“Lucy the Lamb, will you give me a hand? I need to remind her it’s cookie baking time!”
Tip-toe,
Tip-toe.
“Excuse me but we have something to say, ‘Did you forget Cookie-Baking Day?‘”
No, Helen & Lucy, I did not forget!!! I’ve just been busy with bridal showers and wedding duties and lent and stitches and stuff. But let’s not delay any longer…
Won’t you please help me to pick what we shall bake this month?
And so it shall be:
Lemony ‘Lucy’ Sugar Cookies
2 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon Pure Lemon Extract
Mix flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Set aside. Beat granulated sugar and butter in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and lemon extract; mix well. Gradually stir in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed.
Refrigerate 2 hours or overnight until firm.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Place on greased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets 1 minute. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
3 to 4 teaspoons lemon juice
3 to 4 drops Assorted Food Colors or Egg Dye
For the Icing, mix all ingredients except food colors. (Stir in additional lemon juice as needed to thin icing or more confectioners’ sugar to thicken, if needed.) Place small amount of icing into small shallow bowls, using one bowl for each color desired. Stir drops of food color into icing until desired shade is reached.
nibble, nibble, nibble…
crumbs on the plate.
nibble, nibble, nibble…
it’s almost too late!
Hurry-Up!
Or you’ll miss the last bite
of something that is great!
The perfect thing to do at the end of Cookie Baking Day…lie down with the lamb.
“There is within you a lamb & a lion. Spiritual maturity is the ability to let the lamb & the lion lie down together. ” Henry Nouwen
It’s another Wednesday for Saint Maria Faustina KoWalska (what else,)
with a brief reflection on the Divine Mercy of God!
And I have a confession to make…
I’ve been watching an awful lot of movies these past 48 hours!
Mostly because I remain homebound on Doctor’s orders. And so it is that I must confess to taking advantage of this permission ‘to do nothing’ & have woven some mindless things amidst my lenten prayer time, such as a….
Movie Marathon
with sympathetic Helen by my side!
Sleepy Helen & Bear are not impressed.
I have mainly chosen to revisit some of my all time favorite dramas to watch, for example: On Golden Pond (Norman is still ‘just an old poop’.) Terms of Endearment (I decided I still prefer Shirley MacLaine as Wheezer in Steel Magnolias…and then tried to figure out how did she ever get cast as Martha Levinson in Downton Abbey???) PS I love you (where a scene was filmed from Cuppycake & my favorite NYC restaurant, Ouest, which closed it’s doors June 2015 and made me all teary-eyed as that particular scene was playing with Harry Connick, Jr & Hilary Swank.) And then today, trying to build upon this movie marathon to pass still yet more time, I attempted to watch a family favorite, Return to Me, which for some odd reason would not play. (And I was really looking forward to some bicycle riding time with Minnie Driver & the habited Sisters through the streets of Italy!)
The movie is a drama on the life of Sister Faustina Kowalska, a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, based upon her experiences recorded in her spiritual diary. Faustina received from Our Lord the visions of Divine Mercy and was both Beatified and Canonized by Pope John Paul II. The first feature film of its kind in Poland, it is a beautiful artistic portrayal of her mystical life in high quality cinema.
Dorota Segada was voted top actress of the year by European film critics for her stunning portrayal of Sister Faustina.
And while this movie just scraped the surface of the mystical experiences of St. Faustina & her many Diary entries, this was still a wonderful portrayal of St. Faustina’s mission as directed by Christ. The focus of Faustina’s time spent in confession with her Spiritual Director, Father Sopocko, and the tender compassion he showed during those times was a beautiful expression of what the Sacrament of Confession can be for us.
St. Faustina herself wrote many times in her Diary of the beautiful gift we are given through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
(113) And again, I would like to say three words to the soul that is determined to strive for sanctity and to derive fruit; that is to say, benefit from confession.
First [word] – complete sincerity and openness. Even the holiest and wisest confessor cannot forcibly pour into the soul what he desires if it is not sincere and open. An insincere, secretive soul risks great dangers in the spiritual life, and even the Lord Jesus Himself does not give Himself to such a soul on a higher level, because He knows it would derive no benefit from these special graces.
Second word – humility. A soul does not benefit as it should from the sacrament of confession if it is not humble. Pride keeps it in darkness. The soul neither knows how, nor is it willing, to probe with precision the depths of its own misery. It puts on a mask and avoids everything that might bring it recovery.
Third word – obedience. A disobedient soul will win no victory, even if the Lord Jesus Himself, in person, were to hear its confession. The most experienced confessor will be of no help whatsoever to such a soul. The disobedient soul exposes itself to great misfortunes; it will make no progress toward perfection, nor will it succeed in the spiritual life. God lavishes His graces most generously upon the soul, but it must be an obedient soul. -Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska
Confession is a sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ in his love and mercy. It is here that we meet the loving Jesus who offers sinners forgiveness for offenses committed against God and neighbor. At the same time, Confession permits sinners to reconcile with the Church, which also is wounded by our sins.
Saint Faustina reminds us we need the sacrament of Penance because each of us, from time to time, sins. When we recognize that we have offended God who is all deserving of our love, we sense the need to make things right. Like the prodigal son in the Gospel, we long to know again the loving embrace of a forgiving father who patiently waits for each of us. Jesus himself has established this sure and certain way for us to access God’s mercy and to know that our sins are forgiven. By virtue of his divine authority, Jesus gives this power of absolution to the apostolic ministry. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “in imparting to his apostles his own power to forgive sins the Lord also gives them the authority to reconcile sinners with the Church” (1444).
We need to know that our sins are forgiven. There is something in our human nature that calls out for the assurance that our sins are actually forgiven. Confession is the visible manifestation of God’s mercy that provides us, in human terms as well, the clear awareness that God has forgiven us.
As Holy Week approaches may we consider the mercy that awaits us. There is no better drama to play out than what forgiveness has to offer us.
And I must confess there is no greater drama to watch than our selves falling into the arms of Jesus as we allow Him to wash away our sins.
“As we exit the confessional, we will feel his strength which gives new life and restores ardor to the faith. After confession we are reborn.” Pope Francis
hugs n’ restored blessings as we sincerely, humbly, obediently proclaim…
Is it time yet?How about now?Is it finally time?Can we PLEASE do it now??
Yes Helen,
now we can bake.
January’s Cookie will be:
The Pepparkakor!
The Pepparkakor is a Swedish Cookie we learned to bake when our daughter, like many other young girls her age, was an admirer of The American Girl Doll Collection. Always inquisitive our daughter was more obsessed with trying to learn as much as she could about each of the dolls in the collection, than her desire to own one! (Although she did, after two years of deciding which was the ‘one for her,’ place Samantha on her birthday wish list.) Through her searches in libraries, book stores, and The American Girl Doll Catalog she discovered so many wonderful historical and cultural things, even the foods they would have eaten in their time period and world location. And this is exactly how we discovered the Pepparkakor cookie, where the recipe was tucked into a cookbook of an American Girl doll!
Soften the butter. Measure the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves into a sifter. Sift ingredients into a medium mixing bowl. Set the bowl aside.
Put the sugar and softened butter into a large mixing bowl. Use a wooden spoon to press together & stir. Add the egg, maple syrup, and water to the butter & sugar mixture. Beat until fluffy.
Stir the dry ingredients into the mixture 1 cup at a time. Mix well after each cup.
Cover the bowl with a plate, and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour to make the dough easier to roll out and handle.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Have ungreased cookie sheets ready to use.
Sprinkle flour onto a table or counter. Divide the dough into 2 balls. Try to make the piece about 1/8 inch thick.
Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes . Put the cookies 2 inches apart on the cookie sheets. Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are lightly browned on the bottom. Watch the cookies carefully. They burn easily!
What shape to choose?
nibble, nibble, nibble…
crumbs on the plate.
nibble, nibble, nibble…
it’s almost too late!
Hurry-Up!
Or you’ll miss the last bite
of something that is great!
It is exhausting to sit around and wait all day!
hugs n’ blessings are being sent no matter what shape you are!
hugsnblessings 