Earthly Estates

I am still going to estate sales when I can.  I’ve decided that yard sales are generally useless. The percentage of VHS-tapes-thrown-in-boxes-on-the-front-yard events is just too high to make it worth it.

Most estate sales around here post photos of the inventory beforehand so I can see ahead of time if the owner was a devotee of French Provincial or Beatles memorabilia and hence avoid wasting my time.

Estate sales are more interesting from a human-interest standpoint, too.

Spiritual, as well.

It may seem seem ironic and even counter intuitive to shop at an estate sale in order to be reminded not to store up earthly treasures in barns, but it works for me, somehow.

The last couple I’ve been to, I’ve  wondered where the people actually lived. Amid all the stuff, the clutter, there truly seemed to be no room.  Perhaps some of the goods were hauled in from a storage facility, but it didn’t seem so – it seems as if everything, indeed, had a place and had been there for a while.

Anyway, the last one, from a couple of weekends ago, was almost in my own neighborhood, across the main road.  It was an unbelievable mass of stuff on two floors of a bungalow, with a lot more, taken out of a storage shed, spread in the backyard.  A great many souvenirs from travels,  boxes of kitchen ware,  collectible liquor bottles, tools…everything.

They were Catholic, too, and judging from the devotion to St. Charbel, Lebanese.

(Although as we talked about before, they could have been Mexican, too! But no – I did a little research, and found the family name closely associated with the Maronite Catholic church in town.)

Catholic-heavy estate sales are not something you see often around here, so I took the moment and bought a few of the plastic bags full of holy cards and medals – there’s at least one thrift store around here that stocks vintage holy cards in its vintage postcard section, but they generally ask from at least 5 and up to 8 (!) dollars per.

The most interesting find – aside from the St. Charbel thermometer, which I grabbed, fighting off at least five other scavengers (er..not) to me was this one:

It’s Pope Benedict XV’s Prayer for Peace.

You can find the full text here, which is a link to Acta Apostolicae Sedis of 1915- it’s PDF.

I was really fascinated by what accompanied the release of the prayer – the decree (which I presume is correct, no “degree” as AAS translates it) ordering it to be prayed, worldwide. I’ll go ahead and attempt to cut & paste what’s in the PDF here.

His Holiness our Sovereign Lord, Pope Benedict XV, in deep affliction
at the sight of a war which destroys thousands of young li ves, brings
misery to families and cities, and rushes flourishing nations to the brink
of ruin, yet hearing in mind that Almighty God, Whose prerogative it
is to heal by chastisement and through pardon to preserve, is moved by
the prayers which spring from contrite and humble hearts, desires
ardently that above the clang of arms may be heard the voice of Faith,
Hope and Charity, alone capable of welding together the hearts of m en
in one mind and one spirit. Therefore, while He exhorts the clergy and
the faithful of the whole world to works of mortification and piety in
expiation for the sins by which we have called down upon ourselves
the just wrath of God, the Holy Father has ordained that throughout
the Catholic Ghurch solemn prayers shall be offered in order to obtain
from the mercy of Almighty God the peace which ali desire.
For this purpose it is hereby decreed that in every Metropolitical,
Cathedral, Parochial, and Conventual Church in all European countries,
on the 7nd day of February next (being the Sunday called Sexagesima)
and in ail diocèses situated outside of Europe on the 21 st day of March
(being Passion Sunday) there s hall b e celebra ted specialreligious functions
in the following order:
Acta Benedicti PP. IV 18
In the morning, immediately after the Conventual or Parochial Mass,
the Most ßlessed Sacrament shall be exposed with ali solemnity, and
duly incensed; after which the Psalm Miserere mei, Deus (Ps. 50)
shall be sung with the Antiphon: Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris,
quia non est alius qui pugnet pro nobis nisi tu, Deus noster, followed
by the f. Fiat pax in virtute tua, rJ. Et abundantia in turribus tuis;
and the Collect Deus, a quo sancta desideria, etc.
The Most Blessed Sacrament shall then remain exposed to public
vénération tili evening; and it is désirable that arrangements be made
whereby children also should take due part in the public adoration.
In the evening, previously to the déposition of the Most Blessed
Sacrament, the third part of the Rosary is to be recited followed by the
annexed prayer, expressly composed by His Holiness in order to obtain
the benefit of peace; then the Litanies of the Saints, according to the
form prescribed for the dévotion of the Forty Hour’s Prayer in the
Rituale Romanum of the year 1913. Immediately after the Litanies shall
be sung the Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo; ne in aeternum irascaris
nobis with the versicles and Prayer usually recited after the Procession
in quacumque tribulatione as in the Rituale Romanum, with the addition
of the Collect Deus, a quo sancta desideria. The sacred function shall
conclude with the Tantum Ergo and Bénédiction of the Most Blessed
Sacrament, more solito.
In the hope that Almighty God may pour forth in yet greater abundance
His Divine Grace, the Sovereign Pontiff exhorts the Faithfui to
approach the Sacrament of Penance and to receive Holy Communion,
and grants to ali those who, after Confession and Communion, shall
assist at one or other of the sacred functions as above ordered or shall
pray for some time before the Most Blessed Sacrament while solemnly
exposed, a Plenary Indulgence.
B’rom the Vatican, January lOth, 1915.

Bracing.  I am not going to forget the phrase -  that above the clang of arms may be heard the voice of Faith, Hope and Charity.

As I searched for more on B15′s prayer, I came across this most fascinating article from a 1943 issue of Time magazine in which the role of the Pope on the international stage is explained to the American reader.  It begins with this prayer and goes on from there.  It shows that the discussions of the past 15 years have not been anything new.  This passage was especially striking and might be worth filing away for times in which someone wants to claim that a pope calling for peace is some kind of mod, faux-groovy heresy:

What the papacy demands is social justice within nations. It believes that if this can be accomplished, wars will largely cease: the work of justice is peace. Instead of Karl Marx’s violent “revolutionary reconstitution of society as a whole,” the Catholic Church wants a conservative reconstitution of society in the name of God, justice, peace. Moreover, it insists on the dignity of the individual whom God created in his own image and for a decade has vigorously protested against the cruel persecution of the Jews as a violation of God’s Tabernacle. …
…Nobody knows yet whether Pius XII will be invited to the peace conference that follows World War II or whether he would accept if he were invited. Benedict XV was expressly barred from Versailles by a clause in the secret treaty of London. But whether or not the Pope is present, the influence of the Catholic Church’s peace policy will be tremendous. Most Catholics and non-Catholics alike would agree that a peace that does not embody, at least roughly, the papal position on fundamental social issues will bring not social peace but a sword. For when traditional justice fails, retributive justice supervenes. Failure to grasp this fact means failure to understand the words that Dante read above the gates of Hell:

Giustizia mosse il mio alto Fattore; fecemi la divina Potestate, la somma Sapienza e il primo Amore. . . . Lasciate ogni speranza qui voi ch’en-trate.*

* Justice moved my great Maker; Divine Power made me, and supreme Wisdom and primal Love. . . . All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

(Okay, people do you see why I don’t blog more often? Because a blog post about a silly estate sale I thought would take me fifteen minutes to dash off glues me in front of the computer for an hour as I get swept down a rabbit hole reading 1915 volumes of AAS and Time circa 1943.)

So what else did I get?

As I said, a batch of holy cards, a thermometer with St. Charbel, and these nifty little holy water fonts:

What makes them especially nifty to me is that you can change the image behind the glass. Which, with all due respect to what’s there, I’m going to do – those images are rather faded.

I think I had more to say, but the rabbit hole has wiped me out.

This holy card (or shall we say holy reminders?) stash has been picked through sufficiently by me. I have what I need. Someone out there can have the rest – I’ve got it listed at my shop at Big Cartel for what I paid plus a bit for postage. (Update: SOLD! )

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