Smorgasbord #14

Hospitality, unsightly, and balance

Hello friends! Welcome to another edition of Smorgasbord, a self-service buffet of ideas. If you’re new here, welcome! It’s good to have you. If you haven’t subscribed, I will make it easy for you to do so.

Aperitif

Diana and I have decided that hospitality is one of our themes for this year. So we invited some friends over on Sunday afternoon, and we had close to fifty people show up, which was great. We introduced some of our fellow parishioners to other parishioners they may have seen but hadn’t met. We had a good mixture of old friends and new friends, and even our pastor (

Fr. Daniel Cruz

) made an appearance.

We turned our dining table into a giant charcuterie board; we had chips and juice for the kids, water, soda, cupcakes, brownies, and a big punch bowl. Diana got me David Wondrich’s book “Punch” for Christmas, and I decided to make the USS Richmond Punch, a Civil War-era concoction christened after a ship that would go on to be one of the longest-serving in the history of the Navy. The ingredient list includes black tea, lemons, sugar, Jamaican rum, cognac, port, and orange liqueur. Our guests loved it.

The only thing we had leftovers of was the vegetable tray

Given the success of this gathering, we have decided to continue to open our home to our friends for a few hours every month until the scorching sun of the Southwest prevents us from going outside.

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Soup du jour

The communion of saints, in Catholicism, is what we call those people who have lived their faith heroically, giving us an example of how to be a disciple and certainty that they are experiencing the beatific vision and can intercede for us if we pray to them. Each saint is assigned a patronage; for example, St. Joan of Arc is the patron Saint of France, St. Juan Diego is the patron saint of indigenous people, and St. Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians.

This week, I discovered St. Drogo of Sebourg, a Flemish saint who lived in twelfth-century France. He was a hermit and a penitential pilgrim who visited shrines. He’s the patron saint of coffee house keepers and owners. As you know, being a pilgrim and coffee are two things I enjoy very much, so it made sense to befriend this saint. But then I learned that he’s also the patron saint of those whom others find repulsive and unattractive people. So, if you’re ugly, St. Drogo is your guy. His feast day is April 16th.

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Hors d’oeuvre

You Don’t Need To Document Everything by Freya India was an excellent reminder to live in the moment and connect with those in front of you. I realized we were having such a good time with our friends on Sunday that we didn’t take one photo, and I conversed with other human beings without reaching for my phone every five minutes.

I read Chapter One of Poets and Chess Players by

E.B. Howard

, a spy adventure and drama serial set in Austria near the end of 1941, and I can’t wait to read what happens next.

Speaking of serials, the last episode of Duel by

Scoot

comes out today. I want to know what happened to DB431. Also by Scoot, but at The Peasent Times Dispatch, you can read his reflection on St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s “Story of a Soul.” It’s worth a read.

The One Funny Line Humor Challenge is almost over. Check out my notes for the one-liners I’ve written so far.

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Digestif

I was reading

Remy Bazerque

‘s notes where he has explained some bizarre French sayings and thought, “We have a bunch of those in Mexico!” So, grab a pen and paper because the Spanish lesson begins now.

Ni tanto que queme al santo, ni tanto que no lo alumbre

Literal translation: Not so much that it burns the saint, but not so little that it doesn’t light it.

Meaning: We ought to avoid extremes. Imagine you light up a tea light and are going to put it in front of a holy card of St. Drogo, your patron saint, because you run a coffee house, not because you’re ugly. You want that tea light close enough that it shines a light on the saint but not too close that it burns the holy card. It’s all about balance and finding a middle ground.

Example:

X: How strict should I be with my children?

Y: Ni tanto que queme al santo, ni tanto que no lo alumbre.

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Sobremesa

1. You’re going to a potluck, what do you bring?

2. What would you be the patron saint of?

3. What’s the best thing you read this week?