Catholic Ragemonkey

Rose petals and God's wonderful people
You should have seen the church on December 12, the Third Sunday of Advent, coinciding with the date for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Now, liturgically it was the Third Sunday of Advent, but we had all the cultural celebrations surrounding Our Lady's celebration on that day. By means of a one day reprieve from the liturgically-mandated moderation in decoration for Advent (appropriately so because it was Gaudete Sunday), the place was totally decked out with roses, everywhere! There was a large arrangment of rose-colored roses in front of the altar to match with this one of only two opportunities in the liturgical year to wear rose-colored vestments. There were arrangements in front of the pulpit, smaller ones near the tabernacle, and roses cascading all over the place in front of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe (included at this spot was a large arrangment of roses of various colors to symbolize that she is the mother of all nations). Anyway, we returned to the required moderation for this past final Sunday of Advent.

And then something else happened this morning that made me say to myself, "Wow, that's neat!" After morning Mass, a lady in the parish was walking out with a large bag of rose petals from all the now dying roses. She had asked us to yank off the petals before throwing the roses away. What is she doing with them? She is making her own rose petal rosaries! Apparently, you boil the rose petals down and form them into little beads, placing a pin in them to create the whole needed to eventually join one bead to another by means of metal links, and there you have it! I had no idea one could do that at home. Just a reminder of God's wonderful people!