As you undoubtedly know, nuns are the source of all cool. That’s why St. Dominic made sure to start with nuns and then try and rake a few friars together. This was an instantaneous success… duh, because he had a bunch of nuns at his back (and, yes, some input from the H. Spirit and him being a saint and all that jazz).
The nuns of the Order of Preachers pray all day every day for the friars and religious sisters*, and in turn we… er…
plug their websites?
The Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ, are dear to my heart for two reasons: their novice mistress has given me a well-aimed kick in the behind on several occasions**, and they make soap***. I’m so allergic to most soaps that hearing the word gives me an itch… but not these!
They are still dangerous, though. Both my sister and I have experienced the power of “Cloister Garden”, which I think should be re-named St. Anne’s soap, as it leads to Boys Sniffing You. Maybe it’s cloister garden because you’d be safe behind the walls?
In any case, they updated their web site. I’m not sure why because it was already really cool. Now, on the other hand, it’s staggeringly magnificent, which is also acceptable.
*nuns = cloistered. Religious sisters = running around. (Me = future religious sister.) This is a rule of thumb, it actually has to do with canon law and inheritance :)
**while behind a grille and on the other side of the ocean, yes. Totally ninja.
***and hand cream… which I put on all my skin, it’s fantastic. I do use the non-scented stuff (my allergies have their limits). Yes, soaps and cremes are excellent gifts for religious! ;)
These will be my footwear for the coming years (yes, I have a pair of each and fully intend to always walk on matching shoes). The sandals were bought by the Mothership. She pulled rank on me yesterday.
Footwear is significant in religious life. Some orders even named themselves after it: for example the “Discalced Carmelites”, meaning the “shoeless Carmelites” (O.C.D.), who took their sandals as a symbol of the reforms that split them from the “normal” Carmelites (O. Carm.). And Poor Clares, the cloistered nuns of the order of St. Francis, often don’t wear shoes at all (except a wooden plank with leather strap to protect the feet when outside).
For Dominicans, on the other hand, this picture indicates that my future congregation lives dangerously on the edge of… I don’t know, modernism?* Because hard-core Dominicans wear shoes, not sandals. This tradition goes back to St. Dominic himself (the man, the legend). St. Dominic preached in an area during a time where non-Catholic preachers established themselves by living starker poverty than the Catholic clerics, including walking barefoot. The Pope then told Catholics that they should prove their loyalty to the Church by preaching in proper shoes.
St. Dominic adhered.
And when he wasn’t preaching he took them off, and walked barefoot halfway through Europe.
There are still many Dominicans who wouldn’t be found dead in sandals. My congregation leaves them optional. And since I love wearing sandals, I am most certainly going to wear them. Even though I’ll have to wear them with socks (first year black, and after that… white).
I’m not wearing my new black shoes** yet, but I did wear my sandals to church. They’re the same brand as my usuals, but significantly dressier – I now have “Sunday sandals”! For some reason, I find that absolutely hilarious.
Now to find black knee socks, a black cardigan, and white blouses. The latter are proving annoyingly elusive. I might have to get my arms shortened.
*always a good one.
** I really really like pretty colours, so the insoles of pair #2 make me v. happy.
Visit Jen at Conversion Diary for more quick takes!
1.
I’ve been getting frustrated with people lately. I think I was justified (duh), but that’s not an excuse, of course.
2.
One of the bloggers on my read-always list is going to seminary and lists his reasons. Almost makes me want to be a priest too! But I can be a scary nun. That’s something.
3.
After six months, my mum is back on the continent! And not only the continent, but staying with one of her friends who just happens to live seven houses away. Yay!
4.
Speaking of my mum, your prayers would be appreciated. It’s nothing very serious but she will need an operation undoing something they did nine years ago, and then another one to fix the original problem again. As total narcosis surgery goes it’s pretty minor, and she is mainly glad because we have cause to hope that this will be The One Ending All The Vague Problems, but still, you know.
It does mean she’ll stay in .nl a while longer!
5.
Nine days until I go visit the convent for a few short days! I am looking forward to it enormously. We will probably also set my entrance date. Nailbite.
6.
My physiotherapist hurt her back while showing a patient how to do a stretch. She came wobbling into to the room when it was my turn. This did wonders for my trust in physiotherapy… then she put me through the most sadistic set of exercises since I started with her a year ago. Maybe I shouldn’t have voiced my concerns.
(She does like me, though. I think.)
7.
A letter of mine (correcting some unfortunate factual errors in an otherwise good article) got into the “Katholiek Nieuwsblad”. With a border around it, a background colour and a picture of the topic of the original article (a certain gaggle of Dominican sisters, not mine). After which people asked my dad whether I was in that picture.
Eh, no, my daughter, whom you talked with yesterday, is still running around in combat pants with malfunctioning zipper, I’m afraid.
I think I have a kind of delusion field around me. People just don’t notice I’m there. They ask ME whether I’m in England yet. THEY ASK ME IN PERSON.
Update: one open spot! Come on, unspecified anonymous soon to be seminarian ;)
If you’re a poor student*, don’t have anything to do between August 3 and 13, and like Dominican stuff: there are two open spots on the Lourdes/Other Wicked Cool French Sites trip one of the sisters of my future congregation is organising. It’s only 150 euros, plus self-booked flights to and from Toulouse, all-in! Free extras: talks on the Theology of the Body, two sisters and a priest, and a bunch of crazy English people. What’s not to love!
Open-minded non-Catholics are very welcome as well, the priest and sister (who, incidentally, is brilliant) are available for any and all questions. And we won’t try to convert you.
Much.
*or rich student, or poor/rich college-age, they’re really flexible ;)
I know several people who hate it when they ask how someone’s doing and that someone says “check my blog”. But as none of them is in the student computer room now and several of them have electronically expressed interest in the state of my affairs, I can either copy-paste it in several e-mails or, you know, just put it on my blog. This is probably only interesting if you’re around me in real life (or mail with me enough to make the difference negligible ;) )
1. How’s the knee?
The knee is still misbehaving. I have physical therapy twice every week. Unfortunately this is just going to happen from time to time. It should be better soon.
2. How’s the mum?
She arrived, after a horrible 24-hour series of flights, in good spirits. We had lunch on Sunday, and I’ll see her again after my exam on Wednesday! This is good things. Apart from that it’s exactly like she never left but just has a bit of a memory problem regarding the last six months.
It helps, in the sense of her being updated about my life, that I never tell anyone anything. I live with my dad and he doesn’t know much more than my mum does. He gets most of his information because I purposely allow him to overhear my phone conversations with the mothership, my brother and my sister. And they talk between them, which saves me a lot of talking. I’m unhealthy like that.
3. How’s the exams?
I have no idea. It’s completely impossible for me to tell whether I passed anything or not until the grades come out. I’ve got two more this week, two more scheduled in August, and I have to talk with my advisor about two others. And then I should be done. If I pass everything.
4. Why are you ignoring me?
Because planned study interruptions freak me out. That’s why I have physio first thing in the morning before I’m awake enough to study. I do interrupt the revising for brainless fun like playing devil’s advocate in debates about Communion and stuff, but that’s relaxation, not a looming wall of You Won’t Be Studying From 7 To 8 PM Because People Want To Have Dinner. I’m not saying it’s fair or sane, it’s just how it works :)
I read my e-mails and I love all the British girls very much. You’re getting mails back. Promise!
I finished my History of Science paper. It’s about a bunch of priests who either
- mess with the calendar, for religious reasons
- absolutely DO NOT mess with the calendar, for religious reasons
It’s twice the set length because I couldn’t choose between Bede and Bacon. But I told my prof that he can ask me to re-write it and I’ll still make the deadline… albeit in the Julian calendar.
Writing a paper with absolutely zero formulas (okay, maybe one or two) was an interesting experience. Because of my appreciation of looming deadlines I had to write part of it in-between choir rehearsal and Evensong – which meant I wrote it in cassock. Bede would have approved (except for that he wouldn’t have liked my woman-ness. He probably thought science would upset my fluids or something. I survived though- and that while the water was turned off in the Presbytery and we couldn’t visit the toilet).
And I honestly couldn’t remember the title of my blog after I finished. Maybe it did upset my fluids.
You can read the uncorrected version through paperGNW. It’s in Dutch. Don’t even think of using an automatic translator, I worked too hard to have it mangled like that. I’ll translate it when I have some free time*.
It also uses an indisputably obscene amount of commas and footnotes**.
I’m not content with it :( I could have done better…***
*HAHAHAhah… oh.
**Would you have expected anything else?
***Given infinite time. And chocolate :D
Except for the music, this slideshow captures the sfeer really well, I think:
I want to go again next year!
There is an oft-reported tendency in the Church that younger Catholics tend to be less liberal than older Catholics.*
I have two pet peeves regarding this topic:
1. The mentioning of “the biological solution”: the nature of age pyramids will lead to a more orthodox Church. I agree that this might very well be true, but the idea of letting “them” die off is , in my opinion, very distasteful.
2. The equating of “liberal” and “progressive”, and the very use of the label “modern”. If the Church is progressing in any direction, it’s not the “liberal” one, so that would make a “progressive” Catholic an orthodox Catholic!
This fallacious** link leads to strange and, for me, very frustrating conversations. Because I talk with older and more liberal Catholics on a very regular basis, and they have no idea what younger and more orthodox Catholics are on about. (At the same time, younger Catholics don’t know what lead the elders to what they are now and simply dismiss them as a bunch of heretics (see point 1), but I’ll leave that point in the oldies’ favour hanging for now.)
The general idea that liberal Catholics seem to have is that we’re trying to reinstate a rose-coloured version of what’s called in the Netherlands “Het Rijke Roomsche Leven”, “the Rich Roman Life” – the time that Catholics went to Catholic schools and Catholic football clubs and Catholic bakeries and grocers and tobacco shops, where they met other Catholics, one of which they married to produce twelve more Catholics, of which two became sisters and two priests, and then they went to Heaven. All questions were answered in the Little Catechism and the parish priest decided what happened outdoors, behind the front door, and even in the doorway itself.
Well, while there are certain appealing elements in this, it’s not what we’re looking for. The most glaring difference between our apparent image and boring reality is that we are not looking to the Magisterium for easy answers. I would even say that we’re looking to the Magisterium for difficult answers, if possible with footnotes, because we are fully aware that our questions are difficult.
Because we do question, you know. We certainly have a difference in world views, especially when it comes to moral relativism, but 98% of us didn’t just ingest a Catechism and be done with it.*** We are not a bunch of 21st-century scholastics, combing through dusty books in order to emulate them.**** We just discovered, each of us on our own, that when they said all that stuff about “unchanging” and “universal”, they weren’t kidding. Some things actually are universal. Culture isn’t, though. We are very much aware of that. We are seamlessly meshed into modern culture in almost all aspects… but, yes, we do draw the line.
So. That’s why I feel hurt when a bunch of liberal Catholics calls me old-fashioned and reconstructionist (after talking with me) and collectively laments how the young ‘uns are undoing all their work.
We aren’t. We are moving on. I have heard that’s not unique in societies. But, sincerely, thank you for liberating us enough to make our own choices!
If you’re three times my age, don’t call me old-fashioned. Making up your own liturgy is SO thirty years ago. All the cool kids are using their creativity for beauty within the rules.
And next time (there will, unfortunately, be a next time) someone does that to me, I will firmly put my metaphorical***** tongue in my metaphorical cheek and sing the aria I performed when taking my leave from the School of Music:
The dead do not care to reign; Let them rest in eternal peace! Oh voluptuous pleasure of the throne! Oh sceptre, finally you are mine! Every mortal desire is silenced and assuaged by you. He who was predicted king will soon fall lifeless!
(Full text and translation.) And if they don’t get the joke… at least their ears will hurt for a while.
*It’s easy to construct reasons for this (although to what degree they are true remains to be seen, of course). My favourite is that we learned about the faith in an entirely different context than our elders did. We are unfamiliar with the problems which the second Vatican Council was to solve – we only see the different solutions, and we pick the one that smells most like Catholicism.
**love. that. word.
***The remaining 2% proves that we’re a bunch of humans.
****We do comb through them. At least the cool ones.
*****Otherwise the pronunciation will be difficult.
Visit Jen at Conversion Diary for more quick takes!
1.
I have been thoroughly brainwashed by the astronomy students. I can’t even write “astrology”* any
more. When copying out my History of Natural Sciences notes** for review, I had a perfect streak of SIX PAGES (and that includes all the Greek names!) until we hit Ptolemy and I had to scratch out every third word because of compulsively writing “nomy” instead of “logy”.
*As you all know, “astrology” is the stuff where they say I am antisocial because the Sun used to be visible when looking in the general direction of a specified clump of stars (that are not at all connected in any way) during the month I was born in, if not for the fact that Things Changed and it’s somewhere else entirely now. “Astronomy” is the stuff where they say I’m antisocial because I’m a physicist.
**It is, by the way, a very good thing that I have chosen celibacy as my life path, because you betcha that I would have called my firstborn son Eratosthenes.
2.
The coffee machine was marked “out of order”, although when provided with credit and the right input on the key pad it presented a hot liquid, resembling coffee just as much as its usual output.
This changed the usual coffee machine gossip into a discussion centred on two questions: the realistic but only vaguely important one, is it toxic? and the much, much more essential, are the caffeine levels the same?
3.
Because of what shall only be known as “The Bike Pedal Incident” or “Thank Heaven for those eight years of ballet classes” I have now ripped my favourite skirt three times (and three others two times, and the remaining two one time each. This academical year). I think that donations for my postulant clothing fund can be arranged via Sr. Rosaleen.
4.
Disturbing: I was writing a word (with a pen, on paper) and wasn’t sure about the plural. While writing, I waited for the red wavy “yous = wrongs” line to appear. On the paper. Physical paper.
I don’t even have a red ink pen in my pen case!
5.
And then the coffee machines went from Producing Cups Of Unidentified Brownish Warmish Liquid to Producing Empty Cups. Two hours before my History of Science exam. I am sure I don’t have explain why coffee is essential to studying history. Like it is to producing science*. And to exams. Imagine the horror!
No, really, please do. I couldn’t, I was still asleep.
(I am not addicted to coffee, by the way, but I am currently living a bit above healthy studying levels, and it provides me with several extra non-drowsy hours. And the exam went as well as my test anxiety ever allows me to believe (translation: most people who are not me think I passed. I just hope that includes the professor**).)
*That must be the Wikipedia stub with the most categories I’ve ever seen.
**Our professor was insanely quick with marking (which he does himself for some obscure reason). I scored a 95%. Booyah. The main reason that I’m happy about this is that my highest mark used to be “Presentation and Communication 2b” and honestly, no-one wants to go down in history as The Girl Who Can Make Real Cool Posters About Wave-Particle Duality. Not if you just spent five years learning how to do things that won’t be of any help the rest of your life.
6.
Sometimes, you’ve been doing a little too much physics (not that I ever really get to that point – laziness prevents me) and you’ve got pages upon pages of awkward half-self-invented mathematical shorthand, and suddenly you get confused about your definitions and are absolutely sure it’s all wrong and you have to do it again, and then the book comes up with something like
(to save you two extra pages halfway through a problem). And you weep with joy at the beauty.
Typesetting that was nice for procrastination.
7.
My mum is coming back from Middle America tomorrow. I haven’t seen her for six months (to the day). I wish I wasn’t so busy with exams and thesis :( While we’re used to not seeing her for long stretches (she normally lives in France, after all, and nearer to Barcelona than Paris), the Council of Siblings decided some weeks ago that enough is enough already.
Unfortunately she’s caught something that made her quite unwell several times over the last six months, so I hope she’ll be able to bear our enthusiasm about her return…
Many people, shockingly many people, ask me whether I ever visited my future congregation.
Er, yes?
Although, to be fair, it didn’t take a lot of visiting for me to decide I wanted to enter there, and I do know of sisters who had only written with their community before they entered.
I have posted snippets, longer descriptions, and frustrated rants during the application process, but never (that I recall) a short overview of what happens, exactly.
It took me about 10 months to finish all of it. Some do it in two. Some in two years. And the process differs from community to community (an external psychological evaluation, as my community has, is uncommon, for example).
So what did I do?
After looking at the web site, I wrote with the novice mistress for about six months. (I have written with several communities.) Because I really liked their charism, and the vocations directress of another congregation had advised me to “check them out” because she thought they would suit me very well, we planned a visit for June.
Between the planning and the actual visit, I decided I wanted to join the SSVM, who have a mission in my diocese where I was in the young adult group. I almost decided not to go, but was put on the train anyway by popular vote of mainly my best friend.
After the usual stuff that goes with international travel I arrived at Brockenhurst where Sr. Maria picked me up after a call from the phone booth. At this point I was so nervous that, in retrospect, it seems amazing that I turned out to be able to bend my limbs enough to fit in the car.
Sr. Maria laughed and joked with me the entire way, and told me stories and anecdotes related to the places we passed. Then we arrived at the convent and I was turned over to Sr. Michelle, whom I had mainly written with, who gave me the Grand Tour and then left me to collect my bearings before Angelus, Midday Prayer and Mass.
Sometime between Mass and lunch I had decided I would rather not leave again if it’s at all possible thank you.
This was a rather unexpected feeling, so for four days I talked Sr. Michelle’s ears off about the SSVM and how great they are. (It might be that this is why sisters wear veils.)
Then I asked what the process would be like should I ask to enter here. She raised an eyebrow. I explained.
The process started with a talk with Sr. Rosaleen, the prioress, big boss, benevolent dictator, directress of the lot, or She Who Signals The End Of Prayer With A Hammer (it was specially made (I asked). There is no prioress’-hammer-store). I sat on the floor in a tiny room in the guest wing (bad knee day), and we talked about physics, the SSVM sisters, vegetarianism, the Netherlands, and all other things she wanted me to be reasonably sure about. At the end, she said she would like to see a letter from me after I had returned home.
So I went to sit with Our Lady in the chapel, asked St. John the Baptist to help me out since it was his Solemnity and I held him wholly responsible for this crazy turn in my life, wrote the letter, addressed and sealed it, and put it in my bag.
Back home I put it on my desk and stared at it for two weeks. Then I mailed it.
I kept the letter I got in return, of course. It came in a big envelope with a couple of forms. The letter said that all the sisters were very happy to receive my application (I squeeled and bounced through the house). The forms instructed me to write down my medical and educational history and then seek out an optician, GP, dentist, and parish priest. The optician sent me through to the hospital, which took months, and my parish priest also didn’t want to let me go without a good talk, so by the time I was done with the forms it was December, and I got to visit again (this time with my mum).
On this visit, I was measured up for my postulant clothes (which I tried to use to get away from the other guests when they went “inquisition, celibacy, suppression of women” on me, something I hadn’t expected in a covent guest dining room, but to no avail – Sr. Measurer was busy and I had to find another hiding place :) ) and met the new postulant who entered after my earlier visit. We got on like a house on fire (which is nice considering that we might spend five years in formation together, and the rest of our lives in community).
Then I went for my three-day psychological test, which I wrote about in some detail earlier. I can wholeheartedly advise it to anyone pursuing a vocation in Britain and Ireland. Before I went there, the sisters in formation had assured me that I wouldn’t be sent there if I wasn’t “in”, so barring something really weird popping up from my mind (possible, but less scary than being judged on personality), I didn’t have anything to worry about. That was really nice to hear. (I get insecure sometimes, the sillier the reason the better.)
I signed a disclosing form for my prioress and my novice mistress, who were thereby invited into all the dark recesses of my mind. They both read it. I have another visit coming up in a few weeks and they didn’t tell me not to bother, so I’m assuming they think they can still beat the worst out of me… and now all I have to do is graduate, commit administrational suicide, and pack!
So, that’s how you enter a convent :)
And it all started on the 24th of June 2008. It seems eons ago.
