Yes, Abigail, There Are (Still) Teaching Nuns

Photo credit:shrineofstjude.net

The other day, purely out of curiosity, I looked up the three religious orders that taught the three generations of American women in my family: my grandmother, mother and myself.  I wanted to know what they are doing now. I came away both saddened over what's become of the nuns that meant so much to our family but I am equally grateful to have spent a good slice of my childhood with them. 

My daughter is lucky.  She is one of the few children today who will have the benefit of a teaching order (which is technically a religious institute, though I’m not sure about the difference between the two). The Institute Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara is recently founded, completely faithful to the Church and absolutely exploding with vocations.  They prove that a resurgence of the classic, habit clad, teaching nun is imminent.   They are also pioneers of a new paradigm of religious education as they run the Montessori homeschooling cooperative at our parish. Without orders like theirs, if my daughter had ever asked me if teaching nuns still existed, judging by the dwindling numbers of the older orders, my answer would have been no.  But now, I can safely answer, "Yes, Abigail, there are still teaching nuns."  which my spin on the famous “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” coined by Francis P. Church in what is the most reprinted editorial in history.

I mean absolutely no disrespect in comparing religious sisters to a commercialized figure such as Santa Claus.  However, not unlike Santa, both are token ‘symbols’ associated with goodness and giving (keep your jokes to yourself), and their current scarcity of presence in Catholic school system they themselves largely founded, may cause us to question whether or not they still exist.

My mom remembers "the change" during
the 1960s when habits became shortened

Unfortunately all three of the orders I looked up have absorbed certain ideologies which, I suspect, are at the heart of their slow demise. You may think I’m being judgmental, but I saw everything from pictures of women practicing yoga on mountain tops to links to dubious publications on their sites  (of course, I'm not trying to suggest that every individual nun agrees with the decisions made by her greater order).  And I also saw a few other commonalities shared between them.

For one, the photos on all of their sites show a predominantly elderly demographic.  They all stress their dedication to social justice.  Their numbers are very diminished with largest order I viewed presently consisting of 2,000 sisters and the smallest, a mere 500.   And remember, these are teaching orders, but though all hold “education as the key to alleviating many of the unjust issues of our time,” very few of their ranks, if any, still teach in the classroom. 

I compared their websites to that of the completely orthodox Institute to which I linked to above (because they’re awesome) and its like night and day both in content and in feel. One of their first pages has photos of the sisters completely prostrating themselves before the Blessed Sacrament during what I assume is their perpetual vow profession.  Their site is also packed with information about newest foundations, schools and missions around the world, where they, like the poor they serve, also live in poverty. They have links to the next Walk for Life West Coast and a quote from Mulieris Dignitatem in plain view.  Today it is young orders like theirs that are overflowing with vocations, which fills me with so much hope, as well as a bit of sorrow over the older orders.

It's as though the other orders had everything they needed to serve the world: they were steeped with history, talent and the means to do it, but then they traded everything for the world, and we can see now where that has taken them.

We consider ourselves extremely blessed to have nuns based in our parish that are willing to work with homeschooling families.  Perhaps one day religious sisters will again be what they once were: the symbol of Catholic education; pious, counter cultural (and the wearing of a habit usally announces this) and vibrant.  The kind we can believe in, a bit like Santa.

Now I say this because there is something strikingly similar between what Francis P. Church said about Santa in his famous editorial and teaching nuns. A logical substitution reveals this.  Here’s the original text rewritten with the substitutions which are bolded (and my daughter’s name, instead of Virginia):

Yes, Abigail, there [are] teaching nuns. They exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no teaching nuns. It would be as dreary as if there were no Abigails. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

How true this description is for the religious sisters who taught me (most of them, anyway)!  I remember the love, the generosity, and the element of Divine beauty and enthusiasm that was ever present in my classroom. They truly did foster that original childlike faith mentioned in the quote, because many of them possessed a similar faith.  Yes, their vocation is romantic in the sense of how willingly consumed they allow themselves to be for our sakes.  And without them, indeed, the eternal light of childhood would become ever dimmer.  

Thank you, to the nuns who filled our childhoods of with love of learning and love of Our Lord.  And thank you to the new institutes who are re-fanning the flame of Catholic education worldwide.  I hope you will stay forever.

This Christmas, Baby Jesus Ate My Toddler

In her book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, journalist Peggy Orenstein discusses how the childhoods of little girls are literally being consumed by Disney's three billion dollars a year moneymaker as every kiddie thing on the planet, from Band-Aids to beach shovels, now has Cinderella’s or Belle’s face plastered on them.

I sympathize with Orenstein, and with the millions of parents whose lives have been infiltrated by tiaras and glass slippers.  While I'm not anti-princess, I have to admit that it does occasionally irk me when a product has been ‘princess-ified,’ especially when it means that my daughter only zeroes in on those items out of a whole selection of perfectly good (and far cheaper) options. Sometimes Cinderella does eat my daughter, but sometimes, I really don’t mind.

As I’ve previously written, we did a good job eschewing most of the holiday shopping craziness this year, and thankfully my daughter did not ask for one princess related item.  However, we were still unsuccessful at avoiding that one required Christmas toddler meltdown over a material item.  But instead of going berserk over a Disney princess, most ironically, what set my daughter off came in the form of a babe in a manger: baby Jesus.  That can’t be a bad thing, you’re probably thinking, but just wait.

Now I’m one who enjoys witnessing how small children instinctively love and adore little babies and dote on their baby dolls as if they were real. I’m also convinced that there is a rule that the smaller the baby or the dolly is, the crazier the toddlers go over them.

And so when my grandmother set out her antique Nativity scene with every character’s gaze anchored by a miniature baby Jesus so tiny he could fit inside a tea cup, I should have foreseen what was coming next.

When I arrived to pick up my kids from visiting grandma’s, my little girl was already waiting at the front door begging to take baby Jesus home. I tried to be clever about refusing her, not realizing how only two hours with baby J had somehow made turning her down equivalent to destroying her life. 

Within a matter of seconds after cheerfully asking her to leave the baby to “sleep in His bed at great-grandma’s house so that we could visit Him again,” I discovered my gross miscalculation.  My daughter had already attached all prospects of happiness to that baby so that nothing, absolutely nothing could ever give her joy again unless she could take Him home right now.

I then realized what had happened: baby Jesus ate my toddler.

Oh, the wailing, oh the shrieking, oh the unrelenting outpouring of devotion to the Holy Infant from my daughter that then followed probably caused all guardian angels present in the room to weep in profound unison!  I therefore did what any, good, staunchly convicted, sticks-to-her-guns Catholic mother would do: I caved.  Her tears disappeared in a miraculous second and she carried all three centimeters of baby Jesus out like a trophy.  Grrrr.

Yes, I thought, let’s take the fragile baby Jesus, small enough to get lost in a jacket pocket or sucked and chewed up mercilessly by a vacuum cleaner, home.  I can hear the sound of little outstretched arms getting crunched now.  Sure, why not? She’s almost four, after all, and completely trustworthy with heirlooms that carry more than half a century’s worth of sentimental value to them.  Of course we should take it home!

After awhile, though, I began to feel guilty.  What kind of monster of a parent would discourage a child from attaching themselves to an effigy of our Lord?  I consoled myself with the knowledge that, hey, I had a toddler who adored baby Jesus!  

What's more, I remember consciously thinking that perhaps the figurine might have a positive effect on her.  It was baby Jesus, after all.  Maybe she’d start praying more reverently, sharing with her brother and being more obedient to her parents.  Maybe, for once, giving into her frantic pleadings was a good thing.

Was I right?  Nope. She was absolutely horrible when we got home.   Baby Jesus seemed to have had the opposite effect on her! And so, as punishment, what’s the first thing we took away from her (don’t judge me on this… parents of small kids will understand)?  Yep, we took away baby Jesus.   During Christmas time.  Oh the irony is enough to make a full choir of angles wail almost as loudly as she did.

Now, for the record, before you go and accuse me of bad parenting, we took pains to make it a teaching moment, “Baby Jesus wants you to be good.” etc. and we promised that when she was a good girl again we would give baby Jesus back to her.

Did any of it help?  Yeah right.  She’s almost four, remember?  Trying to reason with her had absolutely zero effect on the impregnable hold that the itty, bitty, poorly swaddled baby Jesus had over her.  

For the rest of the evening our household peace was disturbed by a child’s wailings of “I wuv you, baby Jesus,” intermittently erupting from her room with a tone somewhere between tragedy and indignation. It was one of those overly dramatic episodes of grief that toddlers sometimes have, which are so pathetic that you have to bury your face so that they can’t hear or see you laughing.

Just to be clear (before you really start thinking I’m a terrible parent) my daughter wasn’t crying out for baby Jesus because she was being deprived of any access to Him (He’s always with her, and we told her as much) but she was upset because she lost the miniature baby Jesus toy to which she had formed an attachment bordering on mad obsession, and that’s never acceptable behavior in our house. 

The good news is that she eventually came around.  She even forgot about baby Jesus and started being a lovely girl again.  When her father and I gave Him back to her, her toddler instincts to lavish love on babies instantly came out. We wrapped Him in a pink washcloth blanket (because He was cold) but didn't feed Him because we figured that was Blessed Mother’s job.  She then ran around the apartment with Him and made her brother kiss Him a bunch of times.

Christmas is almost over and baby Jesus now turns up in random locations around the house.  So far, no vacuum tragedies.  As of right now it would seem that He survived the Christmas season unscathed from my toddler gushing over Him.  And so did we. 

This Christmas, Why Not Stay Home?

I’m one who loves the holidays.

I’m also one who despises what they do to people, myself included.  For example, I find myself often becoming frustrated from the sudden scarcity of available parking spots anywhere and everywhere - and, judging by the lack of civility displayed in parking lots, it's clear that others feel the same way I do.   Also, the fact that I can’t seem to get anywhere on the road in any decent amount of time only adds to my already heightened sense of irritability and I sometimes find myself wishing things for my fellow drivers that have nothing to do with glad tidings or cheer. All of this combined with the downright frightening displays of self-entitlement by people and children (including my own little darlings, at times) is enough to make me want Christmas to disappear as quickly as the this year’s number one selling toy. Bah humbug!

The face that says it all.  Maybe he's upset that he
didn't even make the top ten sellers this year.

But really, I do like Christmas.

I know many of us travel during Christmas, and, for some, the inevitable visit to a local relative’s home is always looming.   Not to mention, that at some point, we have to do the grocery shopping and, being good Catholics, attend Christmas mass.

But outside of these necessary holiday rakings-across-the-hot-coals endeavors (except for Mass), this Christmas I’ve decided that what I want to do the most, what will ‘feed’ me and my family the most spiritually, and what will contribute the most to my family’s harmony away from the ‘gimme more' madding crowd is this: I’m going to stay home.  That is, I’m going to make it a point to stay indoors more than going out to buy more stuff.  I’ve already been practicing.

I did make one exception the other night when I went out to Adoration.  After the kids went to sleep, and the grace-inhibiting traffic on the road had abated, I took myself to see Jesus because, you know, He is the ‘reason for the…<gag>slurp<cough>,' Phew.  Caught myself before that cliché got out.

Where was I?  Oh, yes. There I was at Church, before Jesus, when I realized something I can only attribute to the Holy Spirit: there, in our Lord’s presence, I was still at home.  It’s not an elitist thing to say at all. 

I know we usually get all warm and fuzzy inside when we see nativity scenes, and understandably so: Christ was born.  But let’s not forget what that took.

What’s cool is that, despite things being, how shall we put it, less than ideal for the Holy Family during the the time of Our Lady's delivery, Jesus came anyway. And so to say our ‘home' is in Jesus’s presence is not to say that things are perfect or even nice, it’s to say Christ comes anyway.  And that’s ideal for any sinner.  He comes when we’re tired, down, disillusioned with humanity and cynical about everything.   Good thing too, or else we’d never get to open presents. 

Only kidding.   Sorry about that - I too am a victim of the din and dim of this time of year.  What? Is that Gentleman Jack in my eggnog?  Why yes, yes it is.

This Christmas, I highly recommend staying home and/or spending sometime adoring Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Even travelers can do the latter.  Either way, it's still 'home'.  It’s the same Christ that was wrapped in swaddling clothes and was laid in a manger, after all, only not as cute and wiggly.  And if you’re like me, the 'inserting yourself into the Christmas story' tactic just ends up with you being the donkey anyway, and so it’s nice to be with our Lord in the here and now, as I am presently, rather than imagining what my stink would’ve stunk like back then.

Yup.

If you’ve already made plans to visit someone’s house, or go to a party, cancel them.  The exception to this is Christmas dinner at your grandparent's house where roast beef and yorkshire pudding abound.  Just saying. If you can’t do it this year, do it next year or some other year.  But do it sometime, and prepare to be surprised about how the Holy Spirit comes to invigorate your home in unexpected and beautiful ways.

A Quote From Peter Hitchens, Brother of the Late Christopher Hitchens

I can't remember where I got this quote but it has been on a "sticky" on my laptop's desktop for over a year.  It's from the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens, Peter Hitchens:

An English Boomer on the Boomer Generation:

We were differentiating ourselves from our parents--the denizens of a worn-down, seemingly defeated post-war generation, a crumbling empire, burdened with ancient and unexamined premises, weighed down by old songs and bored with ancient psalms, eager to cast off the dreary dross we associated with the glum burdens of adulthood. By rejecting our parents' half-hearted beliefs, and refusing ourselves to be parents, we were staving off in our own minds the march of time, the fact of aging, the grim biological fact of our own mortality. By remaining forever rebellious adolescents, we imagined that we need never grow old and die. Having children in itself is in some sense an admission that we must replace ourselves--because we were replaceable. And that is something our narcissistic generation could not admit. And so we didn't. Peter Hitchens  The Rage Against God.

It's amazing who different two brothers can be, isn't it?  Even scripture holds profound examples of brothers who are complete opposites.  Eternal rest grant unto him, oh Lord.  Let the perpetual light shiny upon him.  May he rest in peace. Amen.

The Girl with the ‘Interior’ Tattoo

The upcoming release of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has sparked some discussion about the morality of tattooing, and Msgr. Charles Pope’s excellent post on the topic makes it nearly indisputable that permanently altering our appearance for decorative purposes is not what God intended for our bodies.

Getting tattooed is not a sin, per se, but, as Msgr. points out, the book of Leviticus speaks against it, and, given that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, the act of using them as a canvas upon which to inscribe worldly designs is, shall we say, somewhat of a desecration of them.  The same can be said for excessive, bizarre piercings.   And, did I fail to mention that both require the puncturing and repetitive wounding of the skin? Msgr. Pope, you had me at “infection.”

The purpose of tattoos, as we all know, is to depict something of personal significance outwardly.  The media glamorizes such self-expression through TV shows and movies that practically mythologize tattoo parlors, tattoo artists and the people who get ‘tatted.’ In The Girl with A Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander is a computer hacker extraordinaire ‘set apart’ in so many ways, one of which is having a dragon tattooed on her back.  “She’s different,” we hear one character remark in the preview as she struts across the screen with bleached eyebrows and a black mohawk. And so, naturally, big companies trust her with their background investigations.

Why look anywhere else for quality employee assurance?

What Hollywood would like us to think is that we are somehow more “ourselves” with an external sign, which is the opposite of what Christianity teaches.  We believe that we are not what we adorn ourselves with whether it’s body art, material goods, or even other people.  At our innermost core, we are made in the image and likeness of God, and while no tattoo can ever take away from that, neither can it, no matter how religious it is, ever fully express it either.  

Of course, Christians who evangelize by getting ‘inked’ are just responding, in a very human way, to the supernatural desire to love and honor God.  Still, I would argue, they haven’t gone far enough.  How about this:

Instead of sitting in a tattoo parlor undergoing the pain of rapid pin pricks, why not obey God’s law and feel the ‘sting’ of dying to yourself as you place God’s will above your own.  Now try doing that all of the time, especially when it’s hard, and then your might get a taste of what the path to sainthood really entails.

Want the face of Jesus, or Our Lady on your body?  Instead of doing that, why not get to know them by reading Scripture, or by reading the writings of the saints in order to let the Holy Spirit more deeply forge the image of Christ within you?

Want to entrust yourself to the artistic talents of someone else?  Why not spend time before the Blessed Sacrament with the confidence that God can make your life a masterpiece of His grace if you let Him?

Want a piercing?  Be like Our Lady: allow your heart to be pierced.  Say "yes" to God, in other words, and experience what having love for Him and others truly means.

Instead of an external mark or tattoo, why not be the gal, or guy or with the ‘interior’ tattoo? The kind that can’t be removed by lasers because its been inscribed by God on our souls through frequent reception of the sacraments and perseverance in faith through the trials, failings, redemptions, risks, rejections, sacrifices and daily penances of Christian life.  The kind where if someone were to peer inside our hearts, there they would see a rendition of Christ crucified, or Our Lady or another Mother Theresa or Padre Pio.  Ink not required.

What role Salander’s ‘tat’ actually plays in a movie that is a collection of every brand of sexual sadism out there is difficult to discern (it’s the self proclaimed ‘feel bad’ movie of the Christmas season).  But Lisbeth Salander, in a way, is basically what Catholics are supposed to be but in a perverse rendition: ‘different,’ and a dragon tattoo supposedly proves it. 

As we get closer to Christmas, it may to helpful to reflect on how Christ’s coming has permanently altered us, has made us ‘different’ from the culture all around us...on the inside, that is.  As the Christmas song goes, "Then He appeared and the soul felt its worth." 


From Isaiah, we learn that God, remembering his people has "inscribed you on the palms of My hands" (Is 49:16 NASB) and later, Christ would bear actual wounds on His hands for our sake. Now those are a physical markings that bring us closer to our true identity than any tattoo ever could.

One of OLOP's Own Goes Home

Though he had "SJ" (society of Jesus) scrolled after his name, Reverend Raymond Devlin was a regular fixture, and I would say, belonged to Our Lady of Peace Church, where he often assisted, especially with confessions.

It was in confession where, before giving you absolution, he asked you one simple question, "Are you sorry for your sins?"

It's a good question.  One we should think about often.  Are we sorry?  I can still hear his voice in my head.

He was a fine priest, a good man and quite the character.   His brother Joe Devlin was also Fr. Joe S.J.   They are now buried in the same grave together in the Jesuit plot of Santa Clara's Mission cemetery.

 In his life he personified the passage, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grains, but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (Jn 12:24). Who knows how many people he ministered to and affected in his life - most likely tens of thousands.

An aura of holiness always surrounded him.

He went home to be with our Lord and his family in Heaven and lived from Oct 7, 1924 until December 6, 2011.  May he rest in peace.

Read his full obituary here.

Read or contribute to his online guestbook here.

To Veil or not To Veil? That is the Question

I’ve met some wonderfully devout Catholic families who wear veils during mass.

I’ve also met some wonderfully devout Catholic families who don’t.  Mine doesn’t, but I swear, there's an inexplicable draw about those veils.

I used to think that chapel veils were a sign for some sort of spiritual elitism.  But, in a way, I was just being a ‘un-covered head’ elitist adamant that I didn’t need a veil to be all holy-like.  And of course, you don’t need a veil to be holy and those who wear them already know that.

Some families opt to wear chapel veils because that is how mom and dad grew up and they're just passing the tradition on to their kids.   Others choose to 'veil' simply as a sign of reverence for our Lord and I have a deep respect for anyone who wishes to show, in their dress, that the mass is like no other hour in their schedule.  

And secretly, I think I’ve always found the lacy veils to be pretty and attractive.  It's not such a big secret, actually, considering I wore one for my wedding. See:

Many moons and pounds ago...

But, then again, it could just be my inner Spanish flamenco dancer wanting to leap out in passionate, mantilla clad form. 

Deep down, I realize that, if I don’t keep the Spanish dancing doña at bay, I’d probably show up to church looking something like this: (strumming of guitar sound)

Hm. Alright, maybe not quite that flamboyant.  Probably something a bit more muted, such as this:(dramatic angelic choir music)

Oh, yes, I would.  Six inch comb and all.

The important thing to understand about veils is that, whether you decide to veil or not to veil, either way, you aren’t doing anything wrong.  No matter what some might claim, the requirement for chapel veils was already in decline when the mass rubrics of the 1962 Missal did not mention them. Similarly, and more recently, the 1983 Code for Canon Law is silent about the subject.  So, no, you are not obliged wear one, but at the same time, it’s equally fine to wear one. 

We need to avoid the temptation (maybe you haven't been tempted this way but I have) to believe that some invisible veiled/veil-less rivalry exists somewhere six feet above the temporal plane. Although, that would be an, er, interesting ‘battle’ to witness (The Veils unleashing a hail storm of lacy netting and the Bald Caps deflecting with the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), the truth is that the efficacious grace of the Eucharist is available to all properly disposed Catholics regardless of headdress.  

The important thing, of course, is what’s in your heart … unless what's in your heart happens to be a flailing Spanish flamenco dancer.  Whatever you do, don’t let her out.  Appease her with chocolate and Gyspy Kings music, but do not, I repeat, do not let her flamenco in church.  That might have been okay in the old translation (no it wasn’t) but the new translation, not so much.

And speaking of Gypsy Kings, who knew these guys made music videos and that they have over three million views?  Take look, if you can bear it: