Blessings, not curses

Post for August 10, 2009

A couple of years ago I was visiting the island nation of Saint Lucia, where I got a chance to meet a young girl and chat a bit about her life: school, friends, that sort of thing. At one point she said something that made me realise that I really was in another culture. We were talking about her Catholic faith, and I wondered if it was hard to be a good Catholic in her culture. So she gave an example how being a person of faith made a difference: one of her schoolmates had done something to hurt her, and she explained that while she was tempted to light a devil candle against her, she didn’t because she knew Jesus would not want her to.

Devil candle? What the heck is that?

It turns out that Saint Lucia has its own native version of voodoo, and this traditional “religion” includes magical practices that allow you to curse someone. One of these practices is the lighting of what are basically cursed votive candles, calling upon evil forces to hurt the other person.

Wow. Good for her for not lighting one.

But this is also found closer to home. Last December I celebrated Christmas up north in Saint Augustine and Pakuashipi, the latter being an Innu reservation. The woman I visited with other there said how many people have abandoned Christianity and gone back to the traditional religion. The thing is, because the shaman not only has the power to bless, but also to curse, many of them now live in fear.

Fast forward to now: just recently I received a mass intention request. It was from a woman whose husband is having an affair. The mass intention was for the other woman.

In other words, the offended party is asking for blessings, not curses, for the other person. No devil candles, no shamanistic curses. No living in fear.

This is yet another reason why I love being Catholic. While we have a book of blessings, we simply don’t have a book of curses. We don’t believe in personal revenge of any sort, particularly the spiritual: that sort of justice belongs to God alone.

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