One of the CARF Foundation's star volunteer activities consists of sewing and embroidering albs and liturgical linens, Sewing and singing, as they call it. "We have managed to create a very good group that, in addition to making the albs, we support each other and pray for the seminarians and priests," explains Maria Luisa, one of the coordinators who has been helping the CARF Foundation for 25 years.
Tailor-made albs for each seminarian
The albs are made to measure for each seminarian: when they arrive at their last course in Rome and Pamplona they are measured in detail. Neck, front height, waist, shoulders, back height, arms and shoulder to shoulder. In this way each of the future priests will be able to celebrate with dignity. And with all the love and prayers that accompany each stitch in the fabrics. Once they are finished, they are given to each seminarian inside his Sacred Vessel BackpackOn their return to their country of origin, when they are ordained priests, they will be able to celebrate Holy Mass and impart the sacraments with great dignity, regardless of their lack of adequate means.
The PAS has a team of seven volunteers who meet every Tuesday at the PAS headquarters. board of trustees. But, in addition, there are many other people who collaborate by embroidering from their homes. They also make the different cloths for the Mass vestments.
The fabrics used to make the albs are made of polyester, a fabric that does not wrinkle. Each alba takes about three and a half meters of material. Once embroidered, the skirt, sleeves and, finally, the collar are incorporated. For each of the albas to be made, about ten hours of work and prayers are spent in different batches, depending on the different parts of the piece.
Living Holy Mass in prison
This year they are already finishing the preparation of the 30 albs for the diocesan seminarians who will return to their countries at the end of the year to be ordained priests. It is a small class that coincided with the covid so the number of future priests decreased significantly because many could not travel to Rome and Pamplona to join the university and begin their academic, human and spiritual formation.
The future ordinands receive their Sacred Vessel Backpack, a bag containing the necessary elements to be able to celebrate Holy Mass with dignity and dispense the sacraments with dignity in any corner of the world. The bag contains everything from a portable altar in white silk, with its own crucifix holder and another central space for the crucifix, to the cruets for water and wine, or the hyssop for sprinkling holy water. It also contains vestments and stoles for each liturgical season.
As could not be otherwise, the seminarians, who are going to be ordained priests in their dioceses of origin, receive the backpack with great enthusiasm and gratitude. Hernando José Bello Rodríguez, of the Archdiocese of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, who recently wrote to us to convey to the Foundation's donors and benefactors the importance of this aid and the lasting memory it leaves in the priests, which is transformed into daily prayers of gratitude.
Don Hernando José, in addition to ministering in the parish where he is vicar, also collaborates as chaplain of the prison in his city. "As the prison does not have anything for the celebration of the Eucharist, every Tuesday I am accompanied by the backpack of the CARF Foundation in this mission. As an anecdote, I can tell you that one of the lay missionaries, the first time he saw the backpack and how everything was distributed, and the simplicity and dignity of the sacred vessels, was very surprised and immediately asked me where I had gotten it, because he would like to give one to a priest he knows".
And this story of spiritual care for the women in the Cartagena de Indias prison cannot be documented graphically, since "when we enter we have to leave the phones and any electronic device to safeguard the privacy of the inmates". Oh, if only the backpack could talk, the human experiences it must have lived through.
Marta SantínJournalist specializing in religious information.
