Back in the Saddle

Sorry for my little absence. Rough week. Food poisoning. Me. Many souls were released from Purgatory, since I had the opportunity to suffer for almost a whole week.

Now I have the opportunity to try and keep the five pounds I lost from returning. I wonder if Weight Watchers has discovered the food poisoning weight loss program.

Of course, I don't have to worry about my 'figure'. But with a lightened load I do have more energy. Do nuns have to think about such things as their figures, their hair-dos, if their shoes match?

Yes, in a way. We are called upon to stay healthy, if at all possible. And we try to have a neat appearance. You know if you run around looking like a maniac, you lack credibility. Have you ever seen a nun with dirty fingernails? I haven't.

In any case, credibility is important.

Dear Sister, my question for you is: how did you know you were called to be a nun? I'd love to hear about your discernment, was it hard? was is easy? Was it difficult to tell your parents? How old were you? I'd love to hear about it. Also, what's the difference between a nun and a concecrated woman?

I've talked about this before:

"People have often asked me how I heard the call. Here's another confession. I didn't. Like dozens and dozens of other girls who entered the convent when I did, I was just a homely girl with no prospects. I could be a spinster or I could have a career of some kind. The convent seemed like a good choice. And like St. Augustine, my calling grew on me."

But your question brought something to mind that I had totally forgotten. Was it difficult to tell my parents? No. Because my vocation meant an all expenses paid one way ticket to heaven for them.

To begin with, it was a different time. I know there have always been parents that didn't want their children to enter the clergy or become nuns. But there weren't that many of them. It was common that is large families one boy and one girl was sent off to serve the Church, way back when.

Parents were exceptionally proud to boast of their daughter the nun. There could be no argument that they had done a fine job in their own vocation, which is to bring their children to Jesus. They could definitely put a check in that box on the to do list. But when I was a girl there was another perk: if you had a child who became a nun or a priest, you went straight to heaven.

I don't know who made that announcement, looking back on it. Was it an actual pronouncement or some kind of Sacred Tradition (like the word that Mary was Assumed into Heaven, which wasn't actual dogma, but was, but wasn't but was, but wasn't, until fairly recently), or was it just another one of those things the nuns made up.

Because they did make things up from time to time. And if it was something they made up, what happened to all the people who thought they had a free ride to the Pearly Gates. Do you suppose God would honor the half baked musings of a fourth grade nun?

I would hope that any Catholic who had done such a fine job of raising a child in the Church that the child grew up and married the Church would be a good enough Catholic to realize that a mortal sin will still send on to Hell. Because otherwise we could have some real parental havoc on our hands.

And a nun is a consecrated woman.