Sunday, February 05, 2006
FEAST OF ST. BLAZE
and Candlemas Day, today. Father blessed a variety of candles right before beginning Mass. He prayed the prayer to St. Blaze over the entire congregation during the homily. Still we lined up to receive the individual blessing after Mass was over.
During the homily Father discussed sacramentals, explaining what they are as opposed to Sacraments which he also discussed briefly. Sacramentals and para-liturgical rituals have always been part of Catholic life and Catholic culture. Well...not always, really. After Vatican II they disappeared for a time, but they seem to be catching on again. They are good reminders of who we are and what we are about.
Today kids collect trading cards of sports figures. When I was in parochial school we collected holy cards. The premier cards were the ones with a personal message from S'ter on the back. It was sort of like the autographed baseball card, I guess. We also increased our collection with holy cards from funerals that had the name of the deceased on the back. Then there were the nativity holy cards with "Keep Christ in Christmas" on the back that were passed out before Christmas Mass each year by some group or other.
Being given a holy card was a big deal, and a reward for a job well done, whether the job was school work, or helping sister with classroom work after school, or even just because it was our birthday.
The primary place to keep the holy cards safe was in our St. Joseph Missal which came to school with us every day since we attended Mass every day. Since the Missal had a plastic book cover, we could place the favorite card under the cover on the front. Of course when we dropped the missal the cards went flying, which was not all that uncommon.
I still have my collection stashed away in a box somewhere. Wonder if the habit will ever catch on again with Catholic school children?
