries of the holy Catholic faith. He became one of the strongest voices of Christian truth in twentieth-century France.

Even though He doesn’t need us, Jesus wants us to share in his causal power. Certain graces are dependent on our intercession. We, too, can be participants in these spiritual resurrections. Wherever there is a spiritual Lazarus raised from the dead, very often, there is a weeping Magdalene who has brought it about.

Have you prayed for the conversion of sinners?