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Mettle Maker #387
What’s the weekly mettle maker? Training tips and educational information in support of our free programs, that’s what! What’s mettle? According the American Heritage Dictionary, mettle is, “The ability to meet a challenge or persevere under demanding circumstances; determination or resolve.”
At Heritage Self-Defense on Tues and Thurs nights, I always write the constitutional of the night on the concrete floor of the picnic shelter.
Heritage Self-Defense: Build self-defense movements into your fitness. Here at Heritage Self-Defense, we build martial arts into our fitness routines. It just doesn’t make sense for martial artists to spend hours doing exercises that make you good at exercises instead of doing exercises that make you good at martial arts. If you don’t know what the picture on the right is all about, watch this video.
Interested in American Rough and Tumble martial arts with a spiritual center? Join the martial arts club in Richmond, VA or click here to sign up for the Heritage self-defense distance learning program.
Heritage Fitness: My overnight oats breakfast recipe. I’m just not a believer in protein powders and supplements unless there is a physical deficiency for which a medical professional recommends them. The average person should be able to get what they need from eating healthy food. The old timers didn’t use supplements and their feats of strength — and their accomplishments! — were legendary. Toward that end, I came up with the following breakfast recipe for getting the protein, fat, carbs, and fiber necessary to start my day right. Note: always make sure your breakfast contains at least 10 grams of fat — the minimum to forestall hunger until lunch. For convenience, I make 5 days of this at a time so I can grab a tub and go.
Cinnamon Raisin Spice Overnight Oats
1/2 cup each of quick oats, whole milk, and cottage cheese
2 tbsp of raisins
1 tsp of sugar
1/4 tsp of apple pie spice
Put oats and milk in a 1 cup container with a tight-fitting lid. Add raisins, spices, and sugar and stir. Place cottage cheese on top. Close container and store in the fridge. If regular old quick oats, whole milk from a cow, and whole fat cottage cheese freak you out, or if 16 calories of white sugar terrify you, you might have a complex. This is healthy and nutritious breakfast. Protein 24 gms, carbs 55, fat 12, fiber 5, calories 412
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Heritage Wildwood Outdoor Skills: Learning natural navigation.
My suggestion is to use GPS only when taking long trips by car, or when you have to go somewhere on short notice without time to prepare. The rest of the time, practice navigating by engaging with the environment. It’s not easy. But the same types of indicators – sights, sounds, and so on – that you use to determine your position inside your home or workplace can be used to orient in your neighborhood, city, or state. The trick is to expand your spatial awareness to include the information necessary to orient outdoors.
Consider doing this as regularly as possible. Whenever you go for a walk in a new area of your neighborhood, or in an unexplored area of a local park, etc. By all means, make sure to have your cell phone in your pocket in case you get lost. And use your head – don’t put yourself in a position where you could easily wander into a risky part of town or into dangerous territory of some kind!
As you walk, just be in time and space. Where is the sun? Where is the moon? Are there noticeable cloud patterns? What is the wind direction? Is the grade up or down? What about sounds? Train whistles, bird sounds, dogs barking, a football game, gurgling creeks, cars at highway speeds?
It’s difficult, but I’m working it and making progress. And you can too.
Looking for a comprehensive but free adult outdoor skills program? Click here to sign up for the Heritage Wildwood distance learning program!
Holy Communion is LIVE on YouTube every Sunday at 10 am EASTERn. Click HERE to watch live. To view and print a copy of the program for holy communion, CLICK HERE.
Homily for the Epiphany of the Lord, 1/8/24 — Fr. Mitch
Readings: Is 60:1-6, Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12 World English Bible Catholic Edition
1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, wise men† from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 2 “Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.” 3 When King Herod heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he asked them where the Christ would be born. 5 They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is written through the prophet,
6 ‘You Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are in no way least among the princes of Judah;
for out of you shall come a governor
who shall shepherd my people, Israel.’ ”*
7 Then Herod secretly called the wise men, and learned from them exactly what time the star appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child. When you have found him, bring me word, so that I also may come and worship him.”
9 They, having heard the king, went their way; and behold, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them until it came and stood over where the young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. 11 They came into the house and saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Opening their treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country another way.
Brothers and sisters, St. Paul tells us in our epistle reading (Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6) that just as the mystery of Christ and the grace of apostleship was given to him by revelation rather than through direct contact, people of non-Jewish nations are also co-partners in the promises of Christ Jesus. Doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, you can be members of the Body of Christ, the company of all faithful people.
Raised in a world steeped in equality and inherent human rights, it seems obvious to us that national and racial barriers cannot stand between people and God. A true God would be the God of not just one nation, but all nations. But it wasn’t obvious to people in Jesus’ time. In the millennia before the birth of Christ, each nation had its own pantheon of gods and its ruler was a god-king or god-queen, a pharaoh, Caesar, or empress worshiped as a god.
Equality and human rights are new ideas, brought into the world by God himself, Jesus Christ, two thousand years ago. They were prophesied by Isaiah to Jerusalem,
2 For behold, darkness will cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the LORD will arise on you,
and his glory shall be seen on you.
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.
Not surprising then that a king like Herod, the King of Judea appointed by the Roman Empire, would want to know where to find the newborn King. This new King, whoever he was, would be a great threat to his power. So when he gets wind that greatest astronomers and astrologers of the East have seen the Star of Bethlehem moving in the heavens and have come from afar to worship him, Herod lies. He tells the Magi that he too wants to worship the Lord. Herod’s small mind sees another king like himself. He assumes the newborn baby is just another human god-king and he wants to eliminate a competitor. But the Magi are wise. They see through Herod easily. They disobey his orders leave without telling him where the newborn King can be found.
Herod, and every despot, tyrant, and leader who thinks he or she is a god on earth should be afraid. Because with Christ’s birth, a new star arose in the universe who is above all human kings and gods. Not one god among many. Not another local, regional, or even national god. Not another emperor, empress, king or queen behaving like a god among men. No, this is the Son of God – the creator of the universe – the true light who is the Light of the Universe.
Yes, every oppressor, every servant of Satan, who wants to subjugate, separate, wage war, and implement some evil scheme should be afraid of Christ and his church. Because Christians don’t follow them. We follow Christ and Christ alone. And thanks to Christ’s message, the sanctity of human life and the idea of human rights are now universal.
Christ dissolves the barriers between nations and races by making it clear that, since we share a common father, we are all brothers and sisters. And, by being members of the same church and accepting Christ as our King, we can give up our prejudices and nationalisms and inhabit the New Jerusalem, not only now – in the metaphysical, metaphorical, and symbolic sense – but in the future when Christ returns after the final judgement, and for all eternity, now and forevermore.
† 2:1 The word for “wise men” (magoi) can also mean teachers, scientists, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, or sorcerers.
* 2:6 Micah 5:2