Monday, September 22, 2008

Scapulars for the family

Here are the family's scapulars. And for anyone who wears this garment of Mary, you will know just how easily they break and fall apart, medals fall off etc. We really needed 'indestructible' creations.

Finally last year I bought these beautiful scapulars (as seen above) from the States, all with different religious images. I carefully chose out each one for each family member...Sacred Heart for dh as we have great family devotion to the Sacred Heart. I chose the Our Lady of Guadalupe image, and if you have come here often enough, you know why! My oldest son chose St Francis as he is his confirmation saint. My oldest daughter chose Our Lady of Lourdes, due to her Marian devotion. My next daughter chose St Therese since she has had a devotion to her since she was 2years old. Then the two younger boys had St Joseph and St Michael, their name saints.
In this image, the scapular in the top half of the picture is after I've removed the original cord and added my own, the scapular in the bottom half is how they looked when I bought them.

Even though this new brand of scapular was stronger and sturdier than any other scapular we had previously owned, we found that we wore through the cord quick enough, so I cut off all the cords and bought a few meters of strong, flat cord and sewed them down the sides and under the scapular ends with very firm, small stitches, I could make the scapular's a little longer as well.


How I originally sewed on the medals

I had wanted to sew on my two most favoured religious medals to each scapular - the Miraculous Medal and the St Benedict Medal.

The St Benedict Medals were taken to Father for a special blessing (not the normal blessing Father would give) there is a special prayer that Father recites to make this a powerful exorcism medal.

I wanted each child to have a miraculous medal as we have a deep devotion to this most blessed medal, with it's companion prayer, "Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." In recent times the children and I made a Miraculous Medal Prayer Petition Mobile. This mobile was to be a visual reminder in the home for us to recite this little prayer often. But it was important that we all wear the miraculous medal, so I had decided to sew on the medals on the outside, like the image you see above.

The Miraculous Medal Prayer Petition Mobile.

The trouble is, as firmly as I sewed these medals on, they soon started disappearing off the scapulars...it happened to me and then I checked everyone else's scapulars and it was also happening to them.

What could I do?

Finally I worked out the answer.

I decided to carefully slit the back of each scapular as there is a space between the back and front. Then I carefully with small, firm stitches, sewed up the slit after I slid in a medal at each end.


Here is it all sewn up, you can hardly see where I have done it since I matched the cotton up better this time. Those medals are going nowhere!

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh Anne--You did a great job...I think I may need to follow your lead and do a bit of scapular reconstruction around here. THanks for the tips...and I love your prayer petition area. It is quite lovely.

Marilyn said...

Thank you so much Anne. I am going to read in more detail this weekend. Quick question - are the scapulars you bought wool?

Anne (aussieannie) said...

Marilyn, they are wool. But there is a way around it...I've seen scapulars that the bottom, retangular parts are encased in a plastic slip, probably because a wool allergy is not that uncommon. Also, Filipino scapulars are very interesting, some are encased in hard plastic, they are very small, the wool is inside...

Dawn said...

I love the idea of putting the medal INSIDE the scapular! Thanks for sharing!

Jamie Jo said...

I was meant to stumble across your blog...my husband's new scapular, (within a month) is already breaking and he said he's tired of buying them (they are like $8 now!)! And he mentioned he would just put them in his pocket!! Not if I can help it! It is just the cords that are worn out and break so easily, I will have to try finding some cord like you've sewed on, thanks for the idea!

jimmy jay said...

Good idea to make a "pocket" in the scapular...I have done that for medals, relics, etc. For sturdier wool scapulars with lovely images, try Angelic Scapulars, offered by the Holy Face Association (www.holyface.org) You can request the color and material of the bands when ordering a scapular. I wear the Precious Blood scapular, and request heavy white cotton bands, like shoelaces. They can be hand washed and if kept clean, they last for years!

Anne (aussieannie) said...

Thanks Jimmy for the link, I'll check it out!

Sweetness and Light said...

Beautiful as always Anne, thanks for all the great ideas!

Andrew Garcia said...

Oh wow these scapulars are very beautiful.

Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle said...

So beautiful, Anne!

God bless you!

Donna-Marie

OmNomsFitness said...

Anne, your site is beautiful in aesthetics and content! I'm definitely bookmarking your site. When I see sites like yours and realize there are so many devoted Catholics it makes me feel like we have a strong community. My dad has a strong devotion to Mary too. He's starting up a business that he hopes will help others pray the rosary more often. It's pretty cool because it takes all those pretty rosaries we have and then hangs and illuminates them. TheRosaryStation.com
Anyway, you have a great site and I look forward to reading your future posts!