7QT Easter Meat Friday and 3 Reasons

1.

11:57 p.m. on Holy Thursday. I was eating an emergency bacon snack in preparation for Good Friday.  I was in good company too.  My in laws, Hope and Brady, were ever the gracious hosts with bacon and beds and mojitos on demand.

2.  Hope and Brady also introduced us to this family and now I have been re-educated about "red-neckedness."  I thought it was a pejorative, but turns out it's a right virtuous quality as opposed to the inverse which is "yuppiness."

3.   Looking for an easy source for booklists by grade level?  Check out the Battle of the Books website.  Our school is hosting it's 3rd annual battle.  My team the Reading Ninjas won the whole durn thing last year.  We are training like mad for a repeat.

Last year's winning team!

This year, my team is the Book Whales.  Any creative types out there want to send me a logo I can print on iron-on transfer paper for the t-shirts?  Like a killer whale leaping out of some waves, but the waves are actually open books with pages fanning?  I would love you forever and maybe give you the family's super secret sugar cookie recipe from Great Aunt Sister (yes, she was a religious) Christella.  It's pretty much my most treasured item of worth.

4.  For my next three four quick takes I am sharing Three Four Reasons I Love Catholicism.  Joining Micaela, my virtual friend who lives in South Korea for this link-up:

1.

Confession.  It's like a Delta Sonic Superkiss for the Soul.  I love that I can go anytime, any place, to any priest.  I have confessed my sins in cars, in living room, and on front porches.  I choose face-to-face most of the time, because I like to do things the hard (embarrassing) way.  For me, face-to-face is tougher, yet more real.  More like me and Jesus.

2.

Universality.  I have traveled to many countries in my lifetime and gone to Mass in nearly every one.  From Honduras to Holland, Canada to the Czech Republic, Nevis to Nice, it's always the same Mass, same sacrifice, same Jesus.

3.

Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa 

Saints.  Saints are like superheroes who walk/walked the earth.  Or floated above it St. Teresa of Avila style.  Stigmatas (St. Pio), visionaries (St. Marguerite Marie Alacocque), and every day quiet people who were heroic in the little things St. Therese the Little Flower style (such as her parents Blessed Zelie and Louis Martin) are my celebrities.  Every nation, every moment in history, every race has it's own saints.  I love them all.  I named my kids after them.  I even named my dog after one.

4.  And that's my three things but bonus!.  Can I add the artwork?  Look at that above!  And this:

I heard once, or thought up my ownself, about how the focus of the painting is the horse's a$$ because that's what St. Paul was prior to this moment.

And check out this gorgeous piece sculpted by a friend and fellow UD alum.

Here's a better view of her face.

Keep celebrating!  It's MEAT FRIDAY!

Joining Jen's Seven Quick Take crowd and Micaela's Three Reasons I Love Catholicism.