LAME reason not to be a nun

I just remembered this and had to share.

Last month when my friends and I were visiting the cloistered Dominican nuns, the prioress told us of a young woman she once talked to who was interested in joining up. The sticking point? Makeup. This girl didn't want to give up makeup.

The prioress told her she'd have to make that sacrifice for God, but the girl kept pleading for just a bit of foundation or powder or something. This was, I repeat, a group of cloistered Dominicans. Had she joined them, she would hardly have been seen at all by the outside world. She sure as heck would have given up any potential romantic interests. And yet she apparently couldn't bear to show anyone an uneven skin tone!

Just in case that shine serum post below was making you think I was vain. :)

The right to be taught

Heard something interesting from a friend at church this morning-- interesting in a sad way. He teaches classes on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, and the classes have really been expanding; there are 150 people taking them right now. The Exercises include an hour of prayer and meditation every day for ten weeks, so it's impressive that so many people are doing it!

But the folks who are attending from other churches haven't all had the years of solid teaching that our priests give at St. Peter Chanel, and it showed when my friend got to talking about Hell (the Exercises have meditations on the Four Last Things). He could see that some people were really rejecting it. Their perspective was "I've been going to St. John's (or wherever) for forty years and they never mentioned that!" So they don't believe the actual Catholic doctrine when they do hear it. They seem to figure that if it were true, their own priests would have been talking about it all this time.

It makes me think that the failure to teach Christian doctrine in its fullness is even more harmful than I thought. It doesn't just deprive people of the truth; it actively teaches them to deny it. Never teaching an important doctrine seems to be tantamount to saying it's not doctrine at all.

The Catechism has this excellent point: "The law of God entrusted to the Church is taught to the faithful as the way of life and truth. The faithful therefore have the right to be instructed in the divine saving precepts that purify judgment and, with grace, heal wounded human reason."

Say you have cancer and your doctor gives you a sugar pill instead of chemotherapy because he doesn't want you to get mad at him about the nausea and hair loss. Is he doing you any favors? We have a right to expect real medicine.

Citre Shine Shine Miracle Anti-Frizz Serum

I admit to owning a bottle of this pretentiously long-named stuff. One night I washed my hair and applied some to the wet ends. It dried overnight, I brushed it out in the morning, and wow-- my hair was all glossy and smooth. Felt like a Pantene commercial.

So I glossed around all day looking much smarter than you frizzy dull-haired folk, and towards evening after catechism I was ready to go to the 6:30 PM Mass. Long hair and a short triangle veil look lame together, so as usual I went to the bathroom mirror to put my hair up. Only it would NOT stay in place. My lovely shiny hair had also become incredibly slippery. After many attempts I tortured it into the neatest bun yet, captured it in the butterfly clip, looked into the mirror to see the result, and FWOOMP-- it fell right out again.

In the end I got my hair to stay up by the desperate expedient of wetting it down. The first reading had started by the time I finally slunk into Mass.

That night I checked the ingredients of Citre Shine Shine Miracle Anti-Frizz Serum. First on the list: Cyclopentasiloxane. Which is... wait for it... a "silicone fluid characterized by high lubricity". So that explains that-- I'd coated my hair in nonstick silicon!

"Vanity, vanity!" saith the Preacher. "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!"

I've found my Anglican counterpart!

This is awesome. I want to know what the numbers look like for a full set of breviaries and a 1962 missal. :)

Drug search at the convent

You other bloggers, top that post title if you can! :)

When I got to the convent yesterday afternoon, one of the sisters said she had a big task for me. She communicated with some effort (most of the sisters are from India or Africa or Asia, and their English, though much better than any second language of mine, is difficult to understand) that when the guests of the women's shelter ring the bell to be let in, I should ask to see inside their purses and bags. UGH! I enjoy opening the door for the guests with a smile, but searching them, not so much. "What am I looking for?" I asked, and wasn't surprised to hear it was drugs; I knew drugs had been found in the rooms.

So when the guests arrived, I let them in and very apologetically asked them to open their bags. They were all gracious enough about doing this, but I really, really hope it's going to be a temporary policy. It's ineffective anyway; I just kept my hands behind my back and let them show me what was in their purses and diaper bags. Any woman who wanted to get drugs past me could just stick them in a jeans pocket.

That was the hardest job I've had at the convent, but it was by no means the only one. When I began volunteering with the MCs last September I expected to be kept busy. But in fact it was mostly free time at first, with only the occasional ringing phone or doorbell to answer. Only recently have the sisters clued in to the fact that they can put me to work. Last week they asked me to call the parents of the kids in their catechism classes (a bit nerve-wracking because all the names were Spanish, but it turned out they did nearly all speak English.) They've also had me hanging newly-washed curtains, giving rides to the guests of the pregnancy shelter, and typing up prayers on a really old electric typewriter. Yesterday when I wasn't searching for drugs, I spent the time preparing a craft for a catechism class one of the sisters teaches. This involved reducing many rolls of red and white tissue streamer to piles of neat little squares, which the kids will then crumple up one at a time, dip in glue, and stick to a construction paper heart. It's going to be the Sacred Heart of Jesus, encircled by a construction paper ring of thorns, crowned with flames made of glitter, and with a teardrop-shaped bit of red paper glued on to represent the gaping spear wound. There's a project we sure never had in Protestant Sunday school!

I'm glad to be making myself more useful, but I sort of miss the time when the convent was just a weekly four hours away from it all. I used to spend the first hour or two preparing my own catechism lesson. Often as I worked I'd overhear the six sisters singing a hymn with their varied accents, and sometimes I'd catch the smell of incense from their chapel. I'd finish the lesson and catch up on my diary a bit, pausing to get the phone or the door and pray for anyone I encountered. The dinner bell would ring and I'd hear the guests gather in the dining hall and murmur the Our Father before sitting down to table. I'd eat a snack of my own, and open up a book. As people stopped calling, I'd leave the front parlor and go to the little chapel myself, where the low sun filtered through the windows. Then with night fallen I'd gather up my stuff, ring for a sister to come lock the door behind me, and skip down the convent steps with a cheerful "See you next week!"

I doubt I'll have that kind of leisure any more. The sister with the Sacred Heart craft yesterday was merely the first one to ask for my help. Two other sisters came to the parlor after her with work of their own they wanted done. They'll have to be more on the ball than that!