Tag Archives: church

Ritual – Going to Church every Easter

Nationality: American
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA

My informant comes from a deeply religious family so Easter is an important holiday. They grew up celebrating it as a family and conducting the same rituals each year

“Each Easter my family and I go to our local church, receives the eucharist, and pray. We focuses on remembering Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, a belief that is central to what Easter means for us”

Rituals are a way for communities to reaffirm their shared beliefs, identity, and values through repeated actions. My informant’s Easter – going to church, receiving the eucharist, and praying – fits perfectly into this framework. These aren’t merely personal religious acts, but also serve as communal rituals which are an important part of Christian tradition. Celebrating with your community in this way has been passed down through generations. Receiving the eucharist is a rite of communion, both with God and with your faith-based community. It’s a performative ritual symbolic of the Last Supper, reenforcing Christian’s core belief in Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. Prayer during this time further deeps the ritual connection, serving as a collective and personal reaffirmation of faith.

Ritual – Christmas Eve

Nationality: American
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA

My informant is Catholic and his family makes a point to go to church every Christmas Eve and then have a family dinner

Pulled from a conversation I had with my informant:

“Every Christmas Eve we drive up to Pasadena to visit my grandma (grandpa is unfortunately not around anymore) and we all go to her church at 5pm. Then we have a family dinner at her house. We say grace and then everyone shares their favorite memory they had with someone in the room from the past year. Then we drive back home that night”

This Christmas Eve tradition is a great example of a family-based religious ritual that blends secular and sacred elements into a meaningful experience. This ritual is considered a “calendar custom” because of it’s tie to the holiday of Christmas. This ritual tradition reinforces shared values, communal identity, and connection across generations. Going to Mass on Christmas Eve is a formal religious ritual within Catholic tradition, serving as a reminder for the family of the sacred narrative of Christ’s birth. Folklorists would call this a “ritual performance” which is a symbolic act that makes this occasion distinct from the ordinary. After Mass, the family engages in a more domestic, intimate ritual centered around having dinner at Grandma’s house. Having a shared meal itself reflects the classic folklore structure of reinforcing social bonds and fostering kinship between family members. Saying grace is a continuation of the previous religious observance but now in the home space, adding a private ritual to the previous public one. A very meaningful part of this ritual then follows, with the sharing of favorite memories. This act is a personalized, reflective practice that serves to deepens the emotional bond between the people present at the dinner. Folklorists would call this a “narrative exchange”, an oral tradition that strengthens collective memory and honors individual experiences. The drive home is a shifting period, back into ordinary time, after a structured and meaningful experience. Overall, this tradition reinforces family bonds, religious identity, and storytelling across the generations.

El Padre Sin Cabeza

Nationality: American/Salvadoran
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego, CA
Language: English/Spanish

TEXT: “My mom was raised in Suchitoto, a municipality in El Salvador, and when we visited her side of the family, she pointed out a church, Iglesia Santa Lucia, and said, ‘That’s where they say El Padre Sin Cabeza walks at night.’ She told me the story of a priest who was punished for a sin long ago, and now he roams the town at night, headless, searching for peace. She said people hear church bells ring late at night, even when no one is making them ring. My cousins and I were always too scared to go near the church, even my older cousins didn’t want to explore the streets at night, since we were all scared of the legend. It seems like in our religious family, it wasn’t about seeing him but about what happens when you break your word or lose your way.”

CONTEXT: This memorate was shared by the informant, E, during a conversation about legends from his home country. E shared this story that his mother told him, rooted in the Salvadoran legend of El Padre Sin Cabeza, which is a very well-known legend that is passed down across generations, especially in smaller towns. Though the story did not involve a direct encounter with the legend, the legend shows how oral traditions and folklore are preserved and shared in different ways within families, especially in religious or culturally prevalent settings.

ANALYSIS: This is an example of how legends are passed down through family and tied to real places. While the intention of the story is kept the same, the interpretation changes as new people hear it and as it gets passed down through generations. In El Salvador, the tale of El Padre Sin Cabeza is well known, especially in smaller towns, but instead of telling it as a scary story, E’s mom shared it as part of their visits to her hometown, which gave the story a more meaningful interpretation. Even without seeing anything strange, the story shaped how E and his cousins behaved, avoiding the church and the streets and night, showing how legends can influence, not just through belief, but through family and memory.

Walking on Knees

Text:

S: “There’s a big one actually. They like do it in my dad’s hometown a lot and in a lot of Mexican hometowns where like there’s like a main cathedral or like church and that one has to do with like praying to God for like good fortune. So like whenever there is something you pray to God for like really, really, badly for. Like in terms of super superstitious, I know a lot of sick people have done this. Like ‘Oh God, like let this surgery go well’ or like chemo, for example, ‘Let this chemo go good and I’ll be cancer free in the next year’ and blah blah blah, like ‘Oh please God, I’d do anything!’ And once this happens, in terms of superstition. Once like God, I don’t want to say grants their wish, but like, you know, God wills whatever they prayed for to happen, they now have to walk on their knees to the church. So usually at the church there is this big like entrance way to the church and sometimes it starts ever further. Like you have to go crawl on your knees from the road like a mile or so away from the church, and the road is rocky so your knees are like busted, torn to shreds, and walk all the way to the alter where the Virgin Mary is and offer like a flower or light a candle of something, you know? Or that’s like a really big thing they’ve done in like my hometown. My dad actually did it himself but like here, when I was like younger he had a health scare I think, like ‘Please let this be good’ and once it came like it was ok, like he carried me, I was like four I think, he carried me in his arms and he crawled to the alter holding me. So that’s like a very big one.” (omitted a fair amount of “like”s)

Context:

S is a Mexican American born in Long Beach, California. His parents are from Mexico. S knows of this tradition through his parents, with some personal experience by his father as spoken above. The “hometown” spoken of towards the end of the text is El Sabino Guanajuato. S’s take on this tradition is that it’s religious, serious, and also represents faith in a sense. He also uses the term “superstitious thinking” from his psych class to describe it.

Interpretation:

This action is like praying but almost also like making a deal with God. It could be a luck ritual with the physical performance part of this ritual being the crawling/walking on knees to the alter in a church. According to my mom, my grandmother also did this when my uncle got drafted. He came home safely so my grandmother got on her knees and crawled to the alter. This ritual goes to show how religion and belief could also work with superstition to give luck (good luck/blessings in this case).

Star Tipping

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Graduate Student
Residence: Berkeley, CA
Performance Date: 2/24/23
Primary Language: English

Background

My best friend was raised Mormon, and all of the kids at his local Mormon sect would play “star tipping” in the field behind the church at night. He states that he doesn’t remember any significance to the practice, just that it was a game that they played. To star tip, he and the other youth at the church would pick a star in the sky and stare at it while spinning around until they fell. He is a college student, transgender, and of European descent. He left the church when he turned 18.

Text


SS: At the specific church building that we went to, there was a big field in the back and at night after a youth activity, sometimes we’d go out there and do star tipping.

SS: And so you just pick a star. Sometimes it happened to be an airplane, but you pick a star and you look at it and then you spin in circles. Well, it’s still looking at it until you fall over and all the youth would do it.

SS: And I don’t know anything more about it other than it was something that we did.

Analysis

This might just be a simple children’s game, but it is notable for the fact that it was a game shared amongst the entirety of the children among their sect, with a specific name for it. Looking online, there doesn’t seem to be much by way of “star tipping” aside from a few Tumblr posts from an ex-Mormon who mentions it in the tags.

Aside from “entertainment value,” this game may have been encouraged by the church as a way for the youth to connect with each other. Given the celestial cosmology of the Mormon faith, in which those in heaven occupy the “heavens,” this might have been a way to connect a game/practice with Mormon belief. Aside from that, the game may have been a way to pass time in the long, often boring late hours of Mormon seminary.