Day 76: 3/17/13- Seven Heavenly Virtues Week- Temperance

Day 76: 3/17/13- Seven Heavenly Virtues Week- Temperance                 
New Thing- Make a Shamrock Shake Inspired Juice 
Inspiration: The Seven Heavenly Virtues, St. Patrick's Day, The Shamrock Shake          
Time: About 10 minuets             
Bottom Line: Good. Not "Shamrock Shake good" but "good for the soul/body good". 

Reflection: As you may remember, a few weeks ago I took on the Seven Deadly Sins by reflecting on where sin creeps into my life and trying to elimination them. This week, in preparation for Holy Week, I will be looking for ways to increase the Seven Heavenly Virtues in my spiritual life. The Seven Heavenly Virtues directly oppose each of the seven deadly sins and today I am taking on "temperance." Here is the wiki definition: 

Restraint, temperance, justice. Constant mindfulness of others and one's surroundings; practicing self-control, abstention, moderation, zero-sum and deferred gratification. Prudence to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time. Proper moderation between self-interest, versus public-interest, and against the rights and needs of others. It it the opposite of gluttony.

Since it is St. Patrick's Day, I thought that starting with temperance would be a good idea since Patrick himself lead a very Holy and ascetic life living for others (even giving the Gospel to those who had enslaved him).  So, since Patrick already took the idea of converting a whole nation to Christianity (thanks for stealing my idea, Patrick!), I am going to practice temperance by practicing the equally difficult task of restraint against the sinfully delicious Shamrock Shake. Every year, the delicious McDonald's Shamrock shake comes around during Lent--the exact time I am trying to avoid it. Devotees of this site will remember that the last time around, I made a healthy version of this using a friend's recipe. However, even that had dairy in it and I am trying to avoid that as well. Thus, this year I decided to make a Shamrock Juice.  It was not at all as good as a shake in taste, but it was very satisfying. And it was green and minty. Here was my recipe:  

• 1 over ripe banana    
• organic mint from my garden
• 2 apples
•  Kale 
• 1 cucumber  

The spiritual part of this exercise came in when I was reflecting on what temperance actually leads to--health and well-being. As good as a real shamrock shake is, they are basically poison. They are 820 calories and full of chemicals (as seen in the info graph below). God doesn't call us to temperance to ruin our fun--he calls us to temperance because it keeps us healthy and whole. Yum!