Mary Cicchirilli

Chain letters have always had a hold on the gullible and the superstitious. I remember them as far back as grade school.

Send to five, seven or 10 people, always a magical, mystical number, and something good will happen. If you didn’t, some calamity would befall you.

Occasionally, some brave person would speak up and not follow suit and others would wait, almost panic-stricken fearing the worst.

And, of course, if something as minor as a headache came on, it was the fault of an ignored chain letter.

Now, they circulate on the Internet.

“Forward to as least seven people within the next five minutes and the phone will ring.”

What if the phone call is bad news?

I’ve done it just for fun.

Honest.

And the phone did indeed ring within the allotted time.

It was just my mother or daughter needing a ride home, but the phone did ring.

My latest escapade was that of a holy chain letter straight from the Vatican.

Who from the Vatican?

The Pope?

No, he has more important things on his plate.

One well-meaning friend had passed on to me a portion of batter of a holy bread, otherwise known as Hemin bread.

It’s true.

I Googled it.

It’s also called The Holy bread of Padre Pio and I was to follow the recipe’s instructions for the next 10 days.

For the first two days, it sat on my counter absorbing its surroundings.

On days three and four,  I was to stir it once a day with a wooden spoon.

On day five, I was to add one cup of milk, two cups of flour and a cup of sugar.

Then, I was to mix well with a wooden spoon.

On days six to nine, I was back stirring once a day with a wooden spoon.

By then, I had to transfer to a larger bowl.

I hoped that was OK because it wasn’t in the instructions.

On day 10, I was to add a cup of milk, two cups of flour and a cup of sugar to the mix.

Mix well, divide and give to the three good people of my choosing.

It’s not easy to divide a very sticky dough equally into three portions.

I then proceeded with the addition of one-quarter cup of sugar, three eggs, one-quarter cup of oil and two tablespoons of baking powder.

This better be good.

I baked it as instructed for 50 minutes at 325F when a disaster of another matter struck.

The batter spilled out into the oven.

I used the biggest loaf pan I had.

Now, I had to clean the oven, but I didn’t have time to do a thorough job.

I was irritated, but I held my tongue, for this was a Holy bread.

I will now forward chain letters only if they are really cute or funny or just beautiful, and not for any good luck.

I once received a lovely one that claimed a person would appear after I forwarded it to at least seven people.

The person was Jesus. Jesus on the Internet? That’s just scary. All I could think about was the Book of Revelations, the beast ...

I think this Holy bread has cured me of chain letters once and for all.

And it didn’t even taste that great.

Good thing because I can only bake it once in my life.

Mary Cicchirilli is a creative writer who lives in Vaughan.

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