04 October 2008

St. Francis of Assisi

Confessor (III Class)
The Seraphic Patriarch of Assisi was a man especially raised up by God in the Middle Ages with the mission to reconvert the world to Christ. Francis was born in a stable, and heralded into the world by angelic song; he commenced his work with twelve followers, whom he sent two by two to preach the Gospel. He espoused most high Poverty, and received in his own body the marks of the Sacred Passion on Mount Alvernia. Francis's message of charity, peace, and justice was heard by men and women of every grade of society, and thousands in consequence desired to leave all and follow Francis in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Therefore he founded the Order of Friars Minor, the Second Order or the Poor Clares, and the Tertiaries or Third Order, which bear his name. St. Francis died about sunset on Saturday, October 3, 1226.

We spent the evening quite enjoyably at some friends' house having a mini-Oktoberfest, with Hefeweissen Bier, Lisa's big soft pretzels, and lots of sausages. In regards to the latter, we experienced something quite new to us called Bavarian sausages. They are almost white, incredibly soft, relatively flavorless, and served with sweet mustard. The inspiration for this came when in the course of our regular shopping trip to Scheibbs we noticed that it was "Bavarian week" at Lidl. Every now and then this store sets up a little shelf with foods from a particular country (this is how we obtained some ranch dressing at the end of last year, when they had "American week"). Anyhow, we noticed some little 5-liter kegs of authentic Bavarian beer, and decided to give it a try.

No comments: