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one sister asked me if I was trying to be Jackie Kennedy

Jackie Kennedy didn't wear mantillas to church -- she wore headscarves, folded into a triangle and tied under her chin -- which our nuns considered hardly one step above the Kleenex girls sometimes pinned to their heads to make an unexpected visit. (She may have started to wear mantillas at one point, because there was a lot of negative talk about the headscarves, but I don't remember.)

On the day Sister asked me the Jackie Kennedy question, I happened to be wearing a pink linen dress with cap sleeves. I suppose it could be said that my DRESS was Jackie-esque, but I was not wearing a headscarf or a mantilla as JKO did, I was wearing a doilie (I guess the real name is a chapel cap).

Your rememberences of growing up Catholic in the 50's and 60's are much like my own. I seem to be 5-10 years younger than you, so I had the unfortunate experience of having everything go kaflooey on me right after First Holy Communion. Back then we had a tradition for everything, and with those traditions came the opportunity to learn about God and His works and sacrifices, the saints, the miracles and mysteries, and the history of our church.

Today it's much harder to do that since many of the traditions are completely gone.

For example:

I've been trying to get our parish to bring back the Sodality. When I was a girl, we LOVED being in the Sodality. We had important tasks to perform, like decorating the church for feast days; we were part of every procession -- the most important was Easter Sunday. On Easter, all of us girls dressed in white, with the little ones not yet able to receive Communion wearing flat blue ribbons on their heads, with the first communicants and those not old enough for Confirmation wearing white flat ribbons, and those who had been Confirmed wearing short white chapel veils. We all wore Miraculous Medals strung on blue satin ribbons around our necks, and we all carried beautiful Easter lillies in the procession. (The boys were all altar boys and they were ALL in attendance for the Easter Mass and procession.) We knew what everything meant, we knew why we were doing it, and we ejoyed both being a part of the celebrations and serving the church.

So far, I haven't gotten anywhere with the parish. Mostly what I hear is, "Why would the girls want to do this? They are already participating as altar servers."

*** SIGH *** I've got a long way to go...

Regards,