I’m cleaning up some old boxes from my late mother-in-law’s house. She was a devout Catholic and I am not, and I’m having trouble figuring out what this is:
I’ve cleaned it up and it seems to be silver, but may not be real silver. Googling points a bit to it being a pyx, which I’d never heard of, but that’s possible - my MIL cared for her mother at home for years and might have been transporting consecrated hosts to her.
But I have no idea what that is inside. Ashes? Decayed something? Incense? It smells nice, but not strongly fragrant.
The box is hinged, the bottom is rounded, and there’s no latch or finding that would make it useful as a pendant.
The stuff inside looks very unlike cremation ashes. Catholics now allow cremation, but forbade it as recently as 1963.
It looks like wax. We had a box that was kept in our attic, which got pretty hot in the summer. When I opened it, I discovered that it contained a bullet-like container, a crucifix, and some plastic-like substance that “glued” the rest together. It turned out to be an “Extreme Unction Kit” – a Crucifix, a container of holy oil or water, and a candle, which had melted and flowed to become the “plastic” holding it all together.
My guess is that this was maybe a candle, but it got melted in hot weather and flowed together to fill the container completely.
My husband is guessing that it’s Ash Wednesday ashes inside (it does seem like ashes), but I’m not sure why my MIL would have them. Maybe a priest left the container at the house during a visit.
Was she a lay minister? I grew up Catholic, and IIRC, lay ministers could apply ashes to the foreheads of Catholics, and perform other rituals. Maybe she had the ashes from a time she was taking communion and ashes to someone who was unable to attend Ash Wednesday mass.
I would have thought it was a pyx, used to carry the Host to shut-ins, because the image on the lid is from the institution of the Eucharist at the last supper, when St John laid his head on Jesus’s chest: John 13:23-25 (plus the bread and the cup)
Yep, holy oil. My parents had one. Way back in the old days Catholic school kids were taught how to do an emergency baptism and how to give last rights - at least we were taught, might not have been universal
It does seem the right size for that, and she did care for her mom, and I’m just remembering, also her husband, at home for years before each of them died.
I love how you matched the image on the front to its use. Thank you so much!
It does seem the right size for that, and she did care for her mom, and I’m just remembering, also her husband, at home for years before each of them died.
I love how you matched the image on the front to its use. Thank you so much!
800 silver is indeed 80% percent silver; it is sometimes called “continental silver,” because it used to be a pretty common formulation for silver items made in Germany, Austria, and other areas in central Europe.
Probably some Ash Wednesday ashes. Anyone who is trained to bring the Host to the homebound could also be one of the lay administrators of ashes on Ash Wednesday, so she probably brought some home for her parents. A pyx would be the right size for it. The ashes are made from the burned palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, moistened with holy water.
By the way pyxes are in common use by laypeople who bring the Eucharist to the homebound, in fact I think I might still have mine somewhere. I got it when I used to go the nursing home after Mass. It isn’t silver.
You know what’s really cool? The sick call crucifix. It hung on your wall like any normal crucifix, but secretly held candles, oil and/or holy water. Just slide off the cover and it instantly transformed into a sickbed shrine.
