Stuff Catholics Like

"The Rosary", says the Roman Breviary, "is a certain form of prayer wherein we say fifteen decades or tens of Hail Marys with an Our Father between each ten, while at each of these fifteen decades we recall successively in pious meditation one of the mysteries of our Redemption." NewAdvent.org

Catholics love their beads. Large ones, small ones, stone or plastic or wood, most Catholics have lots of rosaries in their house. Lying near the family bible, around the neck of a Mary statue, hanging from a bed-post, dangling from the rear-view mirror in their cars. The may never use them or even remember how but they are there. The might have been a hand-me down from a dead grandmother or a 1st communion present or maybe they bought themselves a new pair when they started having kids and wanted to teach them.

The blue-hairs in particular are fond of them. You can see them before, during and after Mass fingering their beads. Praying for deceased husbands, wayward children, the grand-kids, their arthritis, to be regular again and a myriad of other intentions. Hopefully some of them are praying for me also.

Kids of course love rosaries, the large wooden painted ones and the plastic glow in the dark ones in particular. They wear them around their necks, whip their little sisters with them, play tug-of-war with them until they break and the beads go flying all over the place. This happened to my good pair at Christmas morning Mass around 10 years ago.

We were at 8 o'clock Mass in the 250 year-old chapel that is used for special occasions. This is a popular and crowded Christmas Mass. We always go to this Mass and we always sit up in the choir loft. One of the little ones was acting up so I gave her my rosary to hold. And of course another one of the little guys decided he wanted it too. So a tug-of-war ensued and my black onyx and sterling silver rosary was the loser. Beads went fling everywhere, including a few that fell down to the pews below. The worst part is it was during the middle of Mass and I couldn't yell at or whack them...ok maybe that was a good thing...at least from the offenders point of view.