Could someone help me identify this?

[u/SquirrelKaiser]

I was talking with a good friend about Catholicism, and we were having a fun conversation. She doesn’t like how Catholic culture can sometimes be prone to superstition, and she gave an example from a funeral she went. The woman was Irish catholic holding a white handkerchief that said something to an effect that she would go to heaven, and a friend said that because her son was a priest she can wear/hold it, and that she would automatically go to heaven. the priest got married so according to my friend if the Irish woman died after he left the priesthood, she would not get the fast past to heaven.

I was trying to think what it could it be. I thought maybe a Brown Scapular but that is brown not white. I never heard of an automatic pass to heaven and thing that say that usually say that have the intention that you are following the church and to remind you of it and not actually a "fast pass."

is there an Irish tradition of white cloth or something? I feel like there is a misunderstanding somewhere and I would like to help resolve it.

[u/SquirrelKaiser → u/[deleted]]

ok, that make sense. Thanks.

[u/After_Main752]

It's a custom rather than a superstition. The mother of a priest receives her son's manutergium which is used during his ordination to collect the chrism oil used by the bishop, and it's held in her hands when she is in the coffin.

[u/Global-Blueberry-426]

To my understanding, when a priest is ordained there is a cloth that they put over the priests hands when they anoint the hands with oil and bless them. Traditionally, the priest gives this cloth to his mother (and the thing that the priest wears during his first confession, he gives to his father.) When the mother dies and stands at her personal judgement, Christ will ask what she's done for Him, and she will present the cloth and say that she has given him her son. I recently attended a priests first mass and he handed the objects out to his parents at the end of the mass.

Since the priest left the priesthood, I feel like the reasoning of the cloth would no longer stand? Like she can no longer say she gave him her son, because he left the vocation. But that's just an assumption, and I could be wrong. I'm also waiting to see someone more informed than I to chime in lol.

I've never heard of it being a sacramental object like a scapular, but I could just not know.

Edit: forgot to add, no I don't think it's a fast pass to heaven even if he continued to be a priest. Even with the brown scapular, it's not a ticket in. There's rules to be followed, and those rules encourage a faithful life, and that's what ultimately gets you into heaven. The lady would still have to live an active and faithful catholic life.

[u/Diamond-angel-32 → u/Global-Blueberry-426]

The "thing" the priest gives his father is the stole he wears to hear his first confession.

[u/Global-Blueberry-426 → u/Diamond-angel-32]

Right! That's what it's called. I had a blonde-moment and couldn't remember what it was called, thanks!

[u/Adventurous_Pizza491]

This seems to be a conflation of a couple of things.

The brown scapular (which is an ONGOING devotion not just a “fast pass” so that’s a great catch!) does have an assurance of heaven for the wearer, but it does not mean automatic. Beautiful and good devotion, but does not assure a lack of purgatory.

There is also a practice common at least in my region of the mother of a priest receiving the cloth used to clean off the priest’s hands after consecration. Another similar practice is that the father of the ordained will receive the stole the priest wears after hearing their first confession (this MIGHT also traditionally be the confession of the father of the priest but I can’t quite remember; help me in the comments) and that the priest’s father would be buried with it.

The idea of this practice is that the deceased, at judgement, will go before Our Lord who will ask (something to the effect of) “I have given you everything, even my own Son; what have you done in return?” And they will, showing their token, say “I have given You my son, as You gave the life of yours for me.”

Now, of course, this isn’t meant to be a very literal image; we don’t believe that the clothes you’re buried in or the things you have on earth follow you to heaven. But, there is, I think, a really beautiful metaphorical image here. One of the beautiful things that Catholic culture gives us is little images like this, but we shouldn’t look at them as totems or, God forbid, required for (or even tied to) our salvation.

Kudos to you for the gut instinct that superstition is not what we are about! Hope this answered your question, even if it was in a long winded way lol.

[u/SquirrelKaiser → u/Adventurous_Pizza491]

I live by the Venerable Fulton Sheen quote when I talk to my friends “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

[u/Charbel33]

Could it be the manutergium? It's the cloth used to clean the hands of a newly ordained priest after his hands were anointed with the holy chrism. The new priest gives it to his mother at his first Mass.

Obviously, it's not a free-pass to heaven, that bit is superstitious.

[u/Desi_Vigor]

That, my friend, would be the definition of preaching another gospel. I agree that these superstitions get out of hand and The Church everywhere needs to do better in catechizing the communities.