Friday, September 5, 2008

Hispanic Festival

Ahoy, my readers!

At last I took a break from my homework mountain. I thought I had a lot of homework with both community college and co-op. Ha! I was wrong. You haven't seen homework until you get up at 6:30am, go to sleep between 12:30 and 1am and do nothing but go to classes, do homework, and grab food inbetween.

Tonight I went to the Grand Rapids Hispanic Festival with the multicultural program I'm in. Since most girls in my hall are in that program about seven girls (mostly internationals) and I formed a group and traversed the festival together.

I discovered a very interesting aspect of Hispanic vending: about half of the items are Roman Catholic paraphernali roughly divided into crucifixes and Virgin Marys. That is definitely a good place to get cheap crucifixes! I found a very interesting plain piece of "jewelry" (if jewelry is an appropriate word) which I couldn't resist purchasing at the cost of five dollars. It is a plain wooden cross on the top of which is a dove. At the bottom sits a chalice with a wafer above it.

I've been trying to figure out the theology of the symbol. On one hand (and the assumption I bought it on) the cross could be a beautiful confession of the real presence and the potency of the Blessed Sacrament. On the other (which only just occurred to me), could it be a Roman Catholic statement of the sacrifice of the mass? I'm not sure. At any rate, the cross is very cool and I might have amused a few of my friends by taking such a long time viewing rosaries and crosses.

End of disorganized post. Good Night!

No comments: