I had to read the headline twice.
From CNS:
Pope’s chocolate egg heads to prison
By Bridget Kelly
Catholic News Service
Pope Benedict XVI admires his 551-pound chocolate Easter egg before donating it to a youth detention center in Rome. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters).
VATICAN CITY — During the pope’s Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square, a chocolate company in Northern Italy gave him a 551-pound chocolate egg. The massive, beautiful egg is hand-decorated and reaches more than seven feet high. The detailed egg not only includes various designs and small pink flowers, but also features the papal coat of arms.
The pope decided to donate the egg to the children living at a Rome detention center, Casal del Marmo Prison for Minors. The pope visited the prison back in 2007, meeting the detainees and giving them his blessing. The youths, including many immigrants and non-Catholics, said they were moved by the fact that a pope would take time to visit them. Before leaving, the pope also told the young people he wished he could stay longer, and promised to keep them in his prayers.
In 1996 the same chocolate company, Tosca, gave Pope John Paul II a 551-pound hand-decorated chocolate egg as well. This year’s egg was designed to initiate cheer, sharing, and to celebrate the Easter season, the company said.
During the Easter season in Italy, many people give chocolate eggs because the egg represents birth, renewal and is a sign of life. Many pastry shops produce grand, hand-decorated chocolate eggs but none are comparable to the company’s nearly three-ton eggs that are 16 1/2 feet tall!
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I could certainly find a home for 551 lbs. of chocolate…so it’s probably a good thing nobody gave it to me.
Incidentally, St. Alphonsus Liguori, as a tender, fatherly bishop and superior, would give his novices and seminarians sweets, to keep up their spirits.
Wow. Sometimes my kids think I run a prison for minors …. Send a hunk this way!
Miss Anita Moore, O.P. –
Lovely story about Dear Alphonsus. That reminds of the kindness of medieval abbots:
” The abbots took great care for the young novices, some who were mere boys; lights burned all night in passageways for those going to matins and afraid of the dark. Young Count Guido, brought up delicately with only silk or soft furs next to his skin was granted a dispensation at Cluny from wearing the usual coarse woolen vest.”
-Digby, MORES CATHOLICI Vol. 4, Pg. 217
Digdigby, that just goes to prove the extra little step that supernatural charity will always take, seeing to every detail and leaving nothing undone that can be done for the happiness of the beloved. This is certainly what God did for me, when He called me to be a lay Dominican. We mere mortals, left to our own devices, will never take that little extra step, because we always think we have already done enough. What a better place the world would be if everyone had a Catholic understanding of charity, and lived by it.
Thanks Miss Anita Moore,
A little extra step. You inspired me! I think I will go back now to be with my Lord “To watch with Him” tonight. At our Oratory the reserved Sacrament will be adored till midnight. Thank you!
Ditto on it is a good thing I was not given this. I probably will not get any chocolate, unless I buy it myself, as the only other chocoholic in the family is my mom, who is enjoying her own in Iowa. God bless the Pope.
Oh good grief. This reminds me that I didn’t buy any chocolate bunnies yet. There are “expected” candies in everyone’s baskets– peeps, jelly beans, m&ms– but normally everyone (which encompasses a vanful of children) also gets their own little chocolate bunny. Guess I know who’s hitting the drugstore today…
Oh my gosh-that is SOME EGG! Hope they had it refrigerated, so it wouldn’t melt between the time it left the Holy Father’s presence and arrived at the detention center. I bet the kids’ eyes were bugging out of their heads when they saw this coming!
Reminds me of a birthday cake that Blessed John Paul II was given for his birthday early in his pontificate. It was made out of marzapan, in the shape of St. Peter’s Basilica. The Holy Father did the ceremonial slice, then ‘ordered’ it to be distributed to orphans.
But what a cool ‘chunk’ of chocolate; if I ate that all once, I’d be ‘wound up’ from the caffeine that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night!
Oops-should have said, ‘all AT once’.
Another instance of ‘fingers getting ahead of brain’ and ‘read before hitting submit’.
Sigh…..big sigh….
Wow, that’s ONE BIG EGG