Catholic folk legends from before Vatican II

[DLT]

If anyone does have a real Jewish chicken soup recipe, I would appreciate having that one too. Of couse, we should be able to get one online by putting Jewish chicken soup in our search engine, also.

I loved the joke about all of us committing suicide during Holy Week. Some of us have quite a sense of humor.

 

[SacredHeartFan]

This ones true. Take eaither a pic of the Divine Mercy or Sacred Heart. Walk back a forth in front of it. He always watches you! It’s kinda creepy but very comforting. Anyone heard the one about digging on Good Friday? My great-granma said Jesus’s blood will sprout up!

 

[Ridgerunner]

This isn’t as good as some of the prior posts, but when my wife was in grade school the nuns told them that, on the side of the Titanic was painted, in large letters:

NOT EVEN GOD CAN SINK THIS SHIP

Of course, He showed them!

 

[Carolinagirl411]

This isn’t as good as some of the prior posts, but when my wife was in grade school the nuns told them that, on the side of the Titanic was painted, in large letters:

NOT EVEN GOD CAN SINK THIS SHIP

Of course, He showed them!

I’m not sure if it was written on the side of the ship but the designers and other people sure said it and it was printed in all the papers “unsinkable ship” and yes He did show them!

Sad all those people had to die…

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m not sure if it was written on the side of the ship but the designers and other people sure said it and it was printed in all the papers “unsinkable ship” and yes He did show them!

Sad all those people had to die…

No, it wasn’t written on the side of the ship. That was just one of those “nun myths”. For sure it was a horrible tragedy.

 

[HashemEchad]

This isn’t as good as some of the prior posts, but when my wife was in grade school the nuns told them that, on the side of the Titanic was painted, in large letters:

NOT EVEN GOD CAN SINK THIS SHIP

Of course, He showed them!

Oh wow, this is hysterical!!!

A few years ago, at a pro-life rally, I was told by a Traditionalist Catholic priest (of SSPX affiliation) that VERY SAME STORY!!

I bet those same nuns taught him that!

 

[catharina]

(I wasn’t sure where to post this, I hope this forum is alright.)

My late mother had been a Catholic as a child (she converted to Judaism in 1944). Hence, her only involvement with Catholicism was long before the modernizations.

When I used to ask her about her former faith, she told me many things, but also, she shared with me some of the folk legends (not sure what else to call them) she’d heard in Catholic school, and from family members, friends, etc. I’m curious to know if anyone else is also familiar with them, and if you know the origins of them, as well as what ethnic groups they started with (if any).

Here are the ones I can remember (DISCLAIMER: I do not believe in any of these, and my mother didn’t either…I’m just repeating what I was told):

1. Anyone who dies during Holy Week goes straight to heaven.
2. The reason Gypsies wander the earth is because they made the nails that crucified Christ.
3. It always rains on Good Friday, esp. during the hours of 12 noon and 3 PM
4. Jews wander the earth because they crucified Christ.

My heritage is Irish American and I’m a cradle Catholic. The same is true of my parents, their parents, etc… I’ve never heard any one of these myths - even as myths! The Irish had their own problems: finidng freedom to practice their faith, finding food to keep them alive, the usual hand-to-mouth stuff. Maybe they were too personally burdened to invent stories about other peoples.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh wow, this is hysterical!!!

A few years ago, at a pro-life rally, I was told by a Traditionalist Catholic priest (of SSPX affiliation) that VERY SAME STORY!!

I bet those same nuns taught him that!

Quite possibly they did. Nowadays, of course, if “modernized” nuns still taught school, the story would be that on the side of the ship was painted:

** EVEN THE MOTHER GODDESS CANNOT SINK THIS PATRIARCHAL, CLASS CONSCIOUS, FUEL GUZZLING, GLOBAL WARMING SHIP**

 

[HashemEchad]

Quite possibly they did. Nowadays, of course, if “modernized” nuns still taught school, the story would be that on the side of the ship was painted:

** EVEN THE MOTHER GODDESS CANNOT SINK THIS PATRIARCHAL, CLASS CONSCIOUS, FUEL GUZZLING, GLOBAL WARMING SHIP**

Sad, but true.

 

[peary]

Another round of Catholic myths -

To sell your house, bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your yard.

If you say a novena to St. Joseph for a particular intention and it is not answered, turn the statue around. Chances are, the intention will be answered!

 

[HashemEchad]

Another round of Catholic myths -

To sell your house, bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your yard.

If you say a novena to St. Joseph for a particular intention and it is not answered, turn the statue around. Chances are, the intention will be answered!

My maternal grandmother had a statue of St Anthony, and if he didn’t help her find her keys or whatever right away, she’d turn the statue to the wall to “shame him” into helping her!

You know, the “nun stories” (like the one about the Titanic) remind me of the “rabbi stories” that some Orthodox rabbis used to tell kids in Talmud Torah (Hebrew school), like the one my dad remembered being told…

That someone in a family had a heart attack, and it turned out when they checked the mezuzos on the doors, the Hebrew word for “heart” (layv) was partially rubbed out (in Judaism, you are supposed to have a sofer, or scribe, check the scroll inside the mezuzah periodically to make sure all the Hebrew words are still intact.)

 

[patrick457]

Another round of Catholic myths -

To sell your house, bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your yard.

If you say a novena to St. Joseph for a particular intention and it is not answered, turn the statue around. Chances are, the intention will be answered!

That reminded me of this parody…

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ahhhhh, let’s not be too quick to dismiss the St. Joseph and St. Anthony things.

My granddaughter is very devoted to St. Anthony. Whenever anybody in my extended family (including me) loses anything and just plain can’t find it, sometimes after days of searching, we ask her to pray to St. Anthony. Out of dozens and dozens of times, it has not failed to turn up the lost item very quickly. Not a single time, and never a delay of consequence. Guess I’m old-fashioned or something, but I believe it.

Never tried the St. Joseph statue thing, though.

 

[LilyM]

**But they didn’t; that’s the thing. The Jews had no say-so in Roman law. The Romans crucified Christ because He claimed to be God, and you couldn’t have that when you swore allegiance to the Roman emperor, who was a god himself in the Roman pantheon of gods. Groups of Jews brought the attention of Jesus’s claim to the Romans and this is what started the ball rolling. They painted him as a trouble-maker and political instigator.

And, again, the Creeds are very specific about who is to blame for the death of Christ: Pontius Pilate. The Jews are not mentioned.**

Nu-uh, the sign over Jesus’ head on the cross didn’t say ‘this is Jesus of Nazareth who claimed to be God’, instead it was ‘King of the Jews’.

See the Pantheon in Rome was full of statues of non-Roman Gods from all over the Empire. In fact in later years a statue of Christ Himself was put in there among them by pagan Romans. They weren’t really exclusivists in their worship, except with Christians because at particular times Christians themselves were labelled as troublemakers (critical of Rome) and perverted in their worship.

Jesus was executed because He spoke of being a king (or at least of having a kingdom) and the Romans couldn’t have THAT when Caesar was around. This is the significance of Pilate saying ‘you want me to crucify your King?’ and the crowd responding ‘we have no king but Caesar’. He didn’t give a stuff about whether Jesus claimed to be God.

 

[LilyM]

Another round of Catholic myths -

To sell your house, bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your yard.

If you say a novena to St. Joseph for a particular intention and it is not answered, turn the statue around. Chances are, the intention will be answered!

I’m studying a subject on Renaissance Italy at university at the moment - it seems that if images of saints (be it statues or painted images) were known not to answer prayers (as evidenced by a lack of candles in front of 'em as people stopped praying to 'em) they’d be removed or chipped off the wall and replaced - sometimes with the sort of verbal abuse one might give to a friend who had let you down.

 

[DLT]

Even the late, great Archbishop Sheen said that every one who has sinned, which is all of us, helped kill Jesus Christ.

 

[Zooey]

OK, I have thought of a couple old stories…
One is that when it snows suddenly out of a clear blue sky,it means that Mary is washing her blankets in Heaven. (This one is from Holland…I heard it in Dutch as a little girl).
The other one is an Irish belief that if more than one person is buried in the same graveyard on the same day, the first one goes to Heaven immediately; the other[others] has to wait. Sometimes, I have heard, there have been some problems with mourners pushing past each other, to get their relative buried first!!

 

[peary]

Originally Posted by **peary **
*But they didn’t; that’s the thing. The Jews had no say-so in Roman law. The Romans crucified Christ because He claimed to be God, and you couldn’t have that when you swore allegiance to the Roman emperor, who was a god himself in the Roman pantheon of gods. Groups of Jews brought the attention of Jesus’s claim to the Romans and this is what started the ball rolling. They painted him as a trouble-maker and political instigator
And, again, the Creeds are very specific about who is to blame for the death of Christ: Pontius Pilate. The Jews are not mentioned. *

Nu-uh, the sign over Jesus’ head on the cross didn’t say ‘this is Jesus of Nazareth who claimed to be God’, instead it was ‘King of the Jews’.

And who put it there? PILATE. When the Jews objected, Pilate brushed their complaints aside and said, “What I have written is written.” It was PILATE who ordered it written, not the Jews.

Jesus was executed because He spoke of being a king (or at least of having a kingdom) and the Romans couldn’t have THAT when Caesar was around. This is the significance of Pilate saying ‘you want me to crucify your King?’ and the crowd responding ‘we have no king but Caesar’. He didn’t give a stuff about whether Jesus claimed to be God.

To be a ‘King’ in those times (and afterwards) meant being a god. The Jews also despised Herod because of his personal heritage; they did not consider him neither a king nor a Jew. And it was a group of Jews who yelled “We have no king but Caesar!” It wasn’t the entire Jewish population. And you just proved my point - the Jews did not put Jesus to death. The Romans did. And it is explicitly stated in the Church’s early creeds that it was Pilate: "He (Christ) suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried (under Pilate)."

 

[mercygate]

No, it wasn’t written on the side of the ship. That was just one of those “nun myths”. For sure it was a horrible tragedy.

Ah! Nun myths! One of the ways the good Sisters had of bringing home the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was to tell the little first communicants not to chew the host because the baby Jesus would bleed!

O dear. I wonder how many used that as an excuse for losoing their faith?

 

[MarthaMartha]

It’s not just Mainers who have M’s on their heads. Tabbies have M’s. Some tabby mixes have an M and no other stripes at all.

Actually, I read somewhere a long time ago that all cats are tabby cats with M’s on their heads, even solid color cats! I didn’t believe it until I acquired a black cat, and when you see her in natural daylight, she is actually very dark brown with black stripes.