The Secret Box

I love yard sales and estate sales, and my husband and I are lucky enough to be able to drive around town each Friday or Saturday morning to "see what's playing." Of course you never know what someone might be selling or even giving away just to get it out of their house and into yours.

Last weekend at a small sale with a random collection of merchandise I spied a little, light wooden box that was open, and the chilly breeze was trying repeatedly to blow it off the table. Inside were a few very old-looking Catholic artifacts--a St. Christopher badge, two small 5-way medals, and an ancient brass rosary accented with bright spots of verdigris. 

I bought the medals from the seller for a couple of coins and left but couldn't stop thinking about that little rosary. I have a habit of taking in orphaned rosaries, but had told myself that I needed to draw the line sometime.

We drove by the sale the next day and found it still on. Obligingly, my husband parked the car and I hurried to see if the box was still there. It was. As I examined the rosary again, its corpus tied on with black thread, the seller said that those items had an interesting history. I was all ears. They belonged to an uncle who was raised Catholic but married a Protestant woman. For whatever reason, he put aside his sacramentals and became a Protestant too. But in the little brown box saved from a bottle of English Leather, the uncle hung on to his old rosary (which no doubt belonged to a relative before him), and his medals, and maybe the sense of holiness and promise that he'd found no other faith could supply.

Did his wife know that he harbored these remnants of his old religion? I doubt it since the seller told me that this was his "secret box."

 Of course I bought it with its contents, took it home, and polished up each item as much as possible. I imagine that the owner might be happy to know that his collection of special but secret things is in new and respectful hands and out in the light of day.

Do you have a rosary in your own version of a secret box? One you seldom use but keep tucked away for another time, or for the memory it holds? I encourage you to take it out. Pray it. Leave it out where you can admire it and remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and the lives they lived. If you have little time to spare, just grab it and pray a devout decade. Every prayer matters.

All Hands on Deck

Recently Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke published a novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it is a long one--9 months, actually. It consists of a one-page prayer, imploring Our Lady to intercede for us in defeating "the growing darkness and sin that envelop the world and menace the Church."

When have we needed her help more? New shocks are being published daily that show the appalling depths to which so many of our fellow men, our leaders, our captains of commerce, our medical providers, our educators, and even our shepherds have descended. The mess has grown so big that many of us cannot imagine that anything short of an act of God will fix it.

To that end, Cardinal Burke asks us all to join in this novena. It is an urgent call to Heaven for help, for illumination, and for widespread conversion as happened in Mexico after the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Juan Diego in 1531. You'll find the prayer here.

While this daily prayer is only one page long, some of us are so pressed by the duties of our lives that we can scarcely find time to eat meals. So here I humbly offer a condensed version for those in such situations.

Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the growing darkness and sin that envelop the world and menace the Church. We humbly implore your intercession for our continuing conversion to Christ, your Divine Son, and the conversion of millions more who do  not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in ourselves and in the world.

May we fully trust God's promise of salvation and His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart. O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to Your Divine Son in Whose name we pray. Amen.

To be prayed daily from March 12 to December 12, 2024. (Don't worry if you're starting late.)
Excerpt from the 9-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.

In these chaotic and frightening times, do not succumb to the temptation of despair! Pray to Mother Mary, and keep that flame of hope alive.