Rita Heikenfeld's Fresh Fig and Goat Cheese Appetizers

I haven’t tried this with dried figs yet but intend to do so and will let you know how they turn out! Easy and delicious for entertaining.

12 fresh figs, cut in half
4 ounces herbed goat cheese (if you can’t find herbed goat cheese, use regular)
24 whole almonds
Honey and Balsamic vinegar

Preheat broiler on high. Put fig halves, cut side up, on sprayed baking sheet. Divide goat cheese among them and push one almond into the cheese on each half. Broil just until cheese is soft, about 2 minutes or so. Let cool a few minutes, and drizzle with a tiny bit of honey and balsamic vinegar. Serve.

Find more at abouteating.com.

Guests for Thursday, 1/7/2009

Anthony Buono is online at avemariasingles.com.

Fr Kyle Schnippel is online at fatherschnippel.blogspot.com.

Marcel LeJeune's main web portal is thecatholicevangelist.com.

Send your questions for Catholic counselor Kevin Prendergast to sonrise@sacredheartradio.com.

Marybeth Hicks is online at marybethhicks.com.


Rita Heikenfeld is online at abouteating.com and cincinnati.com.

Dan Egan is online at bibletidbits.blogspot.com.

Cardinal Justin Rigali has a new book out, "Let the Oppressed Go Free"


Dr Edward Feser, author of "The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism"


Patti Armstrong, author of "Dear God, I Don't Get It!"


Kevin Wright is online at wrtareligioustravel.com.


Norman Fulkerson is online at americanknight.org.

Guests for Wednesday, 1/6/2009

Bill Donaghy blogs at twistedmystics.blogspot.com.

Tom McDonald is online at ncregister.com.

Randy Hain is online at integratedlife.catholicexchange.com.

Mike Aquilina is online at fathersofthechurch.com.


Anthony Buono is online at avemariasingles.com.

Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio's article on the catechetical meaning of the 12 Days of Christmas is online here, and he has an article on Epiphany here.


Fr Steve Ryan and the Salesians of Don Bosco are online at salesians.org.

Kevin Wright and the World Religious Travel Association are online at wrtareligioustravel.com. For Armenian travel info, visit www.armeniainfo.am. And here's the contact information for the orphanage Kevin mentioned:
Our Lady of Armenia Boghossian Educational Center
Contact: Sister Arousiag Sajonian
6 Charentz Street, Ani District
Gyumri, Republic of Armenia
Email address: Diramer@web.am
Tel: (374 41) 3.43.38
FAX: (374 41) 3.42.94
Website: armeniansisters.org


Todd Lemieux is online at sainthoodandsurrender.com.


Marybeth Hicks is online at marybethhicks.com.


Fr Kyle Schnippel blogs at fatherschnippel.blogspot.com.

For more information on the new location and the upcoming spring banquet for Pregnancy Center East, visit pregnancycentereast.com.

Guests for Tuesday, 1/5/2009

Fr James Kubicki is online at apostleshipofprayer.org.

Todd Lemieux is online at sainthoodandsurrender.com.


Archbishop Joseph Naumann is online at archkck.org.

Art Bennett is online at familiausa.net.


Bill Donaghy is online at missionmoment.org.

Kevin Schmiesing is online at catholichistory.net.

Paula Westwood blogs at createdorder.blogspot.com.

Send your questions for Catholic counselor Kevin Prendergast to sonrise@sacredheartradio.com.

Dr William May, author of "Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family is Built"


Fr Gerard Lagleder and the Brotherhood of Blessed Gerard are online at bbg.org.za.

Randy Hain is online at integratedlife.catholicexchange.com.

Gary Michuta is online at handsonapologetics.com.


Dr Kevin Vost is online at drvost.com.

Baptism Links

Son Rise Morning Show Catechist Rich Leonardi mentioned a couple of good sites this morning for catechesis on the Sacrament of Baptism. They are:

http://www.kofc.org/un/eb/en/resources/cis/cis113.pdf

and

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a1.htm.

Going Native

Avatar is everything that everyone says: absolutely breathtaking. It's also a heck of a story, although one that's not remotely original. Avatar is the best part of a lot of movies you've already seen rolled into one, with solid performances and an unbelievable melding of live action footage and computer generated animation.

But I don't think it's a paean to New Age spirituality, although the 10-ft. blue aliens race (the "Na'vi") are partly based on American Indians, or at least what New Agey people think American Indians are like. The Na'vi are part American Indian, part South American Indian, part African tribes, part any other exotic people who have ever populated an adventure movie or novel.

The movie, like a lot of far preachier movies (and believe me, Disney's Pocahontas is far preachier than Avatar), is about going native. It's about what we're afraid we are: amoral, obsessed with money, soulless. And it's about what we'd like to be: beautiful, exotic, powerful, heroic, part of something bigger than ourselves, full of a real faith, and ready to fight and die for what's right.

It's hard for anyone to write that kind of story anymore with a real culture and a real religion, so our storytellers make them up. The Na'vi aren't exactly pantheistic. Instead, in their imagined world the deity actually is part of everything. "The People," as they call themselves, can communicate with her at certain important sites, just as they can plug into certain creatures with an appendage that is sort of an organic USB port. The planet (spoiler alert) is envisioned as a living computer, one that The People can't use to control their world, only to live on it well.

But the human beings, even when artificially plugged in to the Na' vi world through hybrid human/alien bodies, can't do it. They can understand it intellectually, but they can't BE it. Like a device from a different computer system, you can plug them in, but they can't work right.

Or can they? That's the question all stories about going native ask. If we were wrong about everything, would we recognize it? Would we change? Could we change? The answer -- at least in an adventure story -- is always yes. These stories reassure us that if our culture were wrong, we would know it. We would join the other people. Heck (this is an adventure story after all) we would lead the other people. Transformed by the truth that we found in another race, we would become all that is best in what we are. We would save ourselves and the noble, endangered people who, it turns out, need us to survive.

Avatar is not an invitation to (in Pocahontas's words) "paint with all the colors of the wind" -- whatever that means. It's an invitation to live our own lives with the courage and conviction Jake Scully finds on his outer space adventure. A story about going native invites us to look at our own lives as we look at the story's exotic people, and to return to to our own people and faith as if we had discovered and loved them for the first time.

Interested in having your Conversion or Reversion story published?

Author and recent Son Rise Morning Show guest Marge Fenelon is compiling vignettes to include in her new book, "When's God Gonna Call Me Back?" If you'd like to share your story with Marge, click here, and be sure to tell Marge we sent you!

World Day of Peace Message

Here is Pope Benedict's message for this year's World Day of Peace.

The USCCB has put together a Web site devoted to it.

The Pope's Prayer intentions for 2009

General: That young people may learn to use modern means of social communication for their personal growth and to better prepare themselves to serve society.

Missionary: That every believer in Christ may be conscious that unity among all Christians is a condition for more effective proclamation of the Gospel.

Find more at apostleshipofprayer.org.

Guests for Monday, 1/4/2009

Kevin Schmiesing is online at catholichistory.net.

Father Kyle Schnippel is online at fatherschnippel.blogspot.com.

Fr Z's link to the BBC story on St. Nicholas' bones is here.

Mary Brunson is online at investingforcatholics.com.

Gary Michuta is online at handsonapologetics.com.


Teresa Tomeo is online at teresatomeo.com.


Dr Douglas Lowry's search engine to help Catholics explore the health care reform legislation is online at marpx.com.

Fr James Kubicki is online at apostleshipofprayer.org.

Dr Kevin Vost is online at drvost.com. His new book, "Unearthing Your Ten Talents," can be pre-ordered here.

Tim Welsh and Pregnancy Decision Health Centers is online at pdhc.org.

Ted Malloch, author of "Thrift: Rebirth of a Forgotten Virtue"