See preceding page for earlier posts today, 10/9/10.
We can never get enough of stories like this...
Papal blessing celebrates
the Church volunteerism
of a Texas hot dog vendor
By Matthew Waller
October 8, 2010 at 1:36 p.m.
SAN ANGELO, Texas — The Pope has blessed a humble San Angelo hot dog vendor. And the applied-for blessing came in the mail.
Jim Riley, who received the blessing, said the tube sent to him from the Vatican contained more than a certificate rolled up inside. It contained a history of his life with the Church.
“It’s something that you’ve spent your whole life in the Church, and a blessing like this is really remarkable,” Riley said.
Riley said that people often get the blessing to commemorate a special event, but his decision to apply came as a result of wanting to celebrate time volunteered in his community.
He said he has worked with the Boys and Girls Club, the Lions Club and has volunteered for the Red Cross. He said he has helped get companies to donate food and drinks for Christmas celebrations as well.
“To the Catholic it means a lot,” Riley said. “I don’t want to sound proud or boastful, but it’s an acknowledgement from the Church, it’s something special. They’re not given out all the time.”
Riley said he requested the blessing through his church, Holy Angels.
He said the process took about three months and that he finally received the blessing a few weeks ago.
“He is being recognized as a Catholic layperson,” Holy Angels priest, the Rev. Charles Greenwell, said. “It doesn’t come up all that often. He wanted one, so I had no problem requesting one.”
Riley said the requirement for the blessing is to be a practicing Catholic. He said that otherwise he had to fill out paperwork, and Greenwell said there is a clerical fee for all the processing.
“It’s legitimate,” Greenwell said. “I have requested papal blessings for individuals before. Every Catholic should want to be worthy of having a papal blessing.”
Riley said he is the first in his family to have ever gotten the papal blessing.
He said he comes from a long line of Roman Catholic family.
Riley said the blessing is particularly important amid a culture that seems to be less and less religious.
“Nowadays, there are people who discount religion,” Riley said. “I don’t discount religion. It plays a very unique role in society.”
Bishop Michael Pfeifer, head of the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo, said that even when people mediate blessings, the Pope being the highest mediator in the Catholic Church, all blessings ultimately come from God.
Pfeifer said he gets about one request per week in his 39-county diocese.
“When they have special events or anniversaries, we’re happy to apply for that, asking God’s blessing upon them,” Pfeifer said.
Pfeifer said a blessing is a request for God’s favor in a special way on a person, event or thing, invoked through prayer.
The certificate itself is hand-painted calligraphy on sheepskin with the papal seal and a signature.
“It’s very pretty,” Greenwell said.
The papal blessing will join a host of other plaques for honors that Riley has received, such as a certificate of recognition from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for work in the military, and a plaque from the Muscular Dystrophy Association for sponsoring a YMCA fundraising event.
Riley said he has lived in San Angelo for about a decade.
“We all need a blessing. We all need a prayer,” Riley said. “Getting this is something that gives you a little bit of a spiritual boost.”
I was privileged to receive a similar papal blessing from John Paul II - one that was requested for me by our ambassador to the Vatican when I was part of a delegation that had an audience with the Pope back in 1979. However, it is a generic blessing, not for anything I've done, but simply as a Catholic requesting the Pope's blessing. The document is on heavy paper and very classy. with gold-embossed highlights (mine has a 'landscape' format different from Riley's, and the Holy Father's photograph is smaller)- one's name is inscribed on it in appropriate calligraphy, and best of all, the Pope's signature is real, not a facsimile. I'd reproduce it here, but it's on the wall next to the bedroom altar in my house in the Philippines. So I do own a couple of John Paul II relics (classified as 'third class' because he only touched the objects) - the signed blessing, and a book (in a Spanish edition, curiously) of his Lenten spiritual exercises for the Curia when he was a cardinal, which he handed to me with a rosary as mementoes of that first visit. I lost the rosary 20 years later, when my purse was picked in, of all places, St. Peter's Square. BTW, come to think of it, applying for a written papal blessing would be the best way to have the Pope's autograph!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/10/2010 16:53]