Next Year's Michaelmas Dessert!

 Kelly at the Careless Catholic has the perfect dessert for next year's Michaelmas, beautifully rendered.  Well worth a peek.  Hats off to Kelly.  Of course, you won't be making it this year.  Those blackberries are now off limits, right?

~Smiles~

Click here and take a peek.

By www.bluewaikiki.com (originally posted to Flickr as Blackberries) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Have a blessed Sabbath Day.

~Michelle

If you missed yesterday's post,
You will find it here:

Click for Photo credit info

Michaelmas in Medieval Times- (Better use up those Blackberries)

By unknown master (book scan) [Public domain
or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Today is Michaelmas, the day that the traditional church in the West celebrates the Archangel Michael, and all angels.

Michaelmas was a significant day in Medieval times, for both spiritual and temporal reasons.  It marked the end of the harvest as well as the end of activities that could only be conducted in Summer, such as fishing and fruit harvesting. It was a time to process the harvest, fill barns with food, and salt and cure meats.  For those who could afford it, the traditional feast was a goose.

Of course, there was no supermarket stocked with goods from around the world in those days.  The quality of the harvest and its storage determined the complexion of life for the long, bleak winter months ahead. Most villages had a harvest festival on this day. It was also a "quarter day", marking the beginning of one of the four quarters of the year.  As such, it was a day on which rents were collected.  The day following the festival and financial reckoning, laborers could hire themselves out at a "mop fair" for service in the next year's farming season.

In those days, an interesting Michaelmas tradition existed in Europe.  This was considered to be the very night that St. Michael, Archangel, cast Satan down to Earth from Heaven.  It seems that Medieval Christians had it on good authority that Lucifer landed in a blackberry bush. Naturally, from this evening onward, blackberries were to be neither harvested nor eaten until the next season.  Some would express their disdain for the enemy of God by urinating or spitting upon blackberry bushes until the following year when the cycle began again.

By anonymous (Queen Mary Master) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

For us, this time of the year is also marks a turning of the seasons.  We look forward, with excitement laced trepidation, to the festivals of All Saints, All Souls, and Christmas.  Trepidation, because even with our modern conveniences, we feel in our genes the coming of darkness as days shorten and the night sky deepens.  Excitement, because we know that at the end of our season of tenebrosity, we will kneel with peaceful joy, at the cradle of a King.

Pax Christi Dear Ones,
The long dark night approaches,
~Michelle

My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight... ~ Daniel 6:22

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Michaelmas: Guys With Swords

By WOlfgang Sauber (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
 or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Elyse has an affinity for guys with swords.

Today is the Feast Day of my precious daughter's patron: Saint Michael, Archangel. (She's rather fond of St. George, too...but today is Michael's day.)  She has been informed that warrior saints are generally embraced by little boys, but that has never swayed her, even when she was knee high to a grasshopper.  She knew her "guys" when she saw them.

St. Michael is widely revered and is recognized by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans and some other Protestant groups, Judaism, and in Islam.  His name means "Who is like God?"and was a key question in the battle in Heaven against Satan and his followers.  In our opulent Western comfort, I suppose that it is a question that we might ask ourselves today.  It is easy to begin to think that we have 'it all under control' , or even that we are pretty nifty....but believing that we are pretty nifty and have it all under control is a first class ticket to forgetting, or even openly opposing, the One who really is, and does.

Who is like the Lord our God,

the One who sits enthroned on high,

Who stoops down to look

on the Heavens and the Earth?

Psalm 113: 5-6

Happy Feast Day of Saint Michael and All Angels.
May you always seek aid, and remain on the side of righteousness, in your battles against the forces of darkness.

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. ~ Revelation 12:7-9

Pax Christi Dear Ones,
~Michelle

More on Michaelmas here:

MIchaelmas in Medieval Times