This bracelet rosary I bought for myself in Manaoag Church here in Pangasinan two Sundays ago. My daughter egged me on visiting the shrine of the miraculous Virgen Milagrosa de Manaoag, for want of spiritual upliftment before going back to school for the second semester. Also, she wanted to buy some religious items to give as tokens to her classmates who are going for a six-month internship in Beijing, China at the end of November.
Here are more items we bought:
Mini rosaries
Bracelet with crucifix for my mother who, at 86, still fancies wearing bead necklaces and bracelets. 🙂 And oh, that is my chubby wrist in picture by the way.
_________________________
I am not really a devout Catholic, but my daughter is. She religiously goes to church every Sunday and is in fact a very active member of the Filipino-Chinese Catholic Youth. Most of the time, she admonishes me: “Mama, bakit hindi ka nagsisimba?” (Mama, why don’t you want to hear mass?)
Not that I don’t want to. But I just can’t move my butt to go to church on Sundays, especially when I have to do the marketing and grocery shopping on these days. These tasks just stress me a lot because when I get home after shopping, I have to arrange everything in the cabinets and refrigerator. You see, I usually make it a point to have everything ready for cooking before storing them in the ref. This means marinating the pork chops; segregating the chicken in packs in such a way that one pack is good for one cooking; washing and draining the fish and so on, aside from cleaning the refrigerator and at the same time getting rid of expired left overs. Hence, by the time I finish, I am already too tired that I just want to sleep the whole afternoon.
But I do pray. I have a quiet time and place, known to nobody but me. And I have great trust in God.
I also recite the rosary. I believe in the intercession of the Blessed Mother, especially when someone in the family is ill.
Religious articles such as those in the above photos are just objects. Many non-Catholics question (or mock) the Catholics’ veneration of such objects. However I beg to disagree. For me, it is not the beads that I venerate when I say the Holy Rosary. It is not the wooden statue that I worship when praying before an image. To me, all these “objects” are merely symbols. And my faith is not on the symbol itself but on what the symbol stands for.
Live and let live. Peace I give to all.