The Catechesis of Silver

Why doing things the hard way in the home reaps rich rewards

Our family owns a lot of silver plate trays and serving bowls. They aren’t worth much: such is the state of our lopsided societal values that some of the precious and rewarding things in life have little market value, so our silver is mostly gifts from family of used pieces or thrift store finds. When we moved into our current house, it contained a gun cabinet, which I converted (against the protests of my husband and sons) into a silver cabinet. In it I put our collection of silver plate, and it has been there ever since—an interesting wall display in my office nook.

My own mother, like most housewives, hated polishing silver. She had been given a silver candy dish for her wedding, and one day in my childhood, I discovered it. It was dull gray and rather ugly. Seeing my interest, she took out some pink paste in a container and taught me how to slather it on, and then take a soft cloth and rub off the tarnish. I cannot forget the way that dull metal changed into white fire beneath my grubby fingers. Thus began my love affair with silver. My mother eventually gave me that dish, whose silver plate I personally ruined by over-polishing, and it became the first piece in my collection. 

I became aware that most housewives don’t like silver because it involves too much upkeep. I admit that it really is too much work, but that’s precisely why I keep it in my home. Perhaps I should explain.

The soft suburban lifestyle of purchasing and consuming endangers the human spirit. Not only does it make us fat and yielding to our appetites, but it starves the soul. It also is dangerous because it gives children a foreshortened and truncated idea of what life is really about. The Faith can seem like one more lifestyle choice, one more purchased and consumed product, parishes turned into sacrament factories offering a dispensable religious experience, in the minds of these children. 

There has been a growing awareness that something is wrong with this lifestyle, whether the wakeup call comes in the form of a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, crushing consumer debt, the revelation of a porn or shopping addiction, or a child leaving the Faith—and hence all sorts of people, Catholic or not, are re-evaluating the suburban lifestyle and trying to figure out what it lacks. 

Generally speaking, what it lacks is toughness, difficulty, and embraced suffering. Diets and workouts are a natural response to fill this gap, and they have become much more acceptable socially—the difficulty being that they can become narcissistic and body-centered. But there are other ways of incorporating toughness. Homesteading offers an admirable way incorporating difficulty on many levels. 

When we moved to our homestead, my husband threw out our furnace and had the propane tank removed, and announced that we were heating with wood and that our boys needed to split and bring in wood to make our home function.  To me, it seemed semi-crazy, but now that I understand the male psyche better—that men are motivated most by necessity—I understand that if he hadn’t done this, the woodstove would have seemed optional to our sons, a luxury, not a necessity. They understood that they had become a needed part of the home economy. Even today, my husband or son gets up early in the winter to restart the fire so the family can wake up to a warm house. I now see the genius in my husband’s instinct: compelling himself and his sons to work harder for the sake of their souls.

The candy dish that started it all, plus some silver plate goblets. Bread by my daughter (I don’t bake myself, unfortunately).

So incorporating a natural difficulty, one that forces you to work harder and be more intentional, is a necessary component of culture recovery. In the old days, Catholics called it the incorporation of penance into their daily life. Therese made it part of her Little Way. Think of it this way: you are choosing to do something the hard way—whether it be baking bread instead of buying it, sewing curtains instead of buying them, fasting from snacks instead of eating chips, walking instead of getting a ride—because it is better for you but also because you are not as good as you should be. You—I—we—all fail to live up to the holiness of God. This tiny often unseen sacrifice is a way of asking an apology to God for our sins and the sins of others, and it should be done joyfully and without complaining, since no sacrifice is too little or too great to offer to God. Above all, we do not do these things because we are better than other people, only because we are perhaps only more aware of our weakness and failures and the need to make reparation. That is the penitential way, and it may look like other things to other people—the hipster lifestyle, intermittent fasting, snobbery—whatever. So long as you are doing it for the Lord rather than men, it benefits you and others. 

This is also the secret to praying continuously. If your day is threaded through with this kind of difficulty, then you can being offering nearly everything you do up as a living sacrifice to God. “For a Catholic, work is not just a matter of fulfilling a duty—it is to love, to excel oneself gladly in duty and in sacrifice,” as Josemaria would say.

So what does this have to do with polishing silver? So much of passing on the faith is catechesis. And you can’t be talking theology all day. You need to do things that are theological: that have the lesson baked in so children can learn, even if they aren’t willing to hear.

Nothing comes close to the real fire of polished silver: not mercury glass or aluminum or nickel or steel or any of the other imitation silver substitutes. Give your children real things so they can see how reality works. One reason for doing this is that it contains the assumption that God made the world comprehensible: in other words, that the natural properties of substances were ordained by God for our instruction and that paying attention to the natural world catechizes us about the supernatural. Culture recovery means digging down into the meaning of things and remembering what we were never supposed to forget, because it is literally all around us.

For my wedding, I was given a set of thin cheap silver trays and I loved them (and over-polished them). But it was later that I stumbled upon a tray that belonged to the same set as the candy dish, and then I began to understand quality silver. What I loved about the candy dish was its weight and so I read up on the subject and learned that the best silver plate is heavier. Thus I began digging into piles of trays at thrift stores and antique shops, hefting pieces and examining maker’s marks. Most of the time, I avoid anything truly valuable—I never pay more than $5 per piece. But the silver that has come my way is rather remarkable. 

I love pedestals. They literally elevate the food you are serving to another level and are perfect for cakes, appetizers, or anything you want to make fancy. This is important for both celebrations and hospitality. My epiphany came at a crowded local pizzeria with tiny café tables, when the server bore in the 16” thin crust deliciousness on a metal pedestal that left more than enough room for plates and drinks. I snatched up the next pedestal I saw in a thrift store, of plain steel, but then I started to find silver ones of various heights and widths, and the fun began. I managed to find two identical ones in different stores, and then this past summer, I happened upon a yard sale, where an aging lady had decided to get rid of her wedding silver, including several pedestals of varying heights—and I got the lot for something like $15. My cabinet is now full with a multitude of delights that are fun to use in all sorts of ways, such as creating a nativity scene centerpiece at Christmas.

And then there were the goblets. I hate plastic, but I also hate glass. For whatever reason, our family breaks glasses far too easily, and our high-mineral water leaves spots on everything. So we switched to pewter mugs for drinking glasses but had to put up with cheap ugly wine glasses (the expensive ones broke too quickly). And then one day on the very top floor of an antique mall in Michigan, my husband and I found a dozen silver wine goblets in two sizes.  We winced at the price but bought them, and have never regretted. They fit the “fairy tale cottage” vibe of our home, and while they do sometimes alter the taste of some wines (one of my relatives informed me), they work well for the two-buck chuck is our house wine. They have been battered over the years by children using them as xylophones, but they have mostly stood the test of time. 

At first I collected everything silver I could find, but eventually gave away the pieces I found I never used. I have even given away truly nice pieces that just sat unused in the cabinet, because of the trouble of maintaining them.

Because silver must be polished. Exposure to the air—to living unused—darkens and tarnishes it to the point where it can be ruined irretrievably, so it needs periodic maintenance. I have tried the never-polish-again stuff and found it ultimately inferior to the pink paste my mother introduced me to. The last week of Advent and Lent, we clean the kitchen table and cover it with newspapers, take everything out of the cabinet, and begin polishing it. If I forget, my children are sure to remind me, which is interesting.

Because polishing all our silver is penitential work indeed—it is easy to paint on the paste, but rubbing it off with just the right pressure so as not to destroy the plate is difficult and wearing. Washing away the gray film and buffing it is yet another step. It takes all day. But there is a reason this work is included in Montessori classrooms and the Atrium—because it teaches the child and reminds the adult that what is needed for glory is difficult work, often messy and seemingly pointless, on what looks like a dull and ornery piece of twisted metal. I certainly feel that frustration working on myself: I am so resistant to beneficial change! I want holiness and unselfishness, but I’m just too selfish to do the hard work of rubbing off the tarnish. I will paint myself pink in religious hues, but so often resist the rubbing that forges and reveals virtue. Other times I’m too harsh with myself or a child and the result is painful. Just the right amount of pressure: neither too much nor too little: it is a learned skill indeed. But the water of grace ultimately cleanses all of us.

Polishing silver is one of the best catechesis I know, and the rewards are enormous—on Christmas morn, the silver teapot shines in white-silver glory in the morning sunlight. On Easter, the silver goblets are raised in a champagne-and-orange-juice toast to the Risen Lord. And my children and I who have done the hard work of preparing the silver exchange shining smiles as we partake. The polishing has been well worth it. I think we learned the lesson again.