All Saints’ Day, a day of obligation I’m told, so in an hour I’ll go off and discharge my duties. I’m starting to feel like a papist already.
This sort of discipline is a good thing, I think. It marks off particular days for common recollection and worship, and if you don’t happen to feel like it that particular day it’s good to be reminded that the point of the exercise is to get your life turned around so that it’s not what you feel at the moment that matters but more enduring realities. It does seem though that the Orthodox with all their fast days go too far, at least for someone who’s not particularly heroic.
I like the saints in Catholicism. You know God by the company he keeps, and the point after all is to join that company. Also, stripped-down religions may make sense for spiritual athletes but not for most of us. If the idea is to put God in relation to everything it’s good to be shown some particular examples.
Criminy, you SOUND like a
Criminy, you SOUND like a papist, too!
Now if you can just get to a Catholic cemetary tomorrow, to pray for the souls of the dead….
I’m getting the patter down,
I’m getting the patter down, that’s good …
I’m not sure if cradle Catholics know how exotic some of this stuff can seem to some of us others. I just told my (non-Catholic of course) sister I was going to send her some rosary beads and one of those pictures of the Sacred Heart with the anatomically-correct heart that I remember seeing in my childhood. Are they still around in some circles?
Yes, they are still around.
Yes, they are still around. See for example http://www.art.com/asp/sp.asp?PD=10055198
So will you jump into it with both feet and send her a glow-in-the-dark rosary?
The one you linked wasn’t as
The one you linked wasn’t as realistic as the one I remember, with veins and aortas and things. My wife, a Presbyterian girl, remembers being shocked by them too.
The glow-in-the-dark rosary sounds like a definite possibility. I think the scapular is another item that seems alien to us prots. Maybe when I get received or whatever the technical expression is I can make up a whole package and send it off to Sis.