Good Friday + Home Made Bagels + A Crucifixion Kind of Love

Good Friday + Home Made Bagels + A Crucifixion Kind of Love

Welcome to Cooking with Catholic History where in each posting we talk about Catholic people and/or events and a related topic, as well as look at one of my personal takes on recipes.

This time we’re talking about Good Friday, A Crucifixion Kind of Love and Home Made Bagels. You’ll love it!

Good Friday

Good Friday can be difficult. Personally I ache at the empty Tabernacle. I long to receive my Lord, my love in Holy Communion. Fasting isn’t easy and the pain of that gets felt even after. Three-hours of silence from noon until the Hour of Divine Mercy reflecting on the Passion of Jesus. Thinking about what He went through at the hands of those who He loved for their sake out of love. Yet, we still struggle with sin, which hurts Him as we do, and He felt it that day on The Cross.

Even still, it was, is and forever will be Good Friday. Not nice Friday. Not happy Friday. It’s Good Friday.

It’s a day of God’s will massively acted out. So it is good. As we know that God’s will is goodness and mercy.

It’s a day of great love towards us visibly, tangibly. In the actions of Jesus Christ accepting His Cross we see a love of God the Son to God the Father in obedience. Similarly, we see a great love from God the Father to us. As a dad, the thought of my children suffering prompts a compulsion to action, at times these must be restrained so our kids can learn to take care of themselves or that they’re really okay. We don’t see the same thing in the Cross. There we see immense suffering out of love for others. Love for God and love for man. We see how much God the Father suffered in the act of love by the immediate response by creation at the moment of Jesus death and the symbol of the rending of the cloth concealing the Holy of Holies in the Temple as a man would rend his vestments in pain or outrage.

A gift with such a cost, the pain of our sins on the Cross beyond belief. Yet, without Good Friday there would be no Resurrection. If God didn’t choose the Cross things would be far different. Most notably is that there would be no resurrection because there would be no Easter Sunday. The gates of Heaven wouldn’t be open as far as we can tell. This was the way ( Matthew 26:36-46, CCC 612).

Without Good Friday the Blessed Mother wouldn’t have been given to us in adoption! It was on Good Friday that Jesus gave to the faithful Mary as their Mother in adoption and to us through them( CCC 964). That she as mother of the King of Heaven and our adopted mother intercedes for us and show us how to love God and follow Him in humility. No one has loved God more.

Good Friday is the source of Divine Mercy! It was on Good Friday that Jesus had his most Sacred Heart pierced literally and emotionally. The lance that pierced his side let forth the blood and water that instantly converted the centurion who pierced it. While the Sacred Heart still suffers at our sins so too does His Divine Mercy pour forth and it knows no bounds or limits. We can make reparation to the Sacred Heart, in addition to those we make at Mass, a topic dear to me but we’ll talk about those later.

Such a painful, heartbreaking day, that tore at the heart of creation itself with its magnitude, brought more good than we can measure in result. True good that is from God alone. Good that continues and will.

Thanks be to God!

Home Made Bagels

Prep Time: 2hours+

Cooking Time: 30+ minutes (varies)

Servings: 12 bagels

Materials & Equipment

Equipment

Ingredients

Prep

  1. Proof yeast, 1 tsp flour, and 1 Tsp of sugar in 1 cup of warm water (at least 105°F but less than 115°F) for 5-7 minutes

  2. if using a mixer attach dough hook attachment and put remaining flour and in, to the side sugar and salt, create a crater in center of flour, if hand mixing make flour mound on counter with sugar and salt on the side of the mound, create same crater in center of mound

  3. After proofing of yeast is done pour yeast water mix into the crater

  4. if using mixer run for 10 minutes on medium until firm elastic slightly dry dough comes together, that passes the windowpane test, if kneading knead until the same stage of gluten development

  5. Proving the dough: either roll the dough and place into a large well oiled bowl covering the bowl with plastic wrap, warm wet towel, or place in a proving container, or cover dough with warm wet towel and store in a warm place (70°F or warmer but less than 115°F) for 1 hour

Cooking

  1. Make sure your oven is preheated to 425 until you get the timing down for how long boiling and your oven coming up to temp pairs up

  2. Boiling the Dough: in a large pot bring enough water to a rolling boil that there is room for shaped dough to float and not touch the bottom. As water is warming, split dough into 8 portions if you want large bagels or 11 if you want average sized bagels, shape each portion by bagel shaping method of choice (I use poking a hole with a finger and shaping by running it around the finger and adding pressure with palm of my hand) Turn down water pot to a medium temperature and add bagels to water 2-3 at a time boiling for 1-2 minutes per side (2 minutes produces a more chewy new York style bagel, my preference) and removing with a spider strainer or slotted spoon and placing on wax paper or non-stick baking sheet

  3. add any desired toppings to your bagels

  4. bake for about 22 minutes or until desired level of exterior browning

  5. Thank God and remember He loves you!

A Crucifixion Kind of Love

So with the topic of Good Friday I feel that it’s pertinent to talk about the difficult parts of Christian love, the ones easily avoided and run from.

Wanting Heaven for others.

The things on earth aren’t our ends. Any material goals here are inconsequential in longevity. We do not know the day or hour our lives will be asked of us and that we will be called to give an account of how we have lived (Matthew 24:36-51, Matthew 25, Luke 12). Note, this isn’t an account of what we have amassed. It is the Lord who gives and takes away and, in all things blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Heaven is our goal, for everyone, whether they know it or not. Yes, this connects to love, hang in there.

In the first letter to the Corinthians Chapter 13 Paul defines for us the love we are called to have for everyone. Let me say that again. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 defines the love we as Christians are to have for EVERYONE. I’ll insert the link, ( RSVCE)here and (NCB)here followed by a list of the qualities:

How that translates to wanting heaven for others is in while we should never permit ourselves to grow lukewarm in faith we should at times encourage one another to keep pursuing the right course. Similarly at times recalling for one another the tenants of our shared faith. Using prayerful reflection so that our encouragements to keep the fire of faith burning bright and discouraging sin isn’t brought in a way beyond the digestion of the one loved. Similarly ensuring that the number prompts are in line with the fortitude and place of individual on the journey. Always relying on prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance about such balance, the help of Mary, our guardian angel, the intercession of the Saints, and so on. Recognizing that our own actions in faith do as much and perhaps more than direct correction or reminder.

“Friendship in its minimal state, is the encounter of one person with another person whose destiny he or she desires more than his or her own life. I desire your destiny more than I desire my life. The other reciprocates this and desires my destiny more than his or her life.” – Fr. Luigi Giussani

Consequently, the Crucifixion Love

Throughout history immense numbers of Christians have lived out this love for their neighbor in various ways to the point of a Crucifixion kind of love. Here’s a finite set of examples (each will be talked about in the future more in depth, some sooner than others):

Saint Maxmillian Kolbe – Volunteered to take the place of another man to die in a concentration camp in World War II. Saving a husband and father.

Saint Gianna Beretta Molla – A mother who as a pediatric doctor chose her daughter’s life over her own. We’ll be talking about her more in the next post actually.

Blessed Joan Roig – A young man who during the Spanish Civil war risked his life to bring communion to Catholics. Knowing that there was a group trying to kill him for doing so he protected the hosts from desecration and forgave his assailants in likeness of Saint Stephen.

Saint Josephine Bakhita– Made a slave she survived horrible experiences, she won her freedom in Italy. Joining the Canossian Sisters she became well-loved and a source of God’s Joy and Mercy in the community. She would thank those who enslaved her for without them she wouldn’t have known Jesus.

Saint Jean-Marie Vianney - Considered too “slow” to be a priest he was made a priest through the intercession of another for his piety and was given to task of the small indifferent town of Ars. He would bring the town to Christ and eventually by his death spend up to 16 hours a day hearing confessions.

All of these people endured great hardship or willingly undertook self-sacrifice out of love. Love for God. Love for others. Each of them and many many others have undertaken such love. As the Hymn goes “They will know we are Christians by our love.” So it is that we, as they must seek to lay ourselves down in love for the sake of others. As the word of Christ Be Our Light “Make us your bread, broken for others, shared until all are fed.” and similarly in the words of Dan Schutte’s “Here I Am, Lord,” we must affirm that “I will go Lord if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.”

Side note the name for this section was inspired by this beautiful spoken word piece by Brent Rice titled A Crucifixion Type of Love.

That’s all we have for today.

Remember God loves you! I keep you all and your intentions in my prayers daily.

Thanks for reading!