Answering the alleged “95 Catholic Verses” – #s 71 and 72: Transubstantiation? – Part 2

Today, we will continue with our response to Dave Armstrong and his book, “The Catholic Verses,” in which the Catholic apologist presents ninety-five Bible verses or passages that allegedly validate Catholicism and are claimed to “confound” Protestants.

We continue in the same chapter that we examined last week in which Armstrong argued for the Catholic claim that its priests transform bread wafers and wine into the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. Armstrong presents the following two passages as further proof:

#71) 1 Corinthians 10:16: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”

#72) 1 Corinthians 11:27-30: “27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

Beneath the second passage, Armstrong writes, “St. Paul hints at the sacredness of the Eucharist when he warns (using extremely strong language) of the consequences of receiving it without reverence and discernment. The implication is quite clear: something more than mere bread and wine, more than a pleasant “memorial meal,” is going on here.” – p. 124.

It certainly should be a sobering moment for born-again Christians to contemplate how the Lord Jesus Christ presented His broken body as a sacrifice for their sins when they receive communion. The Lord’s Supper is not to be taken casually. But it is quite another thing to extrapolate from those two passages that Catholic priests actually change bread wafers and wine into the literal body and blood of Christ! However, it is entirely understandable why the emerging clergy class of the early church would desire to elevate communion to a salvific exercise which they alone controlled. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper as a remembrance of what He had done for each person who trusts in Him as Savior by faith alone, not as a means to salvation through “transubstantiated” bread and wine.

“23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” – 1 Corinthians 11:23-25.

For more information on the Lord’s Supper and 1 Corinthians 11:27-30, see the article below:

Transubstantiation and 1 Corinthians 11:27-29
https://carm.org/transubstantiation-and-1-corinthians-11-27-29

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 12/29/18

Seeing as this is the last weekend news roundup for the year, I contemplated for a few brief seconds compiling the “Top Ten Stories of 2018,” but that would have been way too much work sifting through approximately 500 individual news stories that were posted over the last fifty-two weekends. However, off the top of my head, it’s extremely easy to identify the top two general stories of this past year:

1. The growing dissatisfaction and frustration with pope Francis among conservative Catholics and…
2. The crescendoing of the pedophile priests and cover-up scandal. The corruption has already reached up to the highest echelons of the Vatican and the investigations continue.

• From sex abuse to money, 2018 tested Pope Francis on reform

The article above and an earlier article that’s accessible through an embedded link therein, provide a good summary of the two crises of Catholicism in 2018.

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News outlets are short-staffed during the holiday weeks, so this week’s roundup will be brief:

• Roman Catholics say Jesus’ cradle shipped to Rome away from Islamic invaders

The claims of Catholic churches that they possess personal relics of Jesus, like His infant cradle (photo above), are so outrageously preposterous. Catholics are enamored with the material rather than the spiritual, venerating a bogus cradle rather than accepting Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone.

• ‘Hand yourself over to human justice’: Pope Francis tells priests guilty of abuse the church won’t shield them

Pope Francis telling pedophile priests to turn themselves over to civil authorities at this point, eighteen years after the Boston Globe first uncovered the widespread clerical abuse and cover-up, smacks of PR disingenuity. Francis’ prior unresponsiveness to the scandal says a lot more about his true priorities.

• How the revelations of ‘Humanae Vitae’ led to a Catholic crisis of faith

The above article is a good summary of how Humanae Vitae, pope Paul VI’s 1968 ban on all forms of contraception, prompted the average Catholic in the pew to rethink their blind trust in the magisterium’s teaching.

Conservative Catholics rage over pope Francis’s “Paradigm Shift”

Pope Francis’s Paradigm Shift: Continuity or Rupture in the Mission of the Church: An Assessment of His Pontificate’s First Five Years
By Jose Antonio Ureta
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 2018, 207 pages

For several months after Jorge “Francis” Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, Catholics were pleased that their new “pontiff” seemed to be a personable fellow who was taking a decidedly pastoral approach in comparison to his austere predecessor, Benedict XVI. But Francis’ impromptu airplane press conferences along with other statements soon had conservative Catholics on high alert. By 2016, with his Amoris Laetitia encyclical in which Francis guilefully lifted the ban on communion for remarried divorcees, it was clear to all conservative Catholics that Francis was working to “reform” the church according to a liberal, progressive agenda.

Conservative misgivings about Francis began as published articles of concern here and there and eventually grew to strong protest. In 2018, a spate of books were penned by conservative Catholic authors protesting Francis’ heterodoxy (see here), and we can add to the growing collection with this latest contribution, “Pope Francis’s Paradigm Shift.”

Author, Jose Ureta, a conservative layman, does an excellent job of summarizing the heterodoxy of the first five years of the pope’s tenure including chapters devoted to Francis’ promotion of the following:

• Neo-Marxism
• Green Agenda
• Accord with Islam while minimizing Islamic anti-(c)histian persecution
• Religious indifferentism and relevatism
• Subjective morality without absolute imperatives
• Lifting of the ban on communion for remarried divorcees
• Adapting to revolutionary and anti-(c)hristian modernity

Francis’ determined crusade to increasingly align the church with liberal, progressive ideologies has thrown the church into a tizzy. Doctrines and traditions previously held as unchangeable are being altered. Conservative prelates are being “retired” or reassigned to inconsequential, honorary posts. Francis’ heterodoxy is forcing Catholic conservatives to reexamine and redefine their cherished claims regarding the infallibility of popes and the alleged inability of a pope to lead the church into doctrinal error.

In the book’s conclusion, Ureta advises his Catholic readers to ignore the pope and remain faithful to traditional Catholic teaching, using the analogy of a wife of an abusive husband, who remains married, but separates from him for her safety. Folks, this is an extraordinary development, with Catholics being advised to ignore their pope. The ramifications are tremendous and foundation-shattering.

This short but extremely well-referenced book is an excellent resource for evangelical Vatican-watchers who desire to understand the growing crisis within Catholicism regarding the Francis papacy.

To my Catholic friends, this current crisis reveals that your church’s many claims about the papacy are without foundation. Many of your church’s other teachings are also man-made traditions without Biblical support. Come out of Roman Catholicism and turn to Jesus Christ, the unchanging Rock.

Are Roman Catholics Christian?
https://carm.org/are-roman-catholics-christian

Justification: The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls

The evangelical church is sinking deeper and deeper into the clutches of ecumenism. “Tolerant” and “gracious” evangelicals not only do not want to hear about how Rome’s gospel differs from the Gospel of grace, they become annoyed with fellow-believers who make a point of it. One of the symptoms of evangelicalism’s embrace of Rome is the decreasing number of books being published that examine the irreconcilable differences between Roman Catholicism and Biblical Christianity. A quick scan of my list of over 350 such books (see here) shows a noticeable decline in the last ten years. When was the last time you saw a book or pamphlet critical of Catholicism at your local (c)hristian book store? The major (c)hristian book publishers are not only abstaining from publishing such books, they’re now regularly publishing books from Catholic authors which promote Rome’s false gospel.

However, despite the widespread accommodation and compromise with deadly Roman error, Almighty God is still on His throne and Truth still shines. I’m encouraged that books are still being published that value Biblical truth over the push for empty “unity,” books like the up-coming “The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective,” which is due out March 31, 2019. The blurb at Amazon reads as follows:

“Many factors contributed to the Protestant Reformation, but one of the most significant was the debate over the doctrine of justification by faith alone. In fact, Martin Luther argued that justification is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. This comprehensive volume of 26 essays from a host of scholars explores the doctrine of justification from the lenses of history, the Bible, theology, and pastoral practice―revealing the enduring significance of this pillar of Protestant theology.”

Catholicism teaches that souls are justified via subjective, intrinsic sanctification, i.e., that a person must become holy enough to merit salvation and that holiness is infused into the soul via grace from the sacraments. In stark contrast, Biblical Christianity teaches souls are justified only by repenting of sin and trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone, and receiving His imputed perfect righteousness. The genuine believer is justified via the objective, extrinsic, imputed righteousness of Christ. The two “approaches” are not similar or complementary. They are diametrically opposed. Both cannot be right. Despite the compromise and betrayal of ecumenical evangelical Judases, the irreconcilable differences over justification remain. There are many differences between Catholicism and Biblical Christianity, but, clearly, the difference over justification is the most important.

I’m especially encouraged by the participation of Leonardo De Chirico in this project. Pre-order from Amazon here.

“I have a good mind to call the town on them!”

Do you share any long-standing “inside” jokes with family members? Anytime my second-oldest sister comes over to visit and sees trash at the end of my driveway waiting to be picked up, she scolds me good-naturedly. Allow me to explain:

Our father was a VERY regimented, strait-laced kind of guy. I think he and many of the other second-generation European immigrants of that era were DRIVEN to be exemplary citizens. Their goal was to quickly assimilate into society and become even better Americans than the long-established WASPs. My father held himself, his children, his house, and his neighborhood to the highest standards of deportment and appearance. Let’s put it this way, my Dad would keep his suit and tie on for our occasional picnic lunches after Sunday mass. I’m sure Dad’s stint in the Army Air Corps during WWII also played a part in his disciplined approach to life.

Our father meticulously maintained our house and lawn and expected the neighbors living on our short street to do the same. According to Dad’s strict standards, garbage cans and other trash could only be brought to the curb the night before refuse pickup day so as to maintain the neighborhood’s aesthetics. As you can imagine, the neighbors didn’t think the same exact way about the issue and would regularly deposit their trash at the curb one day, or two, or three, or even an entire week before the pickup day. Well, that would absolutely drive my father UP THE WALL. It was amazing to observe this very staid, conservative man getting so emotional about the neighbors dropping some trash bags at the curb a couple of days early. From his reaction, you would have thought they had stolen his favorite lawn chair!

Years later, I purchased my own home, followed by the one we’re currently living in. I also like to keep the house and yard well-maintained, but I don’t make it into my religion like my father had. I have no compunctions about taking fallen tree branches, bags of shrub clippings, etc. to the curb a week prior to pick-up. When my parents were still alive and came over for a visit, as a favor to Dad I purposely didn’t take the bags of yard debris that had been sitting at the curb for a couple of days to the back of the house. I was trying to help him loosen up a little. 🙂

We all have our quirks and there’s no doubt I have mine. Dad had plenty of good points and was a good provider for his large brood. But my sister and I still get a good chuckle recalling his livid anger when neighbors took their trash to the curb “prematurely.”

What’s an “inside” joke shared in your family?

Postscript: My Dad was not an overtly religious man, but he did attend mass every Sunday. He was a Polish American and, like all Poles, Catholicism was an important part of his family fabric. The exhaustive legalism and ritualism of Catholicism also appealed to his sense of order and merited reward. He was especially proud that fellow-Pole, Karol Wojtyla, reigned as pope John Paul II from 1978 to 2005. My wife and I presented the Gospel to him and my mother many times, but they responded that their “2000-year-old” institutional church and its gospel of sacramental grace and merit trumped anything we could offer.

Answering the alleged “95 Catholic Verses” – #s 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, and 70: Transubstantiation? – Part 1

Today, we will continue with our response to Dave Armstrong and his book, “The Catholic Verses,” in which the Catholic apologist presents ninety-five Bible verses or passages that allegedly validate Catholicism and are claimed to “confound” Protestants.

In the next chapter, Armstrong argues for the Catholic position that its priests change bread wafers and wine into the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, and that by consuming the consecrated elements, Catholics allegedly receive graces that help them obey the Ten Commandments and church rules in order to hopefully merit Heaven at the moment of their death. Beneath the first passage, Armstrong writes, “The Catholic church teaches the real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist (or, Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, as Protestants often refer to it). By Real Presence, Catholics mean that Jesus Christ is actually and substantially present (not just subjectively or symbolically) after the bread and wine are consecrated and truly become the Body and Blood of Jesus. By transubstantiation (literally, “change of substance”), we mean that the bread and wine completely change into the Body and Blood of Jesus. The substance changes, but the outward properties, or accidents, remain the same. It is a mystery and must be believed by faith.” – p. 113.

Armstrong presents the passages below from the Last Supper accounts in the Gospels and from the “Bread from Heaven” passage from John 6. Because of the combined length of these passages, I’ve used hyper-links for the last five.

#65) Luke 22:19-20: “19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

#66) John 6:47-66

#67) Matthew 26:27-28

#68) John 6:11

#69) John 6:26-27

#70) John 6:35

I’ve addressed the “Bread from Heaven” passage in John 6 several times. The passage is meant to be understood symbolically. We are not to literally eat Jesus as the source eternal life. The operative word in the passage is “believe,” which is used nine times. Eating a consecrated bread wafer doesn’t save anyone, rather it’s repenting of sin and trusting/believing in Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone that saves.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.” – John 6:47

Many of the Jews who heard Jesus’ words in John 6 and the symbolism He used were confused and thought He was talking about physically eating Him. Some walked away in disgust. Catholics make much of the fact that many walked away and that Jesus did not correct them. From this, Catholics construe that their literal interpretation is correct. Not so. At the end of the passage Jesus states, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Jesus instructs His disciples to interpret His words spiritually, not materially. In several instances in the Gospels, Jesus did not clarify His teachings for the hard-hearted and unrepentant, so that “Seeing, they might see and not perceive; and hearing, they might hear and not understand” (Mark 4:12).

As with several other of Catholicism’s sacraments (e.g., baptism, confirmation, anointing of the sick), where the emphasis is on the material substance administered by the priest (water, oil), with the eucharist, Catholics believe they must physically receive Jesus into their mouth and down into their digestive tract rather than spiritually receiving Jesus as Savior by faith alone. This is such a grave error. Because Catholics are taught the consecrated bread wafer is literally, Jesus Christ, all sorts of gross idolatry sprung up involving worshiping the “host.”

See my post on worshipping the Jesus wafer below:
https://excatholic4christ.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/showing-proper-respect-to-the-jesus-wafer/

Next week, we’ll examine two more verses which Armstrong cites as proof of transubstantiation.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views -12/22/18

• Looking ahead to the Mayflower at 400 festivities

The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620 with 102 Pilgrim Puritans and a crew of 30 aboard and arrived in New Plymouth Harbor in late-December, 1620 (the actual disembarkation date varies). The Pilgrim Puritans proclaimed Jesus Christ and the Gospel of grace. Will there be any trace of the Gospel in these mostly-secular celebrations in 2020? The word, “Puritan,” has become a pejorative in today’s culture. While the Puritans did attempt to set up a theocracy, which sometimes tended to religious excess, they did proclaim the Good News of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. It’s sad to consider that New England is now one of the most secularized regions of the country.

• Illinois Attorney General says Catholic Church failed to disclose abuse accusations against 500 priests and clergy
• LA bishop resigns 13 years after church learned of sex abuse claim

As the attorney generals of thirteen individual states and the F.B.I. continue their investigations into the celibate pedophile priests and cover-up scandal, many more predators will be revealed than the Catholic church had voluntarily divulged previously. This scandal is going to gnaw at Roman Catholicism for years to come.

• Catholics must work with, not against, the church as it deals with abuse crisis

The Catholic hierarchy’s plea for the laity to trust them to resolve the clerical sexual abuse and cover-up is akin to asking the chickens to trust the fox with the key to the hen house.

• Muslims and Christians meet in prayer at Catholic church
• Roman Catholic Bishop Tells Jewish Host Ben Shapiro: Those ‘Outside of the Explicit Christian Faith Can Be Saved’

Ecumenical evangelicals turn a blind eye to Catholicism’s unabashed teaching that everyone of all religions and even atheists can merit Heaven if they follow their conscience and are “good.”

• Pope Francis: Former popes ignored mercy in using ‘inhuman’ death penalty

Catholics must try to reconcile their infallible popes of the past who strongly approved of the death penalty and had Protestants burnt at the stake, with pope Francis who says those popes were wrong and that capital punishment is “inadmissible under any circumstances.”

• Cardinal Müller: Priests ‘rightly disobey’ bishops who order them to give communion to Protestants

Pope Francis’ crafty lifting of the ban on communion for remarried divorcees was buried in a footnote in his 2016 Amoris Laetitia encyclical and is slowly trickling down into practice at parishes. Conservative Catholics are so bludgeoned by Francis’ “reforms” and the current scandal tsunami that they barely have the energy to protest.

Miss Universe Pageant Embroiled In Controversy As All Losers Identify As Winners (satire)

• I don’t endorse beauty pageants, but I thought this article from the Babylon Bee was a good satire of the irrationality of trending secular liberalism.

“When the truth is found to be lies…”

 

I surely liked my rock-and-roll music way back in the day, but I generally stayed away from the raucous stuff. I was more into the breezy and melodic, LA/California folk-rock, country-rock sounds (Byrds, Burritos, Buffalo Springfield, CS&N, Poco, etc.). But there were a few exceptions. Clapton’s bluesy band, Cream, comes to mind along with Jefferson Airplane.

Jefferson Airplane! What a motley crew! The band hit it big in 1967 with the release of their second album, “Surrealistic Pillow.” Airplane was the biggest of the San Francisco, psychedelic hippie bands (Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Moby Grape). The band’s sound, paced by Jorma Kaukonen’s ragged lead guitar, wasn’t much better than a garage band, but they wrote some good tunes and co-lead singer, Grace Slick, was pretty good.

So why am I writing a post about the Airplane? Hang on. We’re almost there.

One of the two big hits from “Surrealistic Pillow” was “Somebody to Love” (see video above), which Slick brought over from her previous San Fran band, The Great Society. “Somebody to Love” was one of the great rock anthems of the late-60s. The song is actually about a person experiencing a romantic break-up and contemplating a rebound, but the opening verse can be interpreted several different ways:

“When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies.”

America’s youth heard Grace Slick angrily belt out those words in April 1967 and they weren’t thinking about a romantic breakup, they were thinking about how many of the country’s institutions – government, military, education, church, corporations, marriage, etc. – were being exposed as imperfect and even corrupt.

I enjoyed “Somebody to Love” over the years, but at one point I had a new, personal interpretation. I had been a Roman Catholic for twenty-seven years, ever since I was baptized as an infant, and believed in the church’s salvation system of sacramental grace and merit. But after reading God’s Word and encountering many passages that contradicted Catholic doctrine, I left the Catholic church. I had discovered that the “truth” I was taught in parochial grammar school and Catholic high school had been lies. My world was rocked. I was shaken. It was like the rug had been yanked out from under me. Talk about a crisis of conscience! However, after a few years, by God’s grace, I heard and understood the Gospel and I repented of my sin and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior by faith alone. Praise God!

So now, whenever I hear the opening verse of “Somebody to Love,” I think about that tumultuous and upsetting period in my life when I found out through God’s Word that the “truth” I was taught and had hung my hat on for so many years was all lies. Many Catholics must be experiencing something similar with their church currently being rocked to its foundation by the scandal tsunami and by pope Francis’ heterodox reforms. Where can they turn? To THE Truth, Jesus Christ, and God’s Word!

Postscript: Jefferson Airplane’s founding members Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, and Signe Toly Anderson are deceased. Singer, Grace Slick, is now 79-years-old and in poor health. The gospel of 1960s rock and roll, “peace, love, sex, and drugs,” definitely had its limits. We’re all looking for somebody to love and to be loved. Eternal and truly fulfilling love is only found in Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin and accept Jesus as your Savior by faith alone.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” – 1 John 4:9-11

Poland’s National Dish: Bigos aka “Hunter’s Stew”

Back in August, I wrote about my very long prodigal journey which included studying my ethnic Polish heritage. See here. In that post, I promised that I would share a couple of Polish recipes that I had mastered. I passed along the first one, Kluski i Kapusta (Noodles and Cabbage), in October. See here.

Now it’s time for my second recipe and it’s a grand one; Bigos aka “Hunter’s Stew.” Bigos is a staple of Polish kitchens during the Winter months and is considered Poland’s national dish. Every Polish cook and babcia has their own variation and here’s mine, which started with a recipe from “The New Polish Cuisine” by Chef Michael J. Baruch. I’ve tasted the Bigos of many Polish chefs but it doesn’t get any better than the recipe below. Get out your cutting board. This one takes some prep time, but it’s well worth it.

Bigos

Ingredients:

• 4 strips bacon
• 1 lb. smoked kielbasa, sliced
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 lb. stew beef (or substitute cubed pork)
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large green cabbage, decored and sliced
• 3 large carrots, chopped
• 1 lb. sliced mushrooms (Poles are very fussy about their mushrooms, but you can use common white mushrooms)
• 16 oz. canned sauerkraut, drained (rinsing is optional)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. dried marjoram
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1/8 tsp. caraway seeds
• 1 dash Worcestershire sauce
• 1 dash Tabasco sauce
• 2 dashes Maggi liquid seasoning (if not available use Knorr Liquid Seasoning)
• 5 cups (40 oz.) beef broth
• 16 oz. canned diced tomatoes
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1/4 cup red cooking wine
• 6 oz. beer

1. Using a very large pot (e.g., 16-quart Dutch Oven) on medium heat, cook 4 strips of bacon until crispy. Remove bacon leaving grease. Chop bacon and set aside. Add kielbasa to pot, cook and turn for a few minutes until slightly browned on both sides. With slotted spoon remove kielbasa and set aside. Remove all grease except 2 tbsp. and set aside. Coat stew beef with flour. Add stew beef to pot, cook and turn for a few minutes until slightly browned on both sides. Remove beef and set aside.
2. Add 2 tbsp. of reserved bacon/kielbasa grease back to bottom of pot. Add garlic and onion. Stir and cook a few minutes until onion is slightly tender. Do not brown. Add cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, and sauerkraut. Stir vegetables often for around 4 minutes until only slightly tender. Do not brown. Add salt, black pepper, marjoram, basil, bay leaf, paprika, cayenne pepper, caraway seeds, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, and Maggi. Stir for 1 minute.
3. Add remaining ingredients and reserved meats and stir until tomato paste is completely blended. Allow contents to come to a boil then cover and lower heat to low/warm. Simmer on low/warm with only a very slight boil for at least 6 hours. Many Polish cooks simmer their Bigos for a couple of days before serving.

Enjoy with sliced rye bread. Serves 8-10.

Smacznego! Ach! So good!

…What? Say it ain’t so! My very last bottle of Papa Al’s Hot Sauce!

There’s a little bit of a back story to this tragic news.

Back in the early-1980s, we were living in our first house, which was located in the Greater Rochester suburb of Henrietta, New York. The town was notoriously known for its strip malls (and strip clubs) and very haphazard and underregulated zoning. On the corner of Calkins Road and West Henrietta Road was Al’s Meadows Motel, one of those flea-bitten establishments from a previous era that begged every passerby to wonder who would actually choose to spend a night there of their own accord? On the same property was the Al’s Meadows Lounge and Grill, an old-school bar and burger joint. The best thing you could say about the establishment was that it was “unpretentious.” Oh, yeah, and there was the chicken wing sauce!

A friend from work who lived close by and I were taking some night classes together back then, and several times on the way home we stopped at Al’s for chicken wings. The wings themself were nothing to write home about. They were actually on the small side and regularly overcooked, but the sauce was absolutely delicious with a noticeable tang of celery salt and unlike any wing sauce I had ever tasted (my mouth is watering as I type). The lounge/restaurant also sold the sauce in bottles and I became a regular customer. It was especially good on any kind of chicken and on Zweigles white hot dogs (see here). Our two boys grew up on the sauce and the youngest one, especially, took a shine to it.

The years went by and we eventually moved out of Henrietta. Maybe about twelve years ago, Al’s Meadows Motel and the adjoining lounge/restaurant were torn down and to make way for a gas station. However, Al’s sons owned the Southtown Beverages Drive-Thru business, which was a bit farther north on West Henrietta Road, and they carried on the Meadows Lounge and Grill legacy by bottling and selling Papa Al’s Hot Sauce. Year after year, I made the trek back to Henrietta to buy a couple of bottles of the hot sauce.

This past October, our youngest son came up from Texas for our family trip to the Big Apple and of course he took a solo drive to Southtown Beverages to buy a couple of bottles of Papa Al’s Hot Sauce to take back home with him. But when he returned to our house, he broke the bad news: Southtown had stopped making the sauce because of low demand. Argh! If I had known, I would have stocked up.

So here I am in the photo above with my very last bottle of Papa Al’s Hot Sauce. Ach! When it’s gone, I’m going to rinse out the bottle and display it on the mantle down in my man cave as another reminder that this world has its temporal pleasures, but it’s all passing away.

 

The former Al’s Meadows Motel and Meadows Lounge and Grill were located at 4200 West Henrietta Road, Rochester, NY. The proprietor was Alphonse “Papa Al” Alaimo.

UPDATE: In the post below from December 2020, I recount how I successfully recreated a close facsimile of Papa Al’s Hot Sauce along with the recipe:

https://excatholic4christ.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/papa-als-hot-sauce-its-back/