The Ancient Modern
Ritual / Joshua Alan Sturgill
On the Feast of Saint Charitina, it was always customary
for the village children to steal the ribbons and earrings
from their mothers’ dressing tables (which have been left
for them to take) and hide them among the family Icons.
Then, mothers exclaim about the theft, and fathers pray
the Prayer to Saint Charitina, which recounts all
her courage and her sufferings, and how she helped
the Christians find the food and possessions taken
from them by the Romans, even while Charitina herself
was being taken to the fire. This is how children begin
to learn the goodness of God and the fidelity of Saints:
not, of course, in earrings and holidays, but in the joy
of their mothers’ joy, and in the power of their fathers’
voices—a marriage of suddenness and permanence—
which only old faith and old walls can fully understand
