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Posted in Events, Savoring Our Faith, Video, What's On the Table | 7 Comments »
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Posted in Events, From the Feedbag, Uncategorized | No Comments »
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Mother’s Day Menu |
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Moms feed their children from the moment they are conceived in the womb, which is where life begins! With breastfeeding, a mom continues to naturally give her child sustenance by giving of herself. And even after a child has learned to fend for themselves, there exists an instinctual desire for a mother to feed her children. I think of my own mother who insists I eat something each time I visit home – even when I’m not hungry!
Mothers also have an ongoing concern about whether or not their children are being fed spiritually. A regular practice of our faith will let her know she has accomplished this task. By living our faith well, we can also show to our moms we have put ourselves in God’s hands. For a mom, that’s the best place for her children. The second best place however, is around the dinner table with her.
In my book, Grace Before Meals: Recipes and Inspiration for Family Meals and Family Life, I dedicate an entire chapter to moms. The bite sized theological essays, conversation starters, and recipes, help husbands and children show their gratitude to mothers by making them a special breakfast in bed.
So to make this a special Mother’s Day weekend, be sure to do something special for mom, like making her the suggested menu in my book, and going all together as a family to church.
CLICK HERE for a few recipe ideas to help celebrate Mother’s Day.
Recipe for the marinated fresh fruit:
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY DEAL:
For the rest of May, as a way to celebrate mothers, receive a 10% discount and be entered to receive free GBM swag by using the promo code:
MAMA13 when purchasing Grace Before Meals books and aprons, the perfect gifts for loved ones. Also, if you share with us your favorite memories as a mom or memories with your mother, you could be featured in our next eBlast and Facebook page to help others see the shining examples of good people that are a part of this movement. |
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Let us pray: Father in Heaven, you gave us our moms as a sign of your love for us. May we always be grateful for this gift. May we cherish the dignity of women, and especially those who made great sacrifices to bring life into this world. Protect all mothers from anxiety for their children, and may our prayers for moms be a sign of our gratitude and love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. |
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Questions:
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Posted in Holiday, Menu Inspiration | 2 Comments »
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Feast Day for Parents |
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May 1st is the Solemn Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker. It’s a big feast day in Rome, similar to America’s Labor Day. The whole city shuts down and they feast all day long!
May is also a month dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Your church might have a May Crowning and maybe you’ll hear even more sermons about Mary, especially on the upcoming Mother’s Day weekend celebrated in America.
And while May is truly a month to celebrate the parents of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I propose we use it as a time to celebrate our own parents as well.
Even though there is no official “Parent’s Day,” this month’s Feast Days give us time to reflect on what it means to be a good Mom and Dad, to improve parenting skills in general, and to make sure that we let our own parents know how much we appreciate them with a delicious meal. And I have two books to help with that!  
For those new to our movement, my first book, Grace Before Meals: Recipes and Inspiration for Family Meals and Family Life, has a chapter with bite-sized theological essays about Moms and Dads. It also includes recipes you can make to say a special “thank you” to your own parents. There are even questions to facilitate a conversation about the important role of parenting. Not to mention my famous winning recipe from the Food Network Show, Throw Down! with Bobby Flay. 
My second book, Spicing Up Married Life, compliments the important role of parents in the family. I believe the family’s love for each other begins with the strength of the parent’s love for each other. With that, I encourage “month-aversaries,” a monthly dinner date instead of the traditional once a year celebration. Perhaps children can make a special meal for their parents based on the recipes of this book and encourage their parents to take some time to read the essays and ask each other the questions in the book. I’ve had many couples write to me and tell me how this book has really helped strengthen their relationship as spouses and also as parents. Please feel free and share your own comments about this book here.
May also happens to be a popular month couples to also get married. These books are no doubt a great gift for the newlyweds!
Use this month well! The Feast Days of this month coupled with the resources from our movement, bring powerful reminders to honor moms and dads, like Mary and Joseph. They deserve the recognition from children and society. Parents who work hard to provide the “daily bread” for their family deserve a special meal to celebrate their necessary role in building up God’s family! Let’s start a movement to celebrate “Parent’s Day!”
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Let us pray: In honor of the Feast of St. Joseph and in the month dedicated to Mary, we pray for our parents. May God raise up and inspire moms and dads to seek only the best of things for their children, feeding them only the best food for body, mind and soul. Bless and protect the sacrament of marriage Lord, and help loving moms and dads to be the effective sign of charity, commitment and holiness in the world. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Questions:
Your responses help encourage our work and our movement. Please let us know your questions, thoughts and comments below.
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MAY 05
Gaithersburg, MD
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Posted in Dinner Discussion, Feast Days | 6 Comments »
| A Tribute to the Heroes, the Helpers and the Hurting |
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This week America experienced tremendous challenges and pain. These difficult times can either melt us into more compassionate people or mold us into people full of anger.
In the midst of the pain, suffering, confusion and sadness, I’ve heard many different people giving some very good advice to help us get through it all. One piece of advice I heard was to look for the heroes, the helpers and the hurting. In other words, we can sometimes be trapped by our own fear, pain, confusion and sadness. And while we have to pay attention to our own feelings – especially negative ones – we can’t dwell on them. We also need to pay attention to the big picture.
Looking at the big picture helps us to see the inspiring efforts of heroic people and gain encouragement from their selflessness. These examples can warm our hearts, melting away rough edges and brokenness.
By looking at the bigger picture, we also see how these challenges can either mold us into better people with softer and more loving hearts, or hardened hearted people who seek revenge and destruction – like these terrorists. The environments in which we live have that molding effect. We therefore have to make sure we put ourselves in good places and with good people who can mold our hearts into something good.
What better way to describe this reality than through food! Take, for example, a hard cheese like parmesan as an analogy of our own hearts. When heated, it becomes soft, and less prone to being broken. The melted cheese can also be made into something useful, beautiful and of course, delicious to feed the hungry when put over something curbed.
Like this cheese, our own hearts are vulnerable to being broken. But the heat of challenging times, like hearing these tragic events, can actually create an opportunity to “soften” our hearts, melting away the edges, and making us more moldable. These tragic events can either help us to experience more compassion or more hate – depending on who, or what, it is that molds our hearts.
Hopefully you can see how challenging times melt us, but also shape us. It may be a “cheesy” analogy, but it makes sense. The scriptures tell us that we are like clay in God’s hands. In faithful foodie language, it may be more like melted and molded goodness!
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Let us pray: Father in Heaven, we pray for peace in our world, consolation for those who mourn the death of loved ones, courage for those who now face physical and emotional struggles, and thanksgiving for the heroic actions that are trying to bring about a calm and peaceful resolution to the problems in our world. Keep our families safe, and may these moments fill our hearts with the warmth of compassion in order to mold it into the heart of Your Son, Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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Questions:
Your comments and questions are so important to our movement. Please post your comments below. And, if you have other questions, post them here or contact our project manager.
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Vienna, VA
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Posted in Dinner Discussion, In Memory, Menu Inspiration, Video | 2 Comments »
Bacon Brussels Sprouts
Prayers In Light of the Boston Marathon Tragedy
After Monday’s tragedy in Boston, MA at the Boston Marathon, where 3 people were killed and over 31 were taken to the hospital with injuries, the entire team at Grace Before Meals wishes to prayerfully extend our deepest condolences and support to the victims’ of this terrible tragedy and their families, especially as Fr. Leo travels to Massachusetts this weekend for the Diocese of Springfield Women’s Conference. As Cardinal O’Malley urged, ” In the midst of the darkness of this tragedy we turn to the light of Jesus Christ, the light that was evident in the lives of people who immediately turned to help those in need. We stand in solidarity with our ecumenical and interfaith colleagues in the commitment to witness the greater power of good in our society and to work together for healing.”
Whenever I speak at different venues, I try and encourage parents to make sure veggies are treated with respect. After all, the main reason most children don’t enjoy eating their veggies is because we don’t prepare them well. And, similarly to “nasty veggies,” children can also resist faith – thinking it’s boring or difficult to swallow. We need to learn how to plate, present and most importantly prepare both vegetables and faith in a way that will get our kids to digest the truth (and the food) that is served at every family dinner.
To help you get started here’s a quick recipe for Bacon Brussels sprouts – because nothing keeps spring veggies savory like adding some bacon! This recipe celebrates the “springy” taste of Brussels sprouts – which you can actually get year round – while making it appealing to more finicky eaters. Bacon’s cured saltiness helps to balance some of Brussels sprouts’ pungent flavor. Parboiling and then stir frying the sprouts in a high heat creates a char that can help to eliminate some of the obnoxious smells that come when boiling these mini-cabbages. This process also elevates the dish’s taste while retaining a bit more textural variety.
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| Bacon Brussels sprouts as a side dish with roasted potato chips and filet mignon, pepe verde (with green pepper corns). |
Bacon Brussels Sprouts:
Serves 2 for side dishes
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| I used left over sprouts and added it to some linguine, sautéed it in olive oil, garlic and dusted with parmesan cheese – which made for a fresh, healthy and delicious spring pasta. |
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Let us Pray: Inspire us Lord with desire to feed our children – whether they are our own biological children, or our “spiritual children” – with the good things in life. Give us creative ways to make the “bitter truth” of our faith more palatable, not masking the truth, but to help them digest it more easily. Keep our Grace Before Movement strong by encouraging our members to share their ideas, questions and comments so that we can continue to dialogue about the things that matter most to them. And, finally Lord, bless each member of our movement with Your Grace – before, during and after each meal. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Questions:
Please keep us encouraged by posting your comments below! And, if you have other questions, post them here or contact our project manager. |
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APRIL 20
Chicopee, MA
 APRIL 28 Kearny, NJ
 APRIL 30
Vienna, VA
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Posted in In Memory, Menu Inspiration, Prayers, Recipe | 5 Comments »
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