My sorting continues.
Among the small things I have rediscovered are the Cardinal Zen keychain.
And then I found my long lost favorite pyx. Very nice.
They don’t make them like that anymore, I’m afraid.
I am still waiting for more offers on the Owl Lamps. The window will be closing on these pretty soon.
That is a beautiful pyx. Most of the ones I see at the local Catholic supply place are just ugly. Didn’t they also used to come with a pouch to be worn around the neck? People don’t seem see anything wrong with sliding them into pockets with their precious Contents. How awful to think of somebody forgetting about It, and then letting It go through the laundry.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pyx, at least not up close so I could see any design. The mention of ugly pyxes reminds me of a tabernacle in a local church that looks for all the world like a toaster oven. The one shown is beautiful, though.
Even in churches that have very few liturgical abuses, one can sometimes see parishioners who intend to bring the Eucharist to a sick family member approach the priest at the end of mass, receive a consecrated Host, and place the Host into a tissue and then into a pocket. I try to console myself by hoping that the tissue is a genuine Kimberly-Clark Kleenex brand tissue rather than an inferior knock-off, and by reminding myself of the wise words spoken by a priest in Boston, “Jesus knew the risks he was taking when He instituted the Eucharist.”
It seems to me that a well-designed and well-crafted pyx is an ideal gift for a person of taste and means to make to the local parish.
I crocheted a little bag from white and gold cotton for my pyx. I wear it around my neck on a cord when taking communion to my mom. The pyx itself is plain and rather tinny feeling.
How much for the pyx?
Interesting that this should come up today. I am on vacation somewhere “up north”And my Aunt was taking the Sacred Host to my other Aunt who was home-bound .She had sent away for a very beautiful pyx , compleet with a velvet pouch on a cord and had it blessed by one of our familys favorite priest friends. I found it nescessary to explain to my children in the back seat that this was not the usual ride home from Mass and that we should be quiet and prayerful until said Aunt had recieved holy communion and then some. I make a homemade sticker of a pyx for my students in catechism ,and have found that it is one item that they are fascinated by.A great discussion starter.
Making pouches is a very simple craft project, but special good materials are not outside the price range for anybody, because the amount of fabric needed is so small. I’d never heard that pyxes should have pouches, but it seems like a service project to make really nice pouches for the distributors’ pyxes would be pretty easy for all sorts of parish organizations.
(And it would raise awareness of respect for the Real Presence. Also, it would put some peer pressure on distributors to use the pouches, human nature being what it is.)
Quaeritur:
Isn’t the pyx meant to be used by a priest bringing the eucharist to the shut ins? I think it is very kind of family members to do this, but I believe, and stand to be corrected if, that the priest should be administering the sacrament?
And the pyx is exquisite. Our sacred items should not look like tupperware and our liturgical books should not look like telephone books or hallmark cards.
It is because beauty is associated with transcendence that is attacked, and nothing brings death to the soul more quickly than banality.