For those of you out there who are parents, as I now am, I thought that this was something good to pass along:

THE PARENTAL BLESSING: In an address before the sixteenth annual convention of the National Catholic Conference on Family Life in 1949, the Rt. Rev. Archabbot Ignatius Esser, O.S.B., recalled an incident that was very striking. He said that several years previously there was a headline in our Catholic papers which read, “Bishop Kneels for Mother’s Blessing.” He continued, “It was the Most Reverend F. T. Roch, D.D., Bishop of Tuticurin, India. He met his mother at the railroad station and there, in the presence of a multitude of people, he `knelt before his mother to receive her blessing, and the grand old lady placed her wrinkled hands on the head of her illustrious son and blessed him’.”

Many of our fathers and mothers do not know that they have this privilege. In our times, especially in this country, the custom has fallen into disuse. This is one custom which by all means should be fostered. There should be no difficulty in reintroducing it. Young parents will find that, if the practice is started early in their family life, there will be no trouble in keeping it up. And the parents of older families will surely not refuse to bless their children, even if grown-up, if they ask the blessing of them.

Continue reading

Back in the good old days, the Cornell Society for a Good Time used to meet fairly regularly at a local Ithaca church to pray the Stations of the Cross. Though our Mass options in Ithaca were grim, we were blessed in at least one way: we did have a rather nice old church in the downtown (just a short block away from my old apartment), and it had not been entirely wreckovated by the reformers. The parish itself was not the sort to encourage traditional devotions. But on Friday mornings after Mass the church was nearly empty, except for a contingent of elderly people who would come to pray. (I believe a local retirement home provided transportation for any residents who wished to do this on Friday mornings. Anyway, we would see some of the same faces there week after week.) These devout souls seemed only too delighted to see a group of young Catholics praying their Stations, and so the practice continued on a moderately regular basis for some years. When we didn’t have an organized group, I would sometimes walk over and do the prayers on my own at some convenient time.

I would like to continue this practice. However, in my present place of residence, I have no access to a Catholic church on Friday mornings. So I was wondering: do people ever do this devotion in their homes, simply by reading the relevant prayers? Is this encouraged? Are there any other do-at-home Friday devotions that people sometimes use?