Just When the Tomatoes Were Ripe....

The day after tomorrow I'll be heading back home again. I won't have any time to visit with you tomorrow or the next day. Chances are, given Sister St. Aloysius' priorities, I'll be very busy when I return, finding things, like the surface of the kitchen table and the floor. I've already been informed that my beloved worm farm (I have a worm farm) has been overtaken by bees. Now, instead of a worm farm, I have a bee hive. I'm not talking about my hair.

Here are a few questions, in the order in which they were received:

Sister,"Eucharistic minister"???? Should we be using that term? I thought we were only supposed to use "extraordinary minister of Holy Communion." (or EMHC, for short.)

The priest is the Ordinary Minister of the Eucharist. That makes anyone who is not a priest who is administering the Eucharist an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist. And although these people are extraordinary (as Ministers of the Eucharist, at least), they weren't meant to be so plentiful as to seem commonplace and therefore ordinary. We think of them as ordinary, but they are not Ordinary. Everyone just calls them Eucharist Ministers. (Really. Use your the Google.) The same way no one calls those phones you all have "celluar phones". They are not "cell phones". They are "celluar phones". Go complain about that for awhile.

Next question:

On another note, are there entrance exams to becoming a nun? Like, a God Quotient or something? Just curious.

Sort of. You can't just walk in the convent door and say, "Here's your new nun!" There is indeed a "God Quotient" involved and you will be tested. The rules used to be even more strict than they are now...you couldn't have been married or had a family and then gone off to the convent. Unless you were St. Rita.

St. Rita had a husband so rotten that the Mafia bumped him off. She cried and prayed that her sons would not get killed trying to avenge the death of their father. Her prayers were answered, as they both died of illness. This left Rita free to pursue her first love and attempt to join the convent. She was not accepted (had been married with children). She camped outside the convent. Eventually angels picked her up and flew her over the walls.

This was still not enough to gain her any real acceptance by the sisterhood within. They made her water a stick they stuck in the ground. Rita complied everyday without fail. This was an exercise in obedience and humility. Rita's stick eventually sprouted and turned into a tree. I used to think that was a miracle but it happened to me last year. Some plants sprout on old wood.

Anyhow, your "book learnin'" part of becoming a nun is very important, also. Just how important depends on which order you choose. Obviously, if you are going to a teaching order or a nursing order, it's very important.

Still, if you are accepted as a person with a calling, we can always find room for your dim bulb self in the kitchen or the laundry room where you will be blissfully happy. If you aren't, you'll know you didn't have a calling. You were just in it for the shoes.

Sr. Mary Martha, I absolutely love your blog. I have been looking all over this site for an email address to contact you privately, but I could not find one...Various moral dilemmas plague me from time to time, and I can't tell you how much I would appreciate some "unsympathetic" advice from someone like you. If you are willing, would you pretty pretty please post a contact email address for yourself so that we can all bombard you with our questions that we're too afraid to post in plain view of the world?

Sorry. I pretty much covered that here. Your confessor should be able to help you, anyhow.

And finally:

I was scolded one time for wearing suggestive shoes. They were closed toed flats, but they showed 'toe clevage'and were therefore not appropriate for Mass according to this individual. I looked it up in the catechism, but couldn't find anything on 'toe clevage'...

That is just pathetic. At least we have finally uncovered the individual responsible for the patent leather shoe and white table linen doctrine. Oh! and that strawberry thing!

Also, regarding the dress with the strawberry on it... A "strawberry" is another name for the girl in the neighborhood who, er, puts out. Bluntly, she is the neighborhood nonprofit whore. Fashion designers are hip to this. Wearing a dress with a strawberry on it is the same as wearing one of those shirts that says, "Porn Star".

I'm sure the makers of the Strawberry Shortcake dolls were trying to steal souls, too?

I'm all for decency. I worry about paranoia.