The Bowl People
I love holy cards, and it saddens me to know there are young people out there who do not know what they are. When a Catholic died back in prehistoric days, everyone gathered at the funeral home to say a rosary the night before the funeral Mass. As a way of remembering to pray for them, you were given a holy card with a beautiful religious picture on one side, and a prayer on the back. Usually above the prayer was the person’s name and dates of their birth and death. We kept these cards in our missals and prayed often for them.
Newly ordained priests also gave out holy cards, and cards could be purchased with blank backs, or with just a prayer. I know that new holy cards are available at Catholic bookstores, but often at funerals you will see some awful computer generated “program” for the funeral service. Just a poor folded up piece of paper begging to be thrown away.
Due to distance, my brother handled most of the arrangements for our Dad’s funeral. Even though I was consulted by phone over what he perceived as important, such as the number of limousines (very important for an Italian male), it never occurred to me to ask about holy cards. As a result, my Dad was laid to rest with an ugly, computer-generated program, complete with some New Age poem. He did, however, have three limousines so it balanced out.
A number of years ago, holy cards began showing up on ebay and I started buying them – usually in fairly large batches or “lots.” When the first lot arrived, I noticed some of them were actually vintage cards from a long forgotten funeral, or from an ordination that took place 60 or 70 years ago.
Adopt a Bowl Person
I knew most of these folks had no one left to pray for them, so I placed the cards in a pretty bowl on my prayer table and I pray for them. I will be purchasing more in the near future, so if you would like to adopt one of my bowl people, just email me your address and I will pick out the perfect person for you to adopt. Please note: your information will be private and not given or sold unless I am offered a really, really huge sum of money in which case I will split it with you.
email address: adrienne at icehouse dot net
