Featured Chaplet Rosary - Where/How Old

We wore uniforms too! The nuns and Jesuits priests at my school always came in full regalia. I was raised in a less cosmopolitan city.
It is lovely you carry your mother's rosary.

 

I've been to Quebec many times. As an American tourist it was very difficult because no effort was made to offer anything in English, but my five years of French language education helped me navigate through most of the experience. Finding places to camp was the hardest part. So, unlike most of the lower Canadian provinces, I haven't spent a great deal of time exploring.
Sounds like you had a rich cultural upbringing.

 

Good point. I bought it to learn about, so I am going to try to sell it and don't want to offend anyone. I thought the heart made it bracelet like. I don't remember hearts in any of my rosaries as a child. But that just may be a local convention.
One side of my family or origin has a French surname too. There aren't many of us, so I won't share it in this public forum.

 

I used to call it being "raised by nuns," but I'm sure my parents would have been appalled.

 

I am about to tell a funny story, so those of you who have better things to do...skip this.

The only time I actually attended Catholic school was for second and third grade. However, since that was the time for First Communion and then Confirmation, both years were spent learning catechism and practicing marching, kneeling, walking just so, etc. Sister Dorothy (2nd grade) was a kind, tiny, elderly Sacred Heart nun who took her job very seriously. With the help of her little wooden clicker, she taught us to parade reverently and in line, to sit and stand up straight (courtesy of the knuckle of her forefinger vibrating on the middle of our spines), and to "bow our heads at the name of Jesus," no matter where we were.

Sister Nurse Ratchett in 3rd grade went through all the same procedures: parade, kneel, stand, genuflect, bow our heads, Click! She had a beautiful face, but, shall we say, an off-putting manner.

Fast forward 25 years or so, and I am leaving Mass accompanied by my husband (a rare event -- he is not Catholic). As we are walking down the main aisle, I hear, almost directly behind me, the dreaded CLICK!!

Every drop of blood left my face. I could feel it sinking down past my heart which was pounding as with a blacksmith's hammer. My husband thought I was having some kind of fit. (Well, I WAS!)

And then, just behind me, a quiet little voice came from one of a pair of nuns: "Excuse me, dear, I believe you dropped these gloves."

 

That's a wonderful story. I am not surprised that she still uses a clicker. I completely understand your response. I still remember having my braids taped to the desk to keep me from looking behind me, the dunce cap and sitting in the corner, and the raps on my fingers with the ruler. I have fond memories too of caring and kind nuns, though.

 

As we pray each tenner (a row of ten beads), we should reflect on the life of Christ, originally summed up in 15 mysteries. If we want to think about all of these we have to pray the rosary completely three times (150 Psalms), if you do that you have done the whole rosary. Praying just one set of secrets is what we call a “rosary”. Pope John Paul II added to these secrets the “5 secrets of the Light”. That brings the total to twenty.

Pray a Hail Mary ten times and conclude with the Glory to the Father.

 

Kiko - Speaking of braids, Sister Nurse Ratchett used to grab mine and spin me round n'round, n'round til I was dizzy. Then she would bonk my head on the black board.

 

She also reported my horrific misdeeds to my mother, who (without any input from me), requested my father to belt me with fervor, for, as we all know, Sister can do nun wrong.

 

She sounds like a piece of work. I was beaten with a ruler a lot but nothing that deramatic.

 

How awful. So there was no safe place for you.

 

Kiko - I honestly never thought of it that way before...!!??

 

After an edifying look backward, it occurs to me that my "safe place" was my grandmother. Not that I ever confided my woes to anyone, but I knew that if I had to do so, she was there for me.

I suppose that I have considered the sadism of certain teachers as "cocktail party anecdotes" for so long, that I have not remembered (or coveniently forgotten) the all-encompassing pain of the betrayal.

I suppose the ideal of keeping a stiff upper lip has its limitations.

 

I'm so not telling my convent school stories. Suffice it to say I was never so glad to see the back end of a place.

 

Hyper religiosity no matter what the variety is extremely damaging because it permits acts that normally people who love you would frown on. I was a high spirited 4 year old when I was sent to first grade (I turned 5 in three months). They made sure to beat that out of me and make me into a good Catholic girl. My parents were pleased too.

 

Knowing what shaped us into the people we become is always a good thing. Reliving those experiences allows us to rid ourselves of their destructive nature.

 

I can't even imagine.