Sister Act

And as a sister and a friend, 

I’ll be a sister ‘til the end,

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and no one on this earth can

change that fact –

I’m part of one terrific sister act.

–  Deloris Van Cartier/Sister Mary Clarence

Sister Act – the Musical

It was a nun who first suggested that I might have a knack for writing.

Granted, she was not speaking ex cathedra. And while the ability to string words together rhythmically is a handy skill, I need only look across the dinner table at my spouse and children to find far superior wordsmiths.

But even if that particular pronouncement didn’t carry the same weight as, say, Sister’s teachings on important doctrinal matters like the fate of souls consigned to Limbo, her word was not something to be taken lightly.

Sister ruled.

John XXIII had not yet “open[ed] wide the windows of the Church” when I entered parochial school as a first grader in 1960. Saint Michael’s was a typical New York City parish that had been home to successive waves of immigrants – Irish, Italian, Polish, Puerto Rican, Cuban. In a strange new place, they entrusted the education and care of their children to Sister. 

The nuns of my early childhood were a formidable presence, otherworldly creatures whose human forms were hidden under yards of black cloth and starched wimples. They taught me inglés and the now-lost art of diagramming sentences, how to write in elegant longhand and the proper way to curtsy when the principal or one of the parish priests paid a visit to the classroom. From Sister Mary Thomasine, I first learned to pray, while Sister Mary Josephine taught me how to recite multiplication tables to the beat of her wooden pointer striking a desk. With Sister Mary Marguerite and Sister Mary Teresita, I discovered it was possible to be both a nun and a latina.  

They were also capable of instilling fear. More than a few smart-mouthed 10-year olds experienced the sting of Sister Mary Sheila’s slap across their faces. Sister Mary Daniel, built like a defensive lineman, towered over the pre-adolescent sixth grade males in her charge, striking terror with the combination of her size and temper. When it came to discipline, there was also no doubt that Sister ruled.

By the time I started high school in 1968, nuns had traded in their 18^th century garb for more contemporary, albeit modest, attire, and they had names like Sharon, Mary Anne, Rita and Dolores. For the most part, they approached the daunting mission of teaching 500-plus adolescent girls with good humor and remarkable patience, as evidenced when my best friend and I auditioned for chorus by singing a duet of Country Joe and the Fish’s Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die. (For the record, we omitted the opening call-and-response, “Give me an F…” Enough said.) But by then their numbers were beginning to dwindle. And by the time I went off to college, they seemed like quaint anachronisms, reminders of an identity I was eager to shed. 

But even now, forty years since I walked away from the Roman Catholic church and sought another spiritual path, I cannot deny the influence of that terrific sister act upon my life. The Sisters of my childhood were my first real models of women in ministry. Women religious were among my seminary classmates and have been my colleagues in ministry. In a time of personal crisis, a pastoral counseling center run by a community of nuns helped bring about emotional and psychological healing. Sisters have been my spiritual companions as I seek to deepen my relationship with the Holy. And the best massage therapist I’ve ever had is an octogenarian Ursuline. The Sisters I am blessed to know bear prophetic witness to extravagant, divine love – they feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, give sanctuary to the marginalized, work for peace, speak truth to power and still teach new generations how to solve multiplication problems and write grammatically correct sentences.

All of which makes the recent “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Vatican's Congregation for the Defense of the Faith and subsequent disciplinary actions puzzling to me, if not incomprehensible.    

Presumably, Sister has gone rogue and it’s up to the ecclesiastical hierarchy to rein her in.

The topic already has been written about much more eloquently by countless others, among them Sojourners’ Jim Wallis and The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof, and author-historian-academic Gary Wills and there are no signs of it quieting down anytime soon.

Perhaps the bishops’ reprimand is motivated by the desire to preserve doctrinal orthodoxy; perhaps it’s just sexism and power dynamics at work.

And it may very well be that, having chosen another way, it’s a subject on which I no longer have a right to comment.

But nearly a half century ago, someone far wiser than I will ever be suggested I had a knack for this kind of thing. And with that simple affirmation, she started me on the path toward discovering my creative voice.

This one’s for her.