Actually, let’s give the little lady something she probably WON’T get anywhere near a church – a concise, logical answer!
Saying that (or a derivation) stems from the old belief that, when a person “sneezes”, their soul is forcibly ejected from their body and the devil, who ALSO is always very close (according to the mythology), will always attempt to “steal” the soul UNLESS he is blocked from doing so by SOMEONE around the person who sneezed!
This, of course, means that, unless someone is ALWAYS alert to the “sneeze”, the soul is the property of the devil!
Which, also of course, means that, by the time a child reaches ANY AGE AT ALL, he or she is “dead meat” because personal experience has shown me that babies and small children DO “sneeze” in their sleep and at other times as well when they lack the ability to enunciate a protective spell over their just-ejected soul and there are no “concerned” adults watching over them.
So, the short answer to her question is “only for sneezes” . (But you might want to cover the bases on the off-chance that your brother has managed to hang on to his soul to this point and his body “mistook” his milk and mucus “snort” for a sneeze and decided to take a trip to see the outside world for a bit of a while!)
Actually, let’s give the little lady something she probably WON’T get anywhere near a church – a concise, logical answer!
Saying that (or a derivation) stems from the old belief that, when a person “sneezes”, their soul is forcibly ejected from their body and the devil, who ALSO is always very close (according to the mythology), will always attempt to “steal” the soul UNLESS he is blocked from doing so by SOMEONE around the person who sneezed!
This, of course, means that, unless someone is ALWAYS alert to the “sneeze”, the soul is the property of the devil!
Which, also of course, means that, by the time a child reaches ANY AGE AT ALL, he or she is “dead meat” because personal experience has shown me that babies and small children DO “sneeze” in their sleep and at other times as well when they lack the ability to enunciate a protective spell over their just-ejected soul and there are no “concerned” adults watching over them.
So, the short answer to her question is “only for sneezes” . (But you might want to cover the bases on the off-chance that your brother has managed to hang on to his soul to this point and his body “mistook” his milk and mucus “snort” for a sneeze and decided to take a trip to see the outside world for a bit of a while!)