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.”
Mettle Maker #359
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Fitness and Self-Defense combo: It’s not about what you can’t do, it’s about what you can do. The recent wildfires in Canada caused a severe reduction in air quality all the way down the eastern seaboard to the Carolinas. My training takes place 100% outdoors. And since the air quality advisory for several days was red — unsafe for people with heart or breathing ailments — and I have heart trouble, I had to either skip training for several days or make do indoors without most of my equipment. Take a look at the photo set above left. I substituted a pouf ottoman for a heavy bag and practiced my squeezes and my pressuring. I did Farmer Burns’ dumbbell routine. I did a constitutional — 25 reps each of Reg Push-ups, Jackknifes, Russian Squats, Knuckle Push-ups, Single Leg Raise, Reg. Squats, and Ab Rolls. I did my body toughening using a brick from the garden and scrap of mulberry. No excuses, people — no excuses. It aint about what you can’t do, it’s what you can do. T'suh!!!! Need Rough ‘n’ Tumble coach so you can learn more practical self-defensey sort of stuff? Need a fitness coach to help you design a training program that works for you? Click here to participate in one of our free programs!
Red Mulberry — edible or not edible? If you don’t know, do you know how to test it?
Wildwood outdoor skills: Plant edibility testing. If you are in a survival situation and desperate for food, do you know how to test the edibility of an unknown plant? Did you read last week’s post about the edibility test devised by the U.S. military? You gotta do it — get over there and get that knowledge! Want more inspiration, and education, regarding outdoor skills? Click here and sign up for the 100% free Heritage Wildwood distance learning program!
Holy Communion is now LIVE on YouTube every Sunday at 9AM EASTERn. Click HERE to watch live and, to view and print a copy of the program for holy communion, CLICK HERE.
Homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Sunday 6/11/23 – Archdeacon Mitch
Readings: Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a, Ps 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20, 1 Cor 10:16-17, Jn 6:51-58
John 6:51-58 World English Bible Catholic Edition
Jesus said, 51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews therefore contended with one another, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves. 54 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will also live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven—not as our fathers ate the manna and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
These days most folks seem to believe humanity can nourish itself. Afterall, we grow food and raise livestock on industrial farms don’t we? And, thanks to innovations in agriculture, improvements in financial markets, advances in international relations, and the retreat of communism, we have raised more people out of poverty and starvation in the last 20 years than we did in the previous 200 years.
And, fewer people are dying by violence in this century than in the last. Owing to the collapse of socialist regimes like Germany’s Third Reich and the U.S.S.R., and owing to capitalist reforms in China, fewer people are dying by violence in this century than in the last.
On the medical front, human life expectancy continues to increase. More and more diseases are being pushed back with new medications and treatments. And somehow, despite disagreement and contentiousness about the right policies and treatments, we were able to overcome a worldwide pandemic with far fewer casualties than projected.
So, at first glance, humanity seems to have things under control. But the exact opposite is true. Monsanto can genetically engineer drought-resistant crop seeds, but only God can send down the sun and rain to raise corn from seed to ear. Only God holds the key to the mystery of germination. We can create antibiotics, medications, and technologies to improve the yield of livestock farms, but only God can breathe life into a newborn calf, or stir the tiny heart of a chick to peck its way from the shell.
Scientists and doctors can engineer new treatments to support the body, but end the end, all healing is the body healing itself by the miracle of God’s curative process.
And just because we’ve decided to take a break from the slaughter of the last century – two worldwide wars, a genocide, and a half-dozen communist purges – we shouldn’t believe that we can nourish ourselves morally and ethically. There’s a war going on right now in Ukraine. Political polarization is at an all-time high in the U.S. and in Europe. Make no mistake: one match could once again set the world ablaze. We could quickly return to the desert of famine, poverty, war, and disease.
We could once again be like the Hebrews following Moses into the desert, fleeing Egyptian tyranny and searching for the promised land. When they hungered and thirsted for physical, moral, and spiritual nourishment, God send manna from heaven like the dewfall so that the people could gather it each morning and live. But that bread, miraculous though it was, was but a dim foreshadowing of Jesus Christ to come.
Today, as we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ, let’s remind ourselves, and our fellow man, that we cannot nourish ourselves physically, morally, or spiritually. Let’s proclaim to the world that, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matt 5:6); that all physical sustenance is a biological miracle that comes from God; that morality itself emerges from God because God is Love, and the fullness of spiritual nourishment lies in the living bread that came down from heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ.