Charge that prayer on my card, please...

At our church- as in most Catholic churches- there is a place on each side for lighting prayer candles to offer a prayer for someone. I love the traditional real prayer candles: visual symbols of prayers. I love everything about them actually, from  the sacredness evoked by lighting one candle from the flame of another, to the familiar smell of burning candles and extinguished flames in the ashes, the flickering pulses of random candles lit by some other persons interceding for their loved ones, to the memories of my own days back in Minnesota as a child staring in awe at candles like these and always considering it a special treat to light one, just like my own children do now ...  yes, I definitely love the real candles.
Unfortunately, the candles at our parish are 'lit' by pushing a button rather than actually lighting a candle. However, this doesn't make it any less enticing or less intriguing for most children (perhaps the one plus about it is the safety factor! No real fire involved!)
There is a little hole for placing an offering when you choose to light a candle, and when our children want to 'light' a candle at church, we'll dig in our pockets to find some change. More often than not, though, we forget to grab some change before we leave home, since we don't normally carry cash with us. Today, on our way out of Mass, the kids stopped to gaze at the candles, with the 'light up' buttons especially tempting L and C (how can you not want to press a button that's going to light up a candle?!) M walked by and tugged at Papa's sleeve with a pleading look on her face. After he dug in his pocket and brought out empty hands, he shook his head at her regretfully.
M: "Can't you just put your credit card in there, then?"

Hmmm... maybe she's on to something there!!!