The context of this quote is receiving a concern about immigrant students, and their difficulty of adapting to new foods of their host culture.
… if health permits someone to habituate himself even to water, beer, or cider where these are the usual beverages, he should drink these and not—with more expense and less edification—imported wines.
Would Saint Ignatius have promoted the Buy Local movement for foods and potables? Microbrews and such?
I was sharing at staff lunch yesterday an experience I had early in my ministry career. I was out for drinks and dinner with a group of women religious and priests. The clergy all ordered the hard stuff. The sisters all drank wine. I was the only lay person and the only one with a beer. (Though I have to confess it was an import.)
What would today’s saint make of the modern world and its options for food and drink and the experiences of clergy?
Happy feast day to all SJ’s and others who follow the Ignatian way!
Catholic Sensibility 