Tag Archives: catholic

Ghost of a Nun

Text: “Okay so, I went to an all-girls Catholic school that was apparently extremely haunted. I went to middle school there as well, and the middle school was on the third floor of this Catholic school and it used to be the old boarding school and the dorms used to be upstairs. The third floor is right next to the belltower. So, there’s this story that there was this nun in the 1900s who got pregnant, and because obviously when you’re a nun you’re not allowed to be pregnant, she jumped off the belltower. People would say they could see her shadow in the belltower at night and there were several girls who also saw another ghost who used to go to the school, and several people reported seeing penny loafers that just disappeared underneath the stall in the girl’s third floor bathroom.”

Context: A school in El Paso, Texas, but both her parents are Mexican and she grew up spending time in both El Paso and Mexico. She was raised Catholic and speaks both Spanish and English.

Analysis: A’s ghost story might be meant to serve as a cautionary tale for the young and impressionable girls that attended A’s school. Catholicism often preaches very strict views on homosexuality and female sexuality, specifically celebrating women who choose to wait until marriage to have sex. Catholic nuns and priests are thought to be in a covenant with God and when they take their vows become celibate. A’s school ghost did not follow her vows and faced the consequences. Moreover, those who commit suicide cannot technically be buried in a Catholic graveyard with their family where the land has been blessed by a priest. Therefore the nun in becoming pregnant set her fate, and in her suicide permanently separated herself from God, so she suffers in the form of a ghost. Ghosts are primarily outside of the canon of Catholicism, although it is common in many churches to light a candle for your ancestors or in the earlier days of the Catholic church to tithe or donate money in order to reduce your ancestors time in purgatory for your sins. 

King Cake

Text (traditional foods/folk belief)

“I bought King Cake one year. I thought it was just going to be a slice, but it was big enough for multiple people.”

Context 

My informant has attended the Mardi Gras parade twice and tried King cake once when she went with friends.

Q: “What is King Cake?”

A: “King Cake is a large type of cake in a circular shape but hollow in the middle almost like a rope that is decorated in icing and sugar of the Mardi Gras colors: green, gold, and purple. It typically has a tiny toy baby in the center of it that represents baby Jesus and is a symbol of a year of good luck and prosperity to whoever finds it in their slice”

Analysis

King cake during the celebration of Mardi Gras is a collective ritual most people participate in to celebrate and participate in the cultural experience as well as hoping to find the plastic baby looking forward to prosperity in the coming year. Stemming from Frazer’s ideas of belief and sympathetic magic, this shows how non-scientific belief has an influence on the natural world implying good luck and warding off bad energy. It’s a form of homeopathic magic as “like produces like” or finding the baby Jesus produces good luck and prosperity. This custom is rooted in European traditions dating back to the Epiphany, a Christian holiday representative of the Magi visiting baby Jesus. Originally, a baby Jesus figure was hidden in bread and whoever found it would be king or queen for the day. After the spread of this tradition in New Orleans, bakers would add their own spin on the ritual varying decorations and selling the cakes during Mardi Gras season. The cake is very large and meant to be shared and eaten with others as a community bonding ritual that brings people together in celebration and festivities reinforcing communal cultural identity. This is an example of the ways folklore changes through time based on the cultural context of a community. Steering away from medieval societal structures, the context in which the toy baby Jesus was used changed from an aristocratic nature to an uplifting optimistic symbol of luck and prosperity brought by the baby Jesus. Also exemplary of religious folklore, this practice is a for Catholic belief to be communally shared, and enjoyed by festival participants bringing people together to cherish and understand more about the religious custom and how it has evolved through time.

Mardi Gras

Text (festival)

“A week-long festival celebrating New Orlean’s culture and heritage.”

Context

My informant has lived in Louisiana for 4 years and attended the Mardi Gras festival two times.

Q: “What exactly is Mardi Gras?”

A: “The celebration originated in New Orleans and people travel from all across the country to celebrate Mardi Gras here in New Orleans. Basically, it’s a week-long festival/series of parades that happens at the beginning of January lasting until Fat Tuesday right before Ash Wednesday.”

Q: “What is the significance of the celebration?”

A: “It’s essentially a ‘last hoorah’ before lent so it’s the last time you indulge, drinking, eating sweets, especially king’s cake, before you give it up for lent.”

Analysis

Mardi Gras is a French phrase meaning “Fat Tuesday” translated into English. This comes from the custom of using up all of the fats in the home before lent in preparation for fasting and abstinence. Important families will create floats and dress up in extravagant glittery costumes driving the float around the city throwing out beads, coconuts, candy, etc. There is jazz music, performers, and people in costumes. New Orleans has a lot of French culture stemming from the Louisiana Purchase which gave the United States new land, including New Orleans. People typically dress up in the Mardi Gras colors of purple, gold, and green. People not coming from “important” New Orleans families will typically just wear comfortable clothes aligning with the Mardi Gras colors and walking shoes as they’ll be outside walking a lot. Different parades are happening throughout the week at different times and the streets are filled with people in celebration. The celebration marks the beginning of Lent, a yearly 40-day fasting period leading up to easter. This is exemplary of the connection between festivals and yearly cycles/the calendar as well as religious folklore. Festivals are often symbolic of cyclical time and the calendar year as Lent is a practice occurring yearly in Christian communities and the festival serves as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Christian practices and beliefs. Larry Danielson, a religious folklorist explores these themes of religious rituals and practices including communal groups participating in religious originating festivals representative of shared belief. Mardi Gras specifically has Catholic roots and people use festivals as a way to come together and provide a more deep appreciation and nuanced understanding of religious tradition.

“Hail Holy Queen, please let this light turn green”

Text: “Hail Holy Queen, please let this light turn green”

Background: A is an American catholic who is very devout and prayerful in her daily life. She often incorporates prayer into everyday tasks, even when driving her car to the grocery store.

Context: A says this little prayer every time she’s late, gets stuck at a pesky red light, and is desperately trying to get to her destination on time. She believes that it’s a grounding and wholesome little prayer that helps her regain patience, but also calls upon the Holy Mother (Mary) to enact her wish.

Analysis: This little short prayer demonstrates how many Christians like to call upon God or religious icons to help them through their every day lives. For a Catholic like A, calling upon Mary demonstrates the role that Jesus’s mother plays in the Catholic faith tradition. Although not worshipping or praying to her as a divine being, Catholics call upon Mary as a guiding force and role model. This directly contrasts the traditions of Protestant faiths, who do not view Mary in a similar light, but as a humble woman and historical figure in the Biblical epic. Therefore, they would not call upon her guidance in such moments throughout the day. A’s little prayer, like most Catholic prayers, highlights the importance of biblical icons, like Mary, to the faith tradition.

Bringing home a wolf (humorous proverb)

Main Piece:

JK (50s, american-polish, father): “It’s like buying a wolf and then freaking out when it attacks your kids!”

Background:

The informant is my dad remarking over the phone in response to me explaining how I was upset about not being able to finish working on a multitude of projects outside of school. When asked about where he heard the phrase, he pointed to Catholic school and the sort of lamb/wolf proverbs that he was exposed to there. He also claimed it to have similarity to the saying “bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

Context:

The phrase was said in an effort to make me laugh and bring light to the worry I’d been expressing (and it did get me to do so). It’s as if to say “well, what were you expecting to happen?”

Thoughts:

The proverb itself is innately very dark in nature, and yet hits that sort of shock humor coupled with a simple realization. The idea of having your children eaten is a terrible concept, but the ignorance/gullibility of the person who would do such is. An added factor to the proverb is the in the word choice of “buying” said wolf. There is a certain action in paying for the beast that ends up screwing you over, which bolsters and reveals the main lesson of the saying. It asks the recipient of said advice to be more pragmatically present in the day to day; to not hyperextend their own capabilities.