Chinese Our Lady of Perpetual Help

I have a small devotion to "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" and was shocked to find a mother of pearl version in Chinatown in Honolulu. Any idea why they have such a devotion to her? It was also hanging up in a predominately Korean parish there. Very interesting nonetheless and I wanted to share a photo!

Lenten Dishes

Well, just because we are abstaining from meats on Fridays doesn't mean that Catholics can't have "Good Eats". Tonight I got a chance to cook, and wanted to share how I edited Giada's Pizza Pot Pie to be meatless - and it only cost about 10 dollars to feed both of us (and it was absolutely delicious). I hope to share some more meatless dishes in the future, because we generally try to abstain from meat during all Fridays of the year, and I think I"m going to try to start cooking on Fridays as well.

First, you make the tomato sauce, for this simply leave the pancetta out of the recipe:'

Next, start preparing your ingredients by chopping up all the goodies she suggests in her recipe. Just replace the chicken with zucchini (trust me, the zucchini takes in the flavor of the sauce, and ends up being perfecto!):

Add all the ingredients together after a proper simmer:

Cover with pizza dough and add cheese to the top (Romano instead of parmigiana for me!) Don't forget to cut a slit in the top:

Then, just cook, eat and enjoy! Hope everyone's Holy Week goes well.

Priests and Scandal

It's been a while! My lent is coming along, not as good as I would like (I need to remember not to ever go to Hawaii during Lent again!), but I'm still around. I hope to catch up on some of your blogs soon.

Thanks to Erik, I can post this story about things you don't hear about priests in this "sex scandal" stuff. I don't believe it is all the media, but a lot of the things being printed in newspapers and magazines is bordering on hardcore bigotry.

Fostering Vocations

Often, when I hear about the shortage of Priest's, I think about how I want to foster the various vocations available to my son (and hopefully soon, children).

I get the impression that, back when times were "harder", families were more prone to encourage their children to go into the Priesthood, or join a convent due to the financial security. I think it is important, that we continue to foster those vocations (other than marriage) within our children, and let them know that marriage is not the only sacrament that comes after Confirmation.

I would really like to hear everyone else's thoughts and ideas about this...it really is an intriguing topic for me.