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.