All my recent reminiscing about my Girl Scout days jogged my memory to recall something I hadn't thought about for years, probably decades, really.
And yes, there it was still, stuffed behind some clothes and wrapped in a plastic bag:
The Marian Award was - and perhaps still is - a religious award that Catholic pre-teen and teen-aged Girl Scouts could attain and was meant to be the representation of a girl's personal expression of her devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus, who in the Catholic religion also carries many titles, among them the Blessed Mother, Blessed Virgin, and Our Lady. |
The thought of being rejected for the Marian Award occasionally filled me with dread, though in truth I didn't dwell on that thought during the better part of the year that I worked on my requirements and assembled my book. I began my book when I was still twelve years old in September of my eighth grade at St. Christopher's school and submitted it to The Committee when all my requirements were completed and duly written up, I believe the following March.
During that time period I worked on my Marian Award book almost every day, oh, so carefully penning each letter of each word, as my normal handwriting at that time of my life was generally considered substandard by my teachers. I crumpled up and threw away more than one sheet that I believed didn't look nice enough to be accepted by whoever it was that did the accepting and rejecting.
Then, having submitted our books, it was weeks of waiting until the moment that our books were returned to us, a heart-stopping moment, for Michelle and I knew that tucked inside each of our books was a note telling us whether we'd been accepted or rejected.
Michelle and I were presented our Marian Awards along with all the other Award recipients at special Holy Hour.