Pink

"Shall it be the pink or the Brut?"
The edges of the two bottles peeped over the cooler.
An array of chocolates, cookies, and a cheesecake luxuriantly filled the plain gray tables.

Pink or Brut?
It was Joe's birthday and he decided to share the day with us, his Moral Theology classmates.

"Dr. Lowery, what would I tell my sisters that I learned in class today if we spend some time eating and drinking?" I wondered mischievously.
"Ah, that St. Thomas Aquinas would say that one should enjoy every good in its order. When it is taken out of its place, that we have problems. So, if one of us starts to not make sense, we will know that the good, wine, has been taken out of order!"

We laughed appreciatively at Dr. Lowery's elegant verbal flourish and his great Catholic sense of celebration. Many would claim that to be close to God, to the spiritual and supernatural, one had to say "no" to all earthly enjoyments. As lives of the saints and Jesus himself proves, God has given us the world to savor.

In a certain order.
Just as to make wine there is a certain order.
Although wine does cause a some dis-0rder in some.
And this dis-order comes from the free will of the one using it.

Pink.
We chose to open the pink bottle.
Perhaps because pink is like being Catholic.

Normally to make a champagne, red grapes are used. However the skin is taken away immediately so that none of the red color affects the color of the champagne. In order to make a Champagne pink, wineries have to let the skins sit with the liquid. The longer the liquid and the skins sit together, the pinker the liquid becomes.

People always wonder if God really exists.
To be Catholic is to be "God with skin on."
So people know God is real.

Pink.
We probably chose the pink champagne because Lisa have never had it before.
Or it's breast cancer awareness month.
Most likely, we wanted to wish Joe a great birthday and it's always nice to enjoy some wine.

ps1. Photo of Joseph Quinn and his wife Neesha.
ps2. More information about pink champagne making http://www.wineintro.com/champagne/pinkchampagne.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life with Ashes

Image
It was time to move. Goodbye to Allen Parkway and hello to Florin Wood. Our family was moving from Houston to Sacramento. This was over 20 years ago and the day comes back with ashes. And a smell. My dad had piled all our old clothes, furniture, and knick knacks into a huge heap in front of our yard. He poured gasoline generously and lighted it with a smile. My mom looked on regretfully. All seven of us kids were delighted with the dancing flames. The neighbors didn't care. We lived in what they called the ghetto part of the world and since we were not shooting at anyone, we were okay. "We're starting a new life," my dad reassured mom as our van entered the highway. "No need to hang on the old stuff." "It was pretty dinky, wasn't it?" my mom replied hesitantly. Our years in Houston were our first years living in the United States, far away from the land of our origin, Vietnam. What dad burnt was the few possessions we accumulated fro
Read more

To Die

Image
After her husband was executed, Bùi Thị Xuân and her daughter was sentenced to death by elephant trampling. Both she and her husband were skilled generals, faithful to the Tây Sơn dynasty, and the rebels waited for this moment to exact their revenge. Before the herd of elephants stampeded her only daughter's 16-year-old body, she turned and cried out to her mother. "I cannot help you in this moment. Die worthy of a general's daughter," Bùi Thị Xuân fearlessly counseled her daughter as she watched her daughter die before her eyes. After Bùi Thị Xuân suffered the same death, the soldiers fought among themselves to eat a piece of her liver. They believed she was "gan lì" which meant unwavering intrepidity and eating her liver, or "gan" would make them just as dauntless. Fr. Châu opened his homily for the Mass of the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs with this heroine story from our history books. He said anyone can die for a dream, an ideal, a vision. Yet,
Read more

Kippah

Image
" 'Do you have a kippah ?' That's what this visitor asked for." One of us pointed to our head. "Yes... yes, you know kippah is Hebrew for a head covering for men." My class and I was at the Dallas Holocaust Museum for an on-site learning experience. Or a field trip for college students. "Does anyone know why traditionally Jewish men wear a kippah ?" the docent continued. "It's a sign of respect and fear for God, acknowledging that God is above us," one of my classmates offered. "Right before your group walked in, this man asked for this. This was the first time in all these years I heard someone asking for a kippah. I think he recognizes some thing of what is here, some thing of why are here. We are in the realm of sacredness," she continued. None of us spoke much on our way back. We had been full of comments and observations on our first field trip to the synagogue. We knew we didn't have a kippah to wear. But w
Read more