My Dad Got Me to a Nunnery Read online

  Communion rail, then descended on bended knee in order to accept the white host (a crisp

  paper-thin bread wafer) as the symbolic body of Christ directly on the extended tongue; the

  altar boy (no girls allowed) held a palate under the faithful’s chin to catch any tiny morsels from the hosts that might fall. Communion was available only to those whose mortal sins

  (the most lamentable of sins) had been forgiven via a formal confession before the priest and

  if they fasted prior to Communion for at least three hours and drank nothing, other than water,

  for at least one hour. Everyone knew about those very few not rising to join the Communion

  line—they most likely had big bad sins (murder, rape, adultery, ate meat on Friday, touched

  the host …). Today, none of these indiscretions keep the faithful from accepting the body of

  Christ. All are welcome to receive. Whether you be you sinful or righteous, you may now

  take the Communion host in your own hand (a mortal sin back then), from either a priest or a

  lay person (male or female)—even if you had bacon and eggs just before Mass. Today, just

  about everyone attending Mass takes Communion. The heaviness of sin vanished.

  Not all masses were equivalent, although they all contained the indispensable Introit,

  Epistle, and Gospel. Some masses were a really big deal: like “high” masses: three

  big ones come to mind to qualify as a high mass service. That’s three very tall lighted candles

  to the left and right of the altar. These occasions were Christmas, Easter, and the feast of

  Christ the King; there were undoubtedly others, like having a high-ranking visiting priest as

  guest to say Mass. Those visiting priests were usually hooded missionaries from countries

  like Myanmar and Haikou Macau—countries that we never heard of. I think they brought

  their own colorful Mass vestments, since I had never seen those colors on Father Jalbert.

  St. Louis Home hosted a solemn procession of religious leaders who came to our

  convent to present an actual relic —a very tiny piece of wood—from the real cross of Jesus

  Christ. I don’t think St. Louis got to keep it permanently—just a sort of traveling show, I suspect. Super holy!!! Our convent also served as host to a traveling Virgin Mary statue

  from Mexico. This one had a blue halo with blinking lights all around. Many people carrying

  a rosary the size of a Beluga whale through our playground added to the pageantry of that

  occasion. We all loved witnessing these rare but most holy events.

  Masses were pretty much routine events, except those designated as a high mass. The

  high mass required that we light six tall candles, that the singing nuns perform their well

  rehearsed hymns to an overpowering organ. There was, of course, the obligatory sermon

  reserved for a high mass. Sure, Christmas and Easter were the biggest celebrations and the

  most cheerful, but the Feast of Christ the King struck a high note, too. High mass for Christ

  the King feast day meant that the priest’s red and white chasuble (the silk outer vestment and

  mantle worn over the rest of his sacred attire that carried spiritual symbols)

  would be especially colorful with Jesus Christ’s mug shot staring at all as put on view via the

  priest’s back. Lots to sing about on those euphoric “high mass” days. All other masses were

  “low” mass, a smaller two-candle affair—rarely a sermon, no music, no singing nuns, nothing

  special, but quite short, a pleasing 20-30 minutes maximum.

  The Catholic faithful could not be late for Mass nor could they leave early. There

  were rules, to be sure, but there was wiggle room, too. If one arrived before the reading of the

  Gospel (about five or ten minutes after the start of Mass), that would count as full attendance.

  If one left Mass no earlier than the final blessing (two or three minutes before the official end

  of Mass), that, too, would still be acceptable for attendance purposes. A mortal sin could be

  avoided by following the rules of attendance at Mass. While we attended at Church masses, there were certain behaviors and rules we needed to

  adhere to such as silence, prayer, and keeping focused on the good Lord. Everyone, without

  exception, was required to attend mass with their own missal. While we were required to

  attend Church masses, there were certain behaviors and rules we also needed to adhere to such

  as silence, prayer, and keeping focused on the good Lord. Everyone, without exception, was

  required to attend mass with his own missal. So ingrained was this indispensable tool in our

  lives that I have for all these years kept that 1957 missal and its “treasury of prayers”. Its

  leather cover and red edged sheets, besides a red ribbon strung as a page marker, served to

  contain all the requisite prayers, gospels, and scriptural recitations. The missal also offered

  lots of guidance printed in italics for the faithful to follow. I suppose the missal also

  provided us with an opportunity to read something, anything, to accelerate the paassage of

  monotonous narrations from Scripture. and the sacred but dull rites before us. The mass

  provided loyal Catholics lots of aerobic movement, too, directed by a nun at the rear of the

  chapel. Each of us stood, sat, or kneeled, depending on the cue count clacker given by the

  nun’s “clicker,” seemingly consisting of two small pieces of hardwood struck against each

  other. I recall one time seeing a nun holding a different kind of clicker, probably as the result

  of having misplaced her original one; it was a Halloween frog clicker made of tin, engineered

  to evoke the grunt of a frog. When we heard that “ribit” sound, we surreptitiously giggled.

  Surely, that nun must not have thought we would notice the difference. How silly.

  Ash Wednesday was a special occasion for a low mass, the more informal and shorter

  mass. It took place on the first day of Lent—forty days before Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead and into Heaven (otherwise known as Easter). Ash Wednesday was somber

  day, almost as much as was Good Friday (Crucifixion Day). During the forty days preceding

  Easter, all the religious icons around the chapel were shrouded with a purple covering. During

  Lent, we could not see any of the images of the Stations of the Cross, nor the faces of Jesus,

  Mary, or Joseph. I think that during those forty days, the nuns used to clean those statues up

  with divinely inspired dexterity because I knew that on Easter Sunday, those statues were

  polished just like a Marine’s spit-shined shoe.

  We paid attention to the Stations of the Cross mostly on Good Friday—a very somber day.

  That was the day Christ died for our sins, and the nuns taught us how to be grateful for that.

  Jesus didn’t have to get killed for us, but he did. The Stations of the Cross served as a good

  walk-through of the twelve segments of Jesus’s experiences with those responsible for

  carrying out his death sentence, Pontius Pilate, and Mary Magdalene, the lady who wiped his

  bloody face. I was always touched by these sequences of events. My older sister Mary Ann

  reminded me that “Everyone cried for Jesus” when we walked through the Stations of the

  Cross on the weekend before Easter.

  The rites of Catholicism governed virtually all aspects of our time at St. Louis Home.

  Being Catholic commanded that there were non-negotiable beliefs and practices that we were

  to abide by. No exceptions were made for Peter, the Protestant with whom I
was a tight friend

  during our stay at St. Louis. We, like Peter and his brothers Mark and Jon, abstained from

  meat every Friday, to conform to our nuns’ obsequiousness to the Pope’s rule back then. No,

  siree, no meat on Fridays—not even for Peter, Mark, and Jon. After all, everyone at St. Louis, except for Peter and his brothers, were Catholic. So, they participated as well as they could.

  Naturally, Peter and company attended many masses, benedictions, sermons, Catholic Bible

  studies, and prayer recitations. Like us, they had to recite the question and answer passages

  from the green Baltimore Catechism. Like us, they “learned” all of it by rote, as was the

  common practice of the day. Unlike us, I figured that they didn’t risk hell by sinning; nor did

  they earn indulgences for getting into heaven through good deeds and repetitive prayers. They

  must have been oft befuddled about the Catholic Catch-22 to which they were always victims.

  Our teachers and caregivers were absolutely consistent in all matters of Catholic truths

  and half truths—be it with the self-proclaimed preeminence of Catholicism or their

  explanation of the Church’s inscrutable mysteries—they fell in line like fascist warriors. All

  nuns appeared especially cold to people and faiths non-Catholic. Peter was one example of

  such a target. While I don’t really know what caused me to gravitate toward Peter, this non

  Catholic, I suspect it’s my life’s penchant for participating in the plight of the different—

  modeling the lead character from the great American novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry

  Finn. Peter and his brothers were the target of anti-Protestant rhetoric spewed from the

  mouths and hearts of our Catholic leaders. Peter remained silent, probably unaware that it was

  his faith (or lack of one) that was continually insulted before all of us. Sometimes the nuns

  suggested that the teachers and their students at the Dunstan Public School across the street

  from us were possessed by the devil. They were labeled as pagans. For all this Catholicism

  that most of us would need to recover for years afterwards, it was Peter who, on leaving St

  Louis Home a year later than me committed the unthinkable: He became baptized a Roman Catholic. Yes! Shocked as I was to learn that, I know that Peter was assuredly well prepared

  for that rite, after a lengthy and painful initiation with the convent nuns! The power of

  persuasion? He ultimately had, after all, done them proud.

  At St. Louis Home, there was no time, no space for raising questions of conscience or

  spiritual doubt. Tough questions

  about the Church or about God

  yielded little in the way of clarity and understanding. The “Trinity,” a

  concept about the three persons in one God was, for example, a mystery. God, they

  explained, comprised three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I thought there

  must have been a spiritual triumvirate in charge of my destiny. But noooo—not quite like

  that. And so I was taught that God sees all of us all of the time in the name of the trinity.

  Still, making the distinction between Jesus, the son of God seemed like there were two

  persons involved at the highest celestial levels of authority with the Holy Ghost there to scare

  me into doing noble deeds, or at least avoiding grisly ones. Even the Baltimore Catechism’s

  memorable illustration of the trinity as represented here didn’t help. I’ve accepted the concept

  as a mystery until I really will understand it, as they nuns advised us, “in the next world.”

  Other mysteries flourished in our Catholic classrooms. The birth of Jesus from the

  immaculate virgin mother was one that was clearly off limits. Yet, we celebrated the most

  holy day of the Immaculate Conception at the end of May. What for? Who knew: an

  immaculate conception? Perhaps we learned that immaculate meant super clean, as in the

  Virgin (another word we didn’t know) Mary’s absolute cleanliness—a hygienic virtue we

  should all aspire to. But conception??? Who would ask? In the bliss of our ignorance, off we went to a colorful high mass to celebrate something about a very clean Mother Mary.

  Adam and Eve’s frolicking in the Garden of Eden and giving birth to Cain and Abel was

  another elusive anomaly. These were either mysteries or just plainly amusing phenomena, as

  in the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, which occurred exactly one week after Christmas.

  Though that feast day has since been renamed, the Octave of Christmas, we knew it to be the

  Circumcision of Christ. When asked what it meant, we were told it meant, “shedding a little

  blood for all mankind.” What does that mean, given that Jesus was only eight days old? Why

  would anyone do that? It’s a mystery. Another mystery for me was that paint-by-number

  copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. It looks as if Jesus Christand his twelve disciples

  are on a stage all facing in the direction of an audience. An audience? What audience?

  Leonardo da Vinci? What could this be? Another mystery.

  These Sisters of Charity sometimes told us to spit on the walkways gracing the front of

  a Protestant church. Only Catholics, they intimated, had a place in heaven to look ahead to.

  All we Catholics needed to do were to make many sacrifices, many prayers, to obey the Ten

  Commandments at all times, and to plan our lives as though we were to become priests one

  day. Some tall order for my friend, Peter. Fortunately for Peter and his brothers, they

  remained behind to prepare our breakfast tables during Sunday Mass and the other masses for

  Tuesday and Thursday.

  The Catholic canon was everywhere. Indulgences could be earned as credits for a

  reserved space in heaven one day. Indulgences were earned through attending Masses,

  rosaries, and lots of prayers. Yes, prayers. I think I earned many indulgences when I prayed following my Mom’s death. There were ejaculations (not the lewd kind) that earned

  indulgences. These were repetitions of pious utterances like “Lord Have Mercy” or “Save me

  from sin for I am not worthy.” Ejaculations could be interspersed with other repetitious

  recitations like Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s though they were said over and over and over (a

  hundred times, or so it seemed). Other ways of receiving indulgences, if done in great

  quantity, would include blessing one’s self, using water from the font at the Church’s

  entrance. Genuflecting after doing that would earn you another indulgence. Should you

  attend masses for five consecutive first Fridays of the month—well, that would earn you a

  ticket to heaven, or so we believed.

  Prayers, not to be confused with meditation, were inescapable. Lord, were there

  prayers at the convent! Prayers six times a day. Church three or four times a week. The

  ubiquitously symbolic rosaries daily. Genuflections. Grace before and after meals. Even

  simple group commands as in “Go play” were expressed as prayer as in the Latin “Deo

  gratias.” [“The Lord Be With You”]. There were prayers at wake-up time. Prayers before

  bedtime. Prayers before and after classes. While non-Catholic kids well away from our

  reach may have awakened to an alarm clock each day or given a gentle tug from their parents,

  we woke up each day to an outcry of the first three words of the sign of the cross: “In the

  name…” A pause ensued for just a few seconds, as we knew we must sit up right away in bed

  to complete the tex
t of that opening prayer.

  Prayers came in many varieties. You could just say a little, “Jesus, have mercy

  me,” or “Mary, pray for us” whenever the spirit beckoned. On the other hand, you could get into some serious personal prayer, like a novena. This would require a personal commitment

  between you and the Lord for nine consecutive days of prayer for one special intention. I

  think I did that when my mom died.

  One clear message we all understood almost at the outset of Catholic kindergarten

  class was that we could “adore” or “worship” only God. No one could worship or adore the

  Virgin Mary, nor any of the saints—not even St. Joseph, Jesus’s foster father. And surely, no

  one could adore his parents. Adore only God. Period. The searing fires of hell await those

  who apply the word worship or adore in any other context. Pity you if you adore someone’s

  diamond ring (Ooops. One more sin. Coveting someone else’s enticing goods would be

  viewed as a breach of the tenth commandment). The profundity of that sacred rule suggested

  by the first commandment about bearing false witnesses under the pain of mortal sin continues

  to plague me in adulthood as I really do act as if I worship my wife and children. I must

  almost say I adore the art and music of the great masters. Catholicism’s commanding

  influence, indeed.

  Kinesthetic activity is central to Catholic prayer recitation. Some psycho-physical

  prayers do require certain histrionics, like the “sign of the cross” that calls for a finger

  traveling from touching the forehead to the sternum to the left shoulder, then the right

  shoulder, ending with both hands together—hence, sculpting the shape of a cross. During

  recitation of the Confiteor (Apostle’s Creed), when you reach the line that says “mea culpa,

  mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” [“through my fault, through my fault, through my most

  grievous fault”], you must strike your heart three times. When passing by the tabernacle at the center of the Church, a genuflection is in order with a sign of the cross as an optional added

  touch. The Lord’s rewards for all of these physical demonstrations of piety were guaranteed

  to us in the “next world.” But do so sincerely.