Today is potluck lunch day after Mass. Mmm. We attend a tiny mission parish church that is out in the country, actually in a field. We park in the grass. Needless to say, the potluck meals are a real treat with some fine and ever changing offerings from people who know how to use simple and available ingredients to their best end.

The tiny little church was built by Baptists I think, but the Methodists also worshipped there, I’m told. Then, some years before it was purchased by the Catholics, they alternated weeks. I look at the stained glass windows, and the names etched in them in remembrance, and wonder about my brothers and sisters in Christ who came before.

Although this church is modest in size, and very, very rural in location, it’s a red brick building with stained glass windows, a small porch with traditional white columns, and of course, a befitting steeple. People had to have really sacrificed, and very likely did much of the building themselves. It’s right in the middle of fields and rural country homes, with even a small  mechanic’s garage down the road. Another church at the end of the road, and people still worship there too. Obviously, most worshippers probably walked to church every Sunday.

I like to imagine a time and place where simple country people loved God enough to squeeze out dimes and dollars and hours after a long day’s work to come together and build a house of worship. One that would last through generations and denominations, life and death, pain and sorrow.

I am grateful for those who came before and built something so lasting and wonderful. I reflect on how our offerings to God get used in his wonderful plans and the good and grace of his works and plans go on and on.

Just last week, a relative and friend sent me a two sentence text. She could never have known that the information she shared with me would be the answer that spurred me to finally address a big and awful spiritual mess in my life. Just two sentences telling me about something available that I needed. We don’t talk often, but she gave me a great gift, one that the Holy Spirit had been nudging me about.

May we live in prayer and grace and good, that the good God may use our life and labors to his own merciful and ever loving ends, for generations after we are gone. Look not at what your actions accomplish today. You will not live to see what God accomplishes with your last penny.

I hope you’ll share some of your favorite fall recipes here, especially if they come from a church cookbook! I’m in the mood for pumpkin but we’d all enjoy anything fall. Apples, squash, sweet potato, pecan, root vegetables.

Here’s what I’m making today.

https://www.thepickyapple.com/blog/2008/11/22/pumpkin-crunch-cake/

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