Christianity/Theology

St. Michael’s Vigil | a Michaelmas Espresso Martini

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Recipe

  • 1.5 oz Espresso (or Cold Brew concentrate)
  • 1 oz Cognac
  • 1 oz Blackberry Liqueur (or Raspberry)
  • .25 oz Coffee Liqueuer
  • .25-.5 oz Green Chartreuse to taste
  • Optional dash of salt
  • Garnish: blackberry

Shake with ice until well chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe or martini glass. Garnish with the blackberry.

* * * *

September 29 is Michaelmas, the great feast of St. Michael the Archangel, now shared with Gabriel and Raphael. Once a major holy day in medieval Europe, Michaelmas was marked by parades, fairs, and feasting. An old Irish legend tells us that when Michael cast Satan from heaven, the devil landed in a blackberry bush, spat upon it, and soured its fruit. This led many people to eat blackberries on Michaelmas, but not after.

Michael himself is remembered as the protector of the Church, the one who drives back the powers of evil and bears the banner of heaven. He is the the governor of heaven — the holy counterpoint to Lucifer, the self-styled ruler of hell. And as befits a warrior feast day, we drink to those who fight for us and we strengthen ourselves for the spiritual fight ahead!

So why an espresso martini? Because this day is about wakefulness and vigilance. Michaelmas arrives as the nights grow longer, and it calls us to be alert: watchful against darkness, strengthened for the battles of the spirit. Espresso jolts us awake, both in body and in soul, a reminder that “the Church militant” does not sleep on its watch.

The cognac anchors the drink with warmth and gravity, evoking the dignity of heaven’s general. The blackberry liqueur brings both sweetness and bite, a nod to the old legend of the cursed bramble. The coffee liqueur evokes purgation and penitence. The green Chartreuse, the herbal elixir made by monks, brings angelic mystery to mind; it’s the holy herb garden of heaven condensed into liquid. Finally, the garnish: a blackberry skewered on a pick, recalling the sword of St. Michael.

Altogether, it’s dark and strong, sweet and energizing — exactly what a feast of archangels deserves. This is no gentle nightcap; it’s a drink for vigilance, courage, and joy in the triumph of light over darkness.

Raise your glass this Michaelmas—and do it before the blackberries turn sour.

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How do you know you’re salty? | Luke 14.34-35

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“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is useful neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. If you have ears to hear, then hear!”
—Luke 14:34-35

I fully understand that this can be taken too far, but how could salt know if it has lost its saltiness? I would contend that the salt itself cannot determine its own saltiness in any other way than seeing its effects on the world around it.

In other words, I wonder if how the world views us in regards to the effects we have in the world are a better indicator of our “saltiness” than our own perception of how faithful to a system of the doctrines we are. If you have ears to hear, then hear!

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

Negroni Joven | for Ordinary Time

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Recipe

All you need is 1/2 oz of each of the following:

  • Tequila Blanco
  • Tequila Reposado
  • Tequila Añejo
  • Campari
  • Amaro Averna
  • Sweet Vermouth
  • Dry Vermouth
  • Garnish: A lime twist & your favorite Summer read

Instructions: Stir with ice and serve over a large cube. Express the oils from a Lime peel over the drink and drop it in.

* * * *

Ordinary Time is the Church’s longest season, and also its quietest, most mundane. But that’s the secret of it: this is where most of life happens.  Ordinary Time (and the Church Calendar itself) is cyclical, but not static. It’s like a helix, looping back through the same motions, but always a little higher, a little deeper, than before. In fact, it’s name doesn’t mean “plain”, but comes from the word ordinal because it counts time from Pentecost.

The Negroni Joven (pronounced HO-ven) is about this sort of time. It’s named after joven tequila, a blend of aged and unaged tequila, which is exactly what Ordinary Time is for us. It’s new each year, and yet the benefits accumulate over time. So there grows a depth and richness, even in the midst of the newness, adding layers of complexity.

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Family Reunion | A Pentecost Negroni

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Recipe

  • ½ oz Rye Whiskey (USA)
  • ½ oz Tequila Blanco (Mexico)
  • 1 oz Suze (French Amaro)
  • ½ oz Carpano Antica (Italian Sweet Vermouth)
  • ½ oz Ruby Port (Portugal)
  • ¼ oz Islay Scotch (Scotland – floated on top)
  • Flamed Orange Peel Garnish

Stir all ingredients except the Scotch with ice and strain into a rocks glass over a large cube. Gently float the Islay Scotch over the top by pouring it over the back of a spoon. Flame an orange peel over the glass, express its oils, and drop it in.

* * * *

Happy Birthday, Church! It is now Pentecost, the day that God’s own Spirit filled God’s own people, crossing language, boundaries, cultures, and nationalities to create one new united family. In the tongues of fire and language, God reversed the story of the Tower of Babel.

That’s the heart of this Negroni, Family Reunion. It’s built from spirits scattered across the world: American rye, Mexican tequila, French Suze, Italian vermouth, Portuguese port, and a smoky Scotch from the far edge of Scotland. It’s a drink that doesn’t pretend the differences aren’t there but lets them all sit in the glass together. Each part keeps its accent, but together they have an incredibly unity.

The drink itself leans earthy and complex. The rye brings structure, the tequila adds depth, and the Suze’s golden gentian bitterness contributes an interesting mid-note to the flavors. The Carpano Antica and the Ruby Port round it out with deep, red sweetness, like the shared wine of communion: one cup, many vineyards. Lastly, the Islay Scotch float and the flamed orange peel garnish image the tongues of fire hovering over those first Christians.

This drink is Pentecost in miniature. But this is not a quick or delicate Negroni. It’s heavier, slower, more reflective. The kind of drink that doesn’t mind being passed around, that tastes different each time you come back to it. It’s the flavor of the Church at her best — many voices, one Spirit, the family gathered again around the same table drinking from the Common Cup of God’s grace.

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The Alleluia Negroni | For Easter

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Recipe

  • 1 oz Barrel-Aged Gin
  • 1 oz Suze Amaro
  • 1 oz Dolin Blanc (or other white, sweet vermouth such as Lillet Blanc or Cocchi Americano)
  • Top with Seltzer or Tonic
  • Garnish with lemon twist

Stir the gin, Suze, and vermouth with ice until chilled. Strain into a glass with fresh ice. Top with your sparkling of choice. Express the oil of a lemon peel over it all and garnish with the peel.

* * * *

It’s Easter! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The Church’s highest feast is one of joy, celebration, and abundance. This season isn’t content with a muted sip; it needs something golden, bright, and effervescent. The Easter Negroni takes the classic trinity of spirit, amaro, and vermouth and transfigures it into something new—bubbling with life, radiant in hue, and rich with meaning.

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Felix Culpa (Fortunate Fall) | A Lent Negroni

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Recipe

  • 1 oz Mezcal
  • 1.25 oz Spiced Apple Wine (or 1 oz rich Sweet Vermouth)
  • .75 oz Cardamoro
  • Garnish: Apple Slice and Smoked Rosemary

Add all spirits to a mixing glass. Stir with ice until chilled and diluted. Strain over fresh ice. Add apple slice and light the end of a sprig of rosemary on fire. Put out the flame and let it smoke.

* * * *

Lent begins in ashes, but it doesn’t end there. It moves through wilderness, temptation, and sorrow—not to leave us in dust, but to lead us toward resurrection. Lent reminds us of a bittersweet truth: that our sinfulness is a necessary ingredient for our redemption.​

The ancient theologians called it felix culpa—”fortunate fall”—the idea that humanity’s fall led to a greater good: the coming of Christ and the outpouring of grace. In other words, it is better to have been lost and found than to never have been lost at all. In other other words: “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

As the Exsultet proclaims in the Easter Vigil: “O happy fall that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer.”​

So let us raise a glass to this wonderful mystery with this Lenten Negroni. It brings together the sweetness of Eden, the smoke of exile, and the herbal bitterness of toil and grace.

The first sip greets you with the smoky depth and vegetal complexity of mezcal, reminiscent of the Garden and darkness of sin. The spiced apple wine and garnish call to mind that original temptation, now made sweet by Christ. Grounding the drink is Cardamaro, bringing an earthy bitterness evoking images of thorns, toil, and grace. Lastly, the flaming rosemary symbolizes both the flaming sword preventing re-entry to Eden and holy incense granting us entry into the presence of God.

This is a complex, surprisingly light drink with lots of layers if you let yourself sit with it. May it serve as a sensory reflection on the journey from fall to redemption, reminding us that even in our brokenness, grace abounds.

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The Epiphany Espresso Martini

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Recipe

  • 1.5 oz Rye Whiskey
  • 1 oz Espresso or Cold Brew Concentrate
  • .5 oz Molasses
  • .25 oz Dry or Blanc Vermouth
  • 2 dashes Chocolate Bitters
  • barspoon Fernet Branca
  • Lemon Peel for expression and garnish

Add all ingredients except lemon peel to shaker and shake until well chilled. Double strain into a coupe. Express Lemon Peel oil over top and garnish with the peel cut into a cross.

* * * *

The Western Church is currently in the last days of the Church season of Epiphany, which is kind of a beautiful junk drawer of a season.

Advent/Christmas cover Jesus’ anticipation and birth, and Lent/Easter cover his death and resurrection. Epiphany covers everything in between. It starts with the Wise Men visiting Jesus (they weren’t at the manger!) and covers his ministry of justice. The key motif is light breaking through the darkness, waking us from our stupor, and preparing us for the repentance of Lent.

So if we want a cocktail that’s going to wake us up and mess us up, there’s none better than this espresso martini riff.

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Proof of God? Wilderness & Return | Exodus 3.11-12

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So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
—Exodus 3.10-12

So…what’s God’s proof that He is with Moses and He is the one behind all this?

Not the mystical voice from the fire.
Not the miracles nor plagues.

Moses will know that God is real and he is the one that did all this only after deliverance and wilderness, having returned to where he started, utterly transformed.

Ain’t that the truth?

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

A Moment (A Posthumous Guest Prose Piece)

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NOTE: This post is by Austin Ricketts, a dear friend and contributor to this site who passed away in August 2024. I later found unpublished drafts he wrote for this blog. With his wife‘s permission, I will occasionally post these items with the caveat that Austin’s mind and craft were always evolving, so these posthumous posts represent a snapshot in time and not necessarily the final form Austin would have wanted. But still, they allow us a chance to spend just a little more time with the man we loved and miss each day.
This piece is from March 10, 2009
___________

[A Gilead-inspired short prose piece]

Today you awoke, and it was finally Autumn. Actually, it’s not that today is the first day of the Fall, but it’s the first day that you realized it. There you were at the Railway Station, surveying the huddled masses, nervously tapping each of your pockets. You were assuring yourself that all was in its right place. Then, the whistle. The train is coming.

The breeze picks up as the train nears, fronted by a Zephyr-like standard bearer. The gust begins to tug at your skirt, but your legs aren’t cold. The wooden platform rumbles, feeling like the deck of a ship at high seas as it moves with the coming cavalcade.

The Engineer is visible. There is the steam. The Engineer is invisible. The whistle, the whistle, three times the whistle blows. Smack!

Your book fell. You recover it from the linoleum floor. And what is that screaming noise? You look up. It is the birth pangs of tea, steaming and salient on your stove. You throw the blanket off of your legs, and onto the arm rest of your chair.

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For All Saints’ Day: Our Son’s Baptism (And Yours)

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Today is All Saints’ Day–when Christians remember the saints that came before us. It’s a perfect day to celebrate our son’s entry into visible membership into God’s family through the sacrament of baptism! You can watch it in the video above.

I wasn’t raised witnessing or agreeing with infant baptism. I grew up as a Bible Belt Southern Baptist (and pretty much all my relatives continue in that tradition). As a child, infant baptism was seen as a strange Catholic thing that went against the doctrine of salvation through grace.

But over time, my perspective changed as I found myself drawn into another tradition within Christianity–one that views baptism in a different way that I’ve found incredibly meaningful and beautiful.

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Meet Luke, my son and my light…

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Allow me to introduce you to my son, Luke Mahnke Burkhart. Tomorrow he is getting baptized, so naturally it got me reflecting on these past three amazing, joy-filled, life-changing months.

Yes, all the cliches hold true: he’s unlocked depths of love I did not know I had; I’ve had all manner of bodily fluids deposited on me with nary a care rising within me; so many things I thought were so important have faded (oh wait–there’s an election going on?).

But there’s more to this new experience than I’ve seen plastered across cards, mugs, baby books, and shirts. He’s embedded himself into my heart in a way that haunts and follows me through my day. He’s re-oriented my affections, intentions, sensitivities, and practices. He’s changed the way I see my wife, our home, and our life together.

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In Memoriam: Austin Ricketts (1983-2024)

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

You can read Austin’s obituary here, and watch his beautiful funeral service here.

Every life is holy; and every life lost is equally a wound and tragedy. And yet, each of us at times encounter a death that feels greater, weightier. A death that makes us want to run out into the unknowing world, almost offended that others do not feel their great poverty now at the loss of this great wealth and beauty taken from their midst.

A couple of weeks ago, this world experienced such a loss: Austin Ricketts–husband, father, theologian, mystic, artist, teacher, pastor, counselor, and friend–was taken from us far, far too soon after a hard fight with a mysterious and aggressive cancer.

(If you have followed this blog over the years, you may also recognize him as an occasional guest contributor here.)

I met Austin in 2008 when we both started seminary Summer Greek, and we became fast friends. I always felt a certain communion with him, even though his restless soul always seemed to be existing in another plane. His was a mind to chase and run alongside, and it was a gift when you were the recipient and object of his inquisitive faculties.

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Genesis 3 | The Garden Temptation (a sermon)

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I had the chance to offer the sermon this past week at my church. We started a new sermon series called “Bible Mixtape, Volume 2”, where we take otherwise familiar Bible stories and revisit them by putting them in their original culture and context. I kicked us off with Genesis 3, The Garden Temptation, and coupled that with Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus’ Wilderness Temptation. Below you’ll find the video as well as the manuscript. I hope it blesses you. Click here for the podcast audio.

(Click to here to watch the Scripture reading portion.)

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Ash Wednesday: Death Becomes Us

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Every year seems to play out the same.

Fall begins with a new year’s fervor, and I get some semblance of rhythm and regularity to my life. And I do very well with this. My mental (and marital) health needs structure, schedule, and routine to flourish.

Then–bam–the holidays hit and all those bulwarks against insanity fall away. And I struggle. I eat too much, stay up too late, and my spiritual disciplines become ad hoc and more random. I’m irritable.

And I have this nasty tendency to emotionally hide from others and myself as I hate the chaos that churns within me. (Merry Christmas!)

I stumble from the holiday fog and drift in a malaise for a few months–struggling to find rhythm again, trying to catch up on work I got out of the habit of doing, and straining to be the kind of human I wish to be. Or maybe just feel human at all.

It’s about this time that Ash Wednesday and Lent come around. Right when I need it most.

And it usually ends up serving as the perfect balm and reset for me to get some structure, humanity, and communion into my body once more.

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Plenary Indulgence | a cocktail for the All Saints Octave

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Recipe

  • 1.5 oz Brandy
  • .5 oz Fig Syrup
  • .5 oz Dry Curacao
  • 1 Whole Egg
  • 3 oz Oktoberfest Beer
  • Garnish: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup

Add all ingredients except beer to a shaker without ice. Vigorously shake longer than normal to emulsify the egg and get everything frothy. Add some ice and briefly shake again just until it’s cold. Double strain into a goblet and top with the beer. Drink alongside a peanut butter cup.

* * * *

Okay, this cocktail is just for fun. Just this year, I found out that Catholics extend the official observance of the All Souls’ and All Saints’ holidays to a full eight days to form the “All Saints Octave“. This is a time for Catholics to earn extra indulgences to help those in Purgatory.

Now, being a good, Reformation-steeped Protestant myself, and knowing that Luther specifically kicked off the Reformation this week partly to protest these very indulgences, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to celebrate my spiritual heritage in this by crafting a cocktail.

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