🐟 It's Friday. No meat today. Mind the bones. 🐟
dip a finger on your way in
tilt your phone — the picture moves
Patron saint of sturdiness, stability, and not knocking it over
Dear Madeleine,
Somebody had to start the paperwork. Rome asks for two miracles; we found dozens, most of them a mug that survived.
This shrine is for the friend who apologises to doorframes, keeps a cat in the manner to which it is accustomed, and drove across the whole of Canada, which is a very long way to carry a coffee.
Stay sturdy. Mind the step. Light a candle now and then, even if it's only for the shins.
With love, from a fellow pilgrim
Her favourite corner of the shrine. Even Madeleine sets the mug down sometimes. Breathe with her.
Nothing is wobbling right now.
Turn the organ on and it breathes with you. The chime marks each change, so you can close your eyes.
What the whole Church does, and a few things she made up.
Four Sundays, four candles: three purple, one rose for the third week. Light the right one, and keep the holly out of it.
At Epiphany you chalk the year and the Magi above the door. Given her history with doorframes, it's the least we can do.
The second of February, forty days after Christmas: the year’s candles are blessed and everyone carries a lit one in procession. Cup the flame when the draughts come. Cupping it in still air just holds everyone up.
The day after Candlemas is St Blaise's Day, when throats are blessed with two crossed candles. She does shins.
Step up for your ashes. Try not to touch your forehead for the rest of the day.
A strip of palm at the door, folded into a cross during the homily, then tucked behind a holy picture at home until next year. She has never once made a cross.
Holy Saturday night: the church in darkness, a new fire outside, and then every candle in the pews lit from one flame, passed hand to hand. Wax and hymn books, both flammable.
A different small mercy every day
Tomorrow:
The ribbon in the corner follows the church calendar. So does the title.
An old abstinence, observed loosely. Over the centuries a surprising number of animals have been ruled to be fish, for Lenten purposes.
Through the streets behind the canopy, scattering rose petals ahead of it. To scatter them ahead, you walk backwards. Listen for what’s behind you.
On or around the fourth of October, the feast of St Francis of Assisi, people bring their animals to church to be blessed. Hers goes in a carrier. Under protest.
The second of November: a candle for everyone who has gone before. She does this one quietly, and so do we.
She has been on the windowsill all afternoon, charging.
Attested by the clumsy, in kitchens everywhere
Carried across a room, up a stair, and set down without one drop lost.
Slipped from a hand at head height. Recovered mid-air. Screen unblemished.
Leaned back too far on two legs and, against every law, came back down.
Whom and what she watches over
Kept behind glass. Do not touch, obviously.
Snapped clean off in 2016. The mug survived. The handle did not.
Untied at the top of an escalator. Nothing came of it.
Shattered so the phone beneath it would not. Martyr, arguably.
Left over. The shelf has held for four years regardless.
From the coffee table incident. She keeps it as a reminder.
Nobody has ever explained this one.
From the front door before the Station Mass. It is still there. It will always be there.
The cat got to it first. Three decades and a nub.
Found floating in the holy water font. The cat denies everything.
Has never once fallen off. The only thing in the house that can say that.
Dropped down all 199 steps. Not a scratch on it.
Not hers. Brother André's heart really was stolen from the Oratory in 1973, and found in 1974. She checks hers is still there every morning.
She turns up in ordinary things. Tap one to look closer.
Two miracles are needed to canonise her. Submit one. Someone will object.
Officially, her feast day is the first morning she doesn't stub her toe. Rome needs an actual date, though, and the paperwork from 1997 has been lost.
Every saint needs a companion. The cat has put herself forward. For the official portrait she must sit on the plinth, still, for one second. She knows this, and doesn't care.
The English words of the Mass changed in Advent 2011. She learned them in the old ones, and her mouth has not been told. Answer before you think about it.
Lapsed for years, and still the hand moves on its own. When something holy goes past, tap her forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder, in that order, before it’s gone. Do not bless the pub.
Non-practising at sea level. Extremely devout at thirty-five thousand feet. Keep the panic down with Hail Marys, and keep the tomato juice upright, both at once.
The Catholic answer to every stubbed toe: offer up the suffering for the souls in Purgatory, and up they go. Or complain about it instead. Complaining is more satisfying and helps nobody.
It stays when everything else has gone. It never drops below a quarter. Doing nothing at all also counts.
Say the grace by tapping the words in order, before your brother finishes the roast potatoes. Every wrong word, Granny looks up, and he takes another.
Get from Granny’s front door to the car without a flick of holy water. Run while she refills the bottle. When she aims, duck.
In Irish papers there are still little ads in the classifieds: "Thank you St Jude for prayers answered. Publication promised." Write hers, and get it into Thursday’s paper. Her causes are mostly her shins.
Nine mornings running. Say it before you carry anything with two hands.
Madeleine, keep my elbows close and my mug upright. Widen the doorframes. Soften the corners of the coffee table. Let the floor be where I left it, and let the step be exactly one step.
Steady on. 🕯️No imprimatur. She didn't ask anyone.
Call on the left, response on the right. You'll remember how.
Ten beads. One click each. Don't rush, you'll drop it.
Hold it loosely. Begin when you're steady.
No decades said yetFourteen stations. One mug. Walk them in order.
We hold you, O mug, with both hands, because by your handle you have kept the carpet clean.
She knocks things over, and then she can't find them. "Tony, Tony, look around: something's lost and must be found."
Not in any missal, but said in every car park in Ireland and beyond: "Hail Mary, full of grace, help me find a parking space." Say it, then be quick.
Rung at the important bit. They make everyone jump, every single time.
"Let us offer each other the sign of peace." Handshake? Wave? Nod? Everyone decides in the same half-second, and everyone decides differently.
Right knee to the floor in the aisle before going into the pew, then back up, smoothly, in public. Possibly her greatest weakness.
The hour’s fast, the line up the aisle, “The Body of Christ”, “Amen”. Some parishes dip the host in the chalice first. That’s called intinction. It has another name. You’ll find out.
Scroll to swing it, or give it a push. Front pews, lean back: altar servers who swing it too hard have been known to clip a bishop.
One for every thing you've dropped today. And, like every lapsed Catholic, one before any exam or job interview.
Twice a year, like a comet. Find a seat in a full church. Careful: some of the empty ones belong to regulars, and regulars do not forget.
The other three reasons a lapsed Catholic sets foot in a church. Sit, stand or kneel at the right moment. The person in front is also lapsed. Follow them at your peril.
Slipping out after Communion, before the final blessing, to beat the car park. Known, uncharitably, as the Judas exit: he left the Last Supper early too. Time it right.
Once a year, the church is full of people who have come straight from the pub. Look around: there are seven things to spot.
Canon law says a Mass on Saturday evening counts for Sunday, so Sunday morning is free: every lapsed Catholic's favourite loophole. Granny's rule: it only counts if you're in before the Gospel.
After the Creed, a basket on a very long pole comes along the pew. Find something in your purse, and get it in the basket.
Tell her what you dropped. She's heard worse.
Free with every confession. Scratch with a fingernail or a coin.
At confirmation you pick a saint's name of your own, then walk up to the bishop without tripping on the altar step. Here are three to choose from. Hers was after St Cecilia, patron of music, spelling currently under review.
Seven years old, a white dress, a veil that will not sit straight, a procession up the aisle, and afterwards every relative in the parish with an envelope.
Seven questions. Be honest, she already knows. So does the cat.
Go on, give the mug a shake. She won't let it go over.
The gift shop's sold out, so here's the display model. Scroll and watch her nod. Her head has fallen off twice. Superglue, both times.
She's riding along with you now ↘
The collectable saint cards nobody asked for. Pick her best stat and beat the card on the other side of the table.
Cash only. Everything is sold out and has been since 1997.
Candle notes: spilled coffee, wet tile, other people's carpet.
From the taps at the grotto in Lourdes, where Our Lady appeared to Bernadette in 1858, into a plastic bottle shaped like Our Lady herself. Her crown is the lid. Every Irish and British granny has one on the dresser.
For your wallet, your fridge, or the dashboard next to her.
For the things that didn't make it. She remembers every one.
Where she grew up: Yorkshire, proper tea, and a lot of steps.
Every saint gets a cathedral. Hers leaks. Of course it does.
Little Wobbling-on-the-Wold, East Riding of Yorkshire 🇬🇧
Fifty pence a go, proceeds to the roof in Yorkshire 🇬🇧 Tickets ending in 0 or 5 win.
20p a guess. It changes every day. Whoever wins has to carry it home.
Up to the abbey on the cliff, with the wind off the North Sea. Count them yourself. Nobody ever agrees.
Olney has run one since 1445, they say: aprons on, frying pans in hand, toss it at the start and toss it at the finish. Her against Mrs P and the vicar. A big toss gains ground; it also lands in trees.
Pilgrims leave their shoes at the Slipper Chapel and walk the last mile into Walsingham barefoot: the Holy Mile. Choose the grass verge or the lane, every step of the way. A chapel named after slippers. She had to go.
Since 1376 the guilds of York have played the Bible on wagons, hauled station to station through the streets. She has the brake. Brake going downhill; let it roll on the flat, or the Bakers will have words.
In May the children bring flowers and crown the statue of Our Lady, singing "Bring flowers of the rarest". Placing a crown on a statue's head, at arm's length, from a stepladder.
Whitsun processions with banners and brass bands, still going strong on Whit Friday around Saddleworth, on the old Yorkshire border. She has the banner. Lean into the wind, or it becomes a sail.
An old English All Souls custom, before trick-or-treating: going door to door singing for soul cakes. "A soul cake, a soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake."
The fifth of November marks the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which was a Catholic plot. In Lewes they still burn an effigy of Pope Paul V, the pope at the time. A complicated evening for a Catholic saint. She stays in, curtains drawn, Yorkshire Tea in hand.
Her other half. Mind the statue’s head.
An Irish one 🇮🇪 Put the statue out in the garden the night before a wedding for good weather. If the head comes off, that's lucky. She finds this very stressful.
Another Irish one 🇮🇪 Weave it from rushes on the first of February and hang it over the door. It keeps the house safe from fire and hunger. She is hoping it also works on her.
At a holy well in Ireland 🇮🇪 you tie a strip of cloth to the tree for whatever ails you. As the rag rots, the ailment fades. Give it a few years.
The last Sunday in July: up the holy mountain in County Mayo, 764 metres of loose stones, and plenty do it barefoot. The scree has opinions.
In 1879 villagers in Knock reported an apparition on the gable wall of the church. A century later the parish priest wanted an airport for the pilgrims, on a hill critics called foggy and boggy. It opened in 1986. Land the plane.
St Patrick’s Purgatory, County Donegal: three days on an island, barefoot, fasting, one meal a day of black tea and dry toast, and one whole night with no sleep at all.
In rural Ireland, Mass is said in the neighbours' houses in turn, and when it's your turn the whole house gets done up first. Every job is a chance to break something.
Tuesday night, the parish hall, tea in a cup and saucer. The caller has done this since 1971. Dab your numbers before the next one's called. The dabber leaks.
Women's Christmas, the sixth of January: the women put their feet up and the men do everything. Everything. Including the carrying.
On Christmas Eve the youngest in the house lights a candle in the front window, a welcome for the Holy Family looking for somewhere to stay. The curtains are right there.
In every Irish kitchen: a picture of the Sacred Heart with a small red lamp beneath it that is never, ever switched off.
Noon and six o'clock: the Angelus bell, three strokes three times and then nine. RTÉ still stops everything to broadcast it. Everything stops. Even the cat, briefly.
A little badge for your lapel promising total abstinence from alcohol, worn proudly by the Pioneers since 1898. It affects certain other widgets on this page. You know the one.
St Stephen’s Day: the Wren Boys go door to door in straw suits with music. "The wren, the wren, the king of all birds, St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze." The straw sheds. Everywhere.
Home since 2019. Salt the steps.
The other one. She drove right across Canada last year, and the cathedral came too. Bilingual, salted, and leaking in thirteen different ways.
Lower Slippery 🇨🇦
♥ her favourites · gold: stops you've visited
Patron saint of travellers. He was taken off the universal calendar in 1969, but nobody told the dashboards. Hang one for the road trip.
In Québec 🇨🇦 the swear words, the sacres, are church words: tabernacle, chalice, host. They grew up in the 1800s, when people chafed at the clergy's grip; the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s emptied the pews but kept the swearing. Every stubbed toe costs money, and it all goes to the roof in Lower Slippery.
The wooden middle staircase at St Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal: 99 steps, kept for pilgrims who climb on their knees.
The blue-and-gold Gothic Revival basilica in Old Montreal, where Céline Dion married René Angélil in 1994. The aisle is very long. The train on the dress is longer. She has been asked to walk it, carefully, for the rehearsal.
At Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Québec 🇨🇦 people who were healed leave their crutches on the wall. Hers is a bit more specific.
Healed of something? Leave it on the wall.
Québec after Midnight Mass: the whole family, a packed kitchen, one o’clock in the morning, and you’re carrying the tourtière. Each hazard needs the right move: hold it high, or step around.
The fifteenth of August, National Acadian Day and the Feast of the Assumption: Acadians in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick parade through the streets making as much noise as humanly possible. Bring a pot.
Silence. For now.On the coast, the priest stands on the wharf and blesses the fishing boats one by one before the season. Sprinkle the holy water just as each boat passes the wharf. The wharf is wet. The wharf is always wet.
Every spring, sugaring-off: pour hot maple syrup on clean snow, wait a moment, then roll it up on a stick. Not strictly a church thing, but it lands in Lent most years, and she says that's close enough.
In Midland, Ontario, the shrine to the Canadian Martyrs: Jesuit missionaries killed in the 1640s and canonised in 1930. Pilgrims come every summer. This one's a quiet one. She lights a vigil light, very carefully.
Dawson City, Yukon. Not Catholic in the slightest, but it is a preserved human toe that thousands of pilgrims queue to kiss, so it's going in. "Drink it fast or drink it slow, but the lips have got to touch the toe."
Father William Judge, a Jesuit, built St Mary's Hospital in Dawson City in 1897 and nursed the gold-rush miners, mostly on his own, until he died in 1899. The town called him the Saint of Dawson. She would have been his most regular patient.
St Mary's Hospital, Dawson. No admissions yet.
The twenty-fourth of June, the feast of St John the Baptist and Québec’s national holiday: bonfires, blue-and-white flags, and everyone singing Gens du pays.
Newfoundland, Christmas: disguised visitors knock and ask "Any mummers ’lowed in?", and you have to guess who they are under the lace curtains and rubber boots.
Driving the back roads of Québec there’s a cross at the side of the road every few kilometres. She blesses herself at each one, with both hands on the wheel.
Selling a house? Bury a little statue of St Joseph upside down in the garden, facing the house, and it sells. Then dig him up and give him a place of honour. That’s the theory. The ground, however, is frozen.
Collect your stamps and your certificate. Mind the step.
One stamp for every corner of the shrine you visit. Tap a stamp to go back there.
Put your name on it. Print it. Put it in a frame, why not.