St Matthew's Feast

As you can see, the olives are being soaked for the next few days before we bruise them for pickling. That's alot of work. But all that work will be for the coming year - olives for every meal.

Last night our former superior invited me and Bro Rosario (my classmate from way back and now secretary of the school) to our Monastery of St John the Baptist in the Desert - an isolated place along the slopes of the Judean hill country near Ain Kerem. We had a cookout - or rather a couple of locals offered a stupenduous local dinner - roasted lamb and rice. There were about 10 of us and we could not finish the meal - it was so much! And delicious! Najib, one of the locals reminded us that that was how the biblical people ate whenever the Bible spoke of eating, especially of sheep. The preparation of the meat is practically unchanged. And we ate in the open air - the cool breeze blowing all the while, wild foxes yelping to one another - they could smell the meat and once we were gone, they would come and pick the bones we left behind for them. The oak tree under which we sat for our meal has many nuts still in the early stages - once Christmas comes, they would be ripe. Returning home at about 10pm (Rosario was driving), we encountered at the Old City, the muslim crowd who had just finished their prayers in the mosque. It was a very happy affair, everyone laughing, eating; hawkers everywhere selling food and other gifts squeezed in every conceivable corner. But there was order. This coming Friday is the last Friday of Ramadan - the Old City will be swarmed so the Way of the Cross will be cancelled.

Today is Matteo's feastday - St Matthew the evangelist. Unfortunately he will not be home for lunch to celebrate it as he has to go to university where he's studying modern hebrew. During the sermon he spoke of God's unfathomable Will whereby he treats equally the good and the bad; which humans find difficult to accept. God's justice and our justice are very different: His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not ours. God wants everyone to be happy and whole, regardless. In fact last night I heard a sermon from EWTN that said "There is no sin so great that God will not forgive because He wants the worker at the 9th hour just as much as the worker of the 1st hour to share in His bounty." No one is left out, no matter how bad or late. Note that when the workers of the 1st hour complained, the owner did not retract but still gave the just wage to him.