There's a lot more to it than just the obligatory swish swoop tap tap tap before a round of Our Father.
If you've ever been on a bus and noticed a sudden mass movement of arms and fingers, you may have feared that everyone around you was silently preparing for imminent death and you'd somehow missed the fatal warning signs, in reality the bus was probably just passing a church.
A friend of mine used to have a remarkable radar, only every crossing himself while passing catholic churches, never Church of Ireland, it was a compulsion. Without intending it, I have developed a similar need to cross myself every time an ambulance passes and every time a hearse passes, and I'm not a practicing catholic. It's a sign of respect mixed with a feeling of unease- that the ambulance could be carrying a friend or the funeral could be of someone I once knew.
But as I am sure you have never wondered, what are the actual required times to make that criss cross blessing? It seems there are a multitude, enough that to secure your place inside the pearly gates it seems you should always have your right hand at the ready and a jam jar of holy water in your bag;
1. Immediately after waking and before sleeping
2. When passing a Catholic Church
2. At the Name of the Holy Trinity
3. In reparation for blasphemy
4. Before entering a room or house
5. Blessing people or things
6. When afraid
7.When a funeral passes by
8. At the sound of the Angelus
An explainer story without an explainer video, is really not much good, so if you want to learn how to make that perfect sign of the cross with Father Rocky of the Relevant Radio Network here you go;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=autaIzGDcy8
Clip Via; RelevantRadioNetwork
There is many a mass joke to be inserted here, but we'll just go in peace.
