Assorted Catholic Saint Prayer Cards (40-pack)

Sinderella's note

An assorted pack of Catholic saint prayer cards is one of the most practical altar tools, my creature — forty saints, one wallet-sized card each, full prayer on the back. Tuck the right one into your bag the morning of a hard day. Sinderella keeps a stack in the drawer of the folding table and pulls one out for almost every reading.

The long version

Catholic saint prayer cards (also called *holy cards* or *santino* in Italian) are small wallet-sized cards — usually 2.5 × 4 inches — printed with a saint's image on the front and the traditional prayer to that saint on the back. They are one of the most practical *folk-Catholic* tools because they're portable: tuck the right saint into your wallet, your bag, your pocket, your dashboard, your kid's backpack on the morning of a hard day. The standard 40-pack on Amazon includes the major saints (Anthony, Rita, Christopher, Jude, Therese, Cecilia, Francis, Mary Magdalene, the Blessed Mother, Joseph, Anne, Michael) plus a number of less-common ones. Folk practice: shuffle the deck and pull one when you need a saint and you're not sure which. Sinderella keeps a thick rubber-banded stack in the top drawer of the folding table and pulls one out at the start of nearly every reading — sometimes she gives the card to the person reading with her, sometimes she keeps it on the table while she reads, sometimes she just looks at it before the deck is cut. The cards are *cheap* (about 15 cents apiece in a 40-pack), easy to give away, easy to keep. Pair them with the brass candleholders (the cards sit propped against the holder) and the abalone shell (the day's saint sits in the shell when the candle is lit). Saint Anne for the matriarch. Saint Therese for the small acts.