COMMENT: "The retriever of the cross is believed to receive a year of blessings." So, 64 boys fight to be the only one to get a year's worth of blessings. This sounds like a modern day Bethesda in which encouraged competition, selfishness, disregard for human life all to be the first in the pool when the waters were stirred (John 5:2-9). God was not in that pool nor is He in the competition to retrieve some cross.