A great anecdote

My friend the great p.p. of Blackfen, about to celebrate the parish’s patronal feast, His Hermeneuticalness the mighty Fr. Finigan, has a great anecdote about the late and lamented Michael Davies.  Be sure to read Fr. Finigan’s whole entry, which has all sorts of great anecdotes:

I remember an experiment that Michael used to run with his class of 11 year old juniors. At the end of term, he would leave several piles of holy cards on his desk and simply tell the children that they could take whichever ones they wanted. Some of the cards had traditional devotional pictures of the Sacred Heart, the Crucifixion, or Our Lady; others (in equal numbers) were the sort that had come into vogue in the late 1960s with trees, flowers or snowscapes overlaid with a meaningful verse from scripture or some other source. He would chuckle and tell us that the children took most of the traditional ones but left the modern ones behind.

Ex ore infantium.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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4 Comments

  1. Ezra says:

    The Society of St Pius X have made available, free of charge, all three volumes of Michael Davies’ Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre. Makes for fascinating reading in these days of rumored reconciliation…!

  2. APX says:

    I found my old children’s Catholic books while I was packing in August. As I was going through them, I found my old St. Joseph picture books with EF Mass pictures far more visually appealing than the new age modern Catholic picture books I acquired. To tell you the truth, I don’t want to give those away. I want to keep them to give to my kids, should I be so fortunate.

  3. contrarian says:

    Great entry on a great man, and a great anecdote about the cards.

    The story of the 11-year-olds and the prayer cards reminds of me of my brief time at a certain Catholic college in central Minnesota occupied by Benedictine monks. This particular school had in recent times built a rather ghastly modern church, and then turned their older church into a rather largish and and open admissions office and welcome area. This older church, whilst transformed, still maintained many of its original, gorgeous traits, including the awe-inspiring image of the Pantocrator on the domed ceiling. At the time, I wasn’t Catholic, and didn’t know much about aesthetics or what have you (being but seven years older than those 11-year-olds). But I knew that I loved studying in that welcome area.

  4. irishgirl says:

    ‘Ex ore infantium’ indeed! Those kids were no dummies!
    Great anecdote about Michael Davies!
    I didn’t know that ‘His Hermeneuticalness’ knew Mr. Davies! Very cool if he did!

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