The Moments
A life is not one story.It is many, told in order.
The collection is arranged the way the Church and the family calendar arrange a life: a birth, a washing, a first communion, a sealing, a leaving, a wedding, an ordination, a profession — then the two the family keeps on its own, a birthday and a retirement — and, at the end of it, the piece that remembers the person. Each has its own photograph, its own imagery and its own text: a shell for baptism, a chalice for communion, two rings for a wedding, oil for orders, a candle for a year that came round again, a cross and a lit candle for a life set down.
Where engagement sits, where the anniversaries sit, and where the funeral piece sits
Engagement belongs with Wedding: the promise and the vow are made from the same imagery, on the same deep blue ground.
Wedding, Ordination and Religious Profession each carry anniversary pieces as well — beginning at ten years, and every tenth year after that.
For a funeral we write a Rogito — the same form of record that is commissioned at the death of a Pope. Two copies are printed: one remains with the person, and one goes to the family. It is written for one person and for no other, and the Rogito for a member of the laity, or of a Third Order, is a noticeably different piece from the one written for someone who was ordained or who had professed religious vows, because the life it records is different.
Funeral belongs in the collection with the rest, not set apart from it — the Office for the Dead is not an office of its own but a part of the whole Divine Office, and the pieces belong in the same list as the others.
On the texts, and where they come from
Most of the writing is our own — set down for one occasion and for no other. Where we have drawn on a monastic thought, it is cited on the piece, so the words are credited to the hands that kept them.
Where a text is quoted, it is cited on the piece, so the person who receives it knows they are holding words with a history. Where a text is written for the occasion, it is written for the occasion — and only for it.
Most of the monastic reflections come from one monk of a particular time, so the same name recurs across the pieces. These are the forms a citation takes, and they are used the same way everywhere on this site:
- Our own writing
- No citation. The text was written for this one occasion and appears on no other piece.
- A monastic text, unaltered
- The piece names the monk whose words they are, and the time he wrote in.
- In variation
- Where the thought is used in variation, the citation reads “A variation from the works of …” followed by his name.
- Where any part is altered
- If any part of a text is altered, the citation reads “A variation from the spiritual texts of …” followed by the source.
Which of the moments is yours?
Tell us the moment and the names, and we will write back with the imagery we would use, the text we would set with it, and what the finished piece would cost.
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