Can't We All Just Get Along?

I've been pleased to find that some readers have put links to the 'convent' here on their blogs and that some people have seen fit to actually quote some of my ramblings. I'll have to do penance later.

In one such mention, the blogger noticed that although the title is "Ask Sister Mary Martha", there usually aren't questions being asked.

True enough. When I began I thought I would simply be flooded which questions as I am when I do speaking engagements (I do that sometimes and I am absolutely flooded with questions) and that I would never have to think about what I might address on any given day here in cyberspace. But that didn't happen. I have no problem yammering away anyhow.

I do like to read the blogs of others, especially those of my readers and I ran across this one (Sunday Nov. 19). I think she touches on some very interesting points about money and church and I'll leave you all to ponder on your own about all of that.

But near the end there in her essay are a series of questions I feel I must answer.

I tried to simply put the answers in her comments section, but nothing happened when I clicked there, so I'm putting the questions and the answers here. They are questions I've been asked many times and I am happy to have the opportunity to answer them once again.

"As far as worship goes, why do I need to be in a building for an hour or so, with a bunch of other people, sitting on hard wooden benches, singing what someone else has decided will be my musical praise for the day? Why does it have to be Sunday morning? Why can't I be praying and singing my heart out in the car alone and call it my worship? Why can't I be at home, alone, and call it Worship? Why can't my tithe be what I sent to the family who's house burned down?"


1. Why do I have to be in a building for an hour or so ...

God made an entire world for you. A very beautiful one except in cases of mudslides... and the Badlands and the Sahara desert, but we love diversity. Even the stuff we're not too happy about like spiders and alligators are part of the eco-system to keep things looking pretty. An hour is not too much to ask to pay attention.

2. .....with a bunch of other people.....

And in heaven you'll be all by yourself? Singing in your heavenmobile car? People who can't get along with each other IN CHURCH are just about my biggest pet peeve. This includes you "Vatican II ruined my Latin Mass" crowd. Guess what? If a Hootenanny Mass is someone's idea of happiness, which it obviously is, there's going to be some Hootenannying going on in heaven. Unless heaven is segregated into a bunch of people mumbling praise to God in Latin and a bunch of them singing Kumbyah, or however you spell that, we better learn to get along. Being insipid is not a sin. Guitars and bongos will be welcome.

And it doesn't end there. How on earth can we expect the Sunni's and Shiites to get it together when we're arguing over whether or not it should just be a handshake for the "handshake of peace" and finding a new parish when the one we're going to gets a little too huggy. Get a grip, people. Or a hug. I promise you it's not that bad.

And what's with the notion that anyone that isn't you is a 'bunch of other people'. So much for 'the least of my brothers'. Heaven forbid we should hang out with that bunch.

3. ..sitting on hard wooden benches...

Well, any Catholic worth his holy cards knows the answer to this one, so let's all say it together shall we, "Jesus suffered for your sins". Offer it up. Don't you dare bring a cushion. In fact, sit there for an extra hour to make up for the fact that you didn't want to sit there.

By the way, many churches now have padded benches, or padding on their benches. I can't argue with this either, but only because the congregations are so old. I know we have to sit Sister Mary Fiacre on bunch of pillows all the time to keep her old bones from hurting her all day. Perhaps there should still be an unpadded section, especially for the children.

4.... singing what someone else has decided will be my musical praise for the day?

See answers to 1. and 3. Maybe you can put your special song requests in the suggestion box for next SUNDAY MORNING.

5. Why does it have to be Sunday morning? It doesn't. It can be Saturday evening or Sunday at 5 pm. But it used to be only Sunday morning because it's one of the Ten Commandments which everyone would know if they would just stick them up in front of the court houses.

I'm being sarcastic now, forgive me. I don't believe the Ten Commandments should be in front of court houses for two reasons: The court house isn't God's house and almost none of the Ten Commandments are against the law if you break them. God may throw you into hell, but no one is going to throw you into jail. Ironic.

Anyhow, it used to be that Sunday was everyone's day off and a special day for God and now it's
'special day' at the Target and the car wash. And the whole idea of having a day off that everyone had off and could worship together is pretty much whole idea of the community of faith. See answer to #6.

Yes, there are monks and hermits. But they're busy praying for the rest of us to be able to put up with each other.

6. Why can't I be praying and singing my heart out in the car alone and call it my worship? You can. But a whole bunch of people doing anything together has a lot more power than anyone doing anything alone. That's why soccer games are so dangerous and why there are peace marches.

7. Why can't I be at home, alone, and call it Worship? You can. But, see answer to 6.

8. Why can't my tithe be what I sent to the family who's house burned down? Go for it. I really don't see a problem here. You're not Donald Trump so you have decisions to make about how you can best use what money you have. It's admirable that you'd give your money to a bunch of other people.

Of course, I have to put in a plug to jump over to the Catholic church. You will be greeted with a handshake or a hug as soon as everyone stops arguing about how loud the organ was, how the host should be distributed, in what language the Mass should be, how Father dresses when he's not saying Mass, where the screaming babies should be kept .....

Now we've had a quiet couple of days since our house is back to normal. This gives us time to reflect. We're not cloistered nuns who do nothing but reflect, meditate and pray. We're distracted by sewage and deadlines.

When I think about nuns in the cloister and how they spend their time, my mind turns automatically to St. Therese the Little Flower. She had enough time to add subcategories onto her own name. It got pretty long....there was more after the Little Flower. Jesus is in there somewhere.

St. Therese was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She had wanted to become a missionary and die a martyr but things didn't go her way. She decided to use every aspect of her mundane life as an offering. She used every opportunity to suffer for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, sleeping with no blanket in the winter and a wool one in the summer....that type of thing.

She kept a careful record of all her sufferings, saving someone in heaven the task of tallying up her sufferings to bounce over to the suffering souls. I wonder who's job that is? In heaven, I mean. Who has to spend their eternal happiness figuring out who still has to suffer and how much and how much my suffering counts towards theirs?

We all suffer differently. One person's suffering is another person's delight. Just ask all those Germans running around in leiderhousen out in the desert. They love it there.

For example, I can sit in a room of kindergarteners banging on toy percussion instruments pretty much all day. It doesn't matter how many of them there are or what they are banging as long as it doesn't actually hurt my ears. They're busy and happy and out of trouble. (Unless I knew they all had dirty hands, then it would drive me crazy.)

Sister St. Aloysius would have to be carted off to an asylum after about six minutes of that. (If they had dirty hands on top of it, she'd need an IV.)

On the other hand, when we're watching basketball and someone we like makes a shot, Ben Wallace, say, or Sam Cassel, Sister St. Aloysius claps her hands. There is something about the sharp sound of her clapping that just kills my ears. It's everything I can do not to leap up and tie her hands behind her back with my giant wooden rosary.

So you can see how our suffering when we're in Purgatory could be quite different. For me, all they would have to do is play that "El Pollo Loco" jingle (where the guy sings "EL ! Po yo Lo-co!") really loudly over and over again. Or the Navy Marimba Band playing "Blowin' in the Wind".

If you ever have guests that over stay their welcome, just get yourself a copy of the Navy Marimba Band playing anything at all and they'll clear right out.

I would think that they had some sort of system in place in heaven to sort all of this out. By now they will have to have gone digital as our causes of suffering and our ability to tolerate it are ever-changing.

Truthfully, the modern world offers opportunities to suffer that self-flagelating saints never dreamed of. It would have been fun to sit in a traffic jam caused by looky-loos with St. Francis of Assisi. We could listen to books on tape together. How would St. Christopher have handled it when the person in front of him on the escalator got off at the top and just...stopped? That can cause death and mayhem. What would St. Catherine of Sienna who never ate anything but the host think watching people pound down a Whopper with fries and a Diet Coke?

I know what I think.

That's why I know I'll be in Purgatory.


Maybe I shouldn't let anyone know what bugs me.

We went to the Home Depot as late as we could muster, given our work hours and the fact that the bathroom is out of commission. All the contractors and people who know what they're doing are there during work hours. We mistakenly thought that there would be less people at 9pm.

At 9pm at the Home Depot there are a lot of terrible looking people. People who have 5 hours to paint their apartment walls before they move out in the morning who are looking for the cheapest white paint they can find that will cover up the unsightly colors they painted the place without the landlord's permission and 7000 hand prints. People who are buying plants and rugs and fans and doorknobs and drawer pulls. And lots of people with emergency plumbing problems. Because it isn't really an emergency if it's not at 9pm now is it?

And they all look like zombies. Poor Souls.

It's an oddly good match when we arrive in a land of zombies. We look like exorcists. Sort of.

Another reason it really doesn't do any good to go so late is that there are also less Home Depot employees. If they spend their work days fleeing contractors and people who know what they're doing and what they're looking for, you can imagine how they feel in the sea of zombies that is night time at the Home Depot. It's a matter of life and death, us or them.

We found the plumbing aisle on our own. Did I say aisle? Aisles. One whole aisle of bathtubs, one of fixtures, one of toilets, one of hardware, pipes, fittings, plumbers tape and a whole wall of drain opening products.

Sister St. Aloysius was right! There is a product that you can dump down the drain that's supposed to get rid of tree roots. But it said something about the septic tank and it was dressed in it's own private Hazmat suit so I was nervous about trying it.

That would mean we would have to ask someone. Perhaps we should leave, have a Mass said for us and come back.

We could try to call on St. Vincent Ferrar, but I have to admit I'm dubious about his patronage of plumbers. St. Vincent is the patron saint of plumbers and construction workers because he did so much to build up the church. He was a scholar. I'm sure he wouldn't know a pipe wrench if he fell over one. He would be even more lost in Home Depot than we are now. But then in heaven all things are possible. (Even war...)

We decided to split up to find help. I found a poor bug-eyed man trapped by several zombies asking questions because he had the misfortune to be threading some pipe for a customer. even if he dropped the pipe and ran he would be trapped on the end of the aisle by a bunch of boxes and a fork lift. Ha!

My attire caused the zombies to part like the Red Sea and I asked him about the Chemical Warfare product dressed in it's own Hazmat suit available to me. He was very nice, soothed, I think, by my presence, an unusual experience for both of us, I'm sure. He told me to
"never use that stuff" and he told me some other stuff I could use. St. Vincent comes through after all.

So I went to find Sister St. Aloysius. Somehow she had found a frightening looking Home Depot employee. Maybe he had found her. A rummy, or perhaps a parolee. Remember "It's a Wonderful Life"? Remember how when the angel shows George Bailey what his town would look like without the influence of his life and how the local bar is a horrible den of iniquity and a terrible old drunk who had spent "twenty years as a jailbird" comes in it turns out to be the pharmacist that would have poisoned a little boy had it not been for George Bailey?

Like that, only in an orange vest.

When I got there, Sister St. Aloysius had turned into a zombie. Mr. Gower was standing side by side with her and she was staring blankly at all the products. When I stepped in and grabbed the bottle of what the pipe threader told me to get the spell was broken, the orange vested Mr. Gower nightmare disappeared in a poof.

Poor Sister St. Aloysius blinked at me. She had explained to the pathetic version of Mr. Gower in an orange vest that all the sewage had come up through our toilet and that we needed something to unplug it. Mr. Gower had stood close to her side, put his arm around her waist and pulled her next to him and said, "What did you do?" She had peeled herself away from him.

It was at that precise moment I had arrived.

We tried to beat a hasty retreat but here's another reason late night isn't any better. There are just as many people shopping at 9pm, but there are far fewer checkers at the check stands. Luckily, we have the patience of many saints to call on. And there's a McDonald's right in the store.

How Did We Get Here?

We survived Home Depot by the skin of our St. Bartholomew medals.

Our house is very old and only has one bathroom. The plumbing is from the Cro-Magnum Man period (or right after the Garden of Eden for the Evangelicals). Once a year or so everything that goes down one drain in the house...any drain... comes up through the bathroom. The entire system is clogged with heaven only knows what and tree roots. Raw sewage begins to erupt into the bathroom and down the hall way. As a result, we know the whole house is tilting forward, as the stenchey brown water rushes toward the living area.

It comes without warning. It reminds me of the Bible movie The Ten Commandments, when Charleton Heston warns Yul Brenner to let his people go. Yul Brenner ignores Chuck and a black smoke snakes through Egypt killing the first born. Perhaps Yul created the cloud himself with a pack of Camels.

It is a disgusting mess that we have to mop up with towels and disinfect like crazy people and keep Lysol in business. Then we have no where to go to wash the towels until the whole mess is fixed, so the stenchey towels mock us from a Hefty bag out on the porch until....

...we call the plumber. To get nearly as disheartening a feeling about the human race as you might get from a trip to Home Depot, stay home and call a plumber.

The plumber will have to come out with a giant electric snake and put it down the trap to clean out our system. But the only trap that is available to them is on the roof.

We've had to do this every year for years. But now there are almost no plumbers left who will go on the roof. Not even if we promise the pray to St. Barbara the whole time they're up there. At least I think St. Barbara would fill the bill. She was locked in a tower by her evil father. The tower had two windows in it and she had a third window cut in there to represent the Holy Trinity. So it doesn't seem like she was afraid of heights since she had all those windows to look out of up there.

The plumbers that will go on the roof want two plumbers to come here to go on the roof, one go on the roof and the other one to hold the ladder and laugh at the guy on the roof.

The whole thing makes me sick with anxiety. The mess, the expense, the plumbers and the way I can see the roof give with each step they take. The roof was built during the Ice Age. (Not sure where that fits into Evangelical fantasy time.) I have to pray to St. Joseph the whole time. He's a great all purpose saint! Carpentry, happy death, doubt and hestitation, dads, step dads, travel, Italy, workers, real estate...and I know for a fact he put a roof on the St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal after getting the whole thing built.

That's why we decided to grit our teeth (while praying to St. Apollonia) and head for Home Depot. Sister St. Aloysius was certain she had seen some product that can be dumped down the drain to kill roots. I think she was confused. I think what she actually saw was something to kill a tree stump after you've cut down the tree, but if she's right and I can avoid so much as getting out the yellow pages to look for plumbers, I'm already starting the car.

We felt terrible having to ask someone to come in to look after Sister Mary Fiacre while we were gone. To have to sit in the stenchey house for heaven only knows how long! I know people who have gone to Home Depot and returned to find their children grown.


At least Sister Mary Fiacre is oblivious. There's always a bright side, isn't there?

But we made it out alive! More on that tomorrow....

Bracing for Home Depot

I pray for strength.

I have to go to the Home Depot.

I try to like Home Depot. They hire people with special needs and they have everything you could ever need to fix anything.

But I have a theory about what actually goes on there. Four things:

First, if an employee sees you coming to them for help, they run. They try to be clever, looking past you like they didn't see you, or trying to look as though they are on a mission. I'm sure they are. The mission is to get to the break room as fast as possible and then stand in there and laugh with all the other employees that they got away with it again. While smoking.

Second, each employee can only do one thing at a time. So should the employee have the misfortune of actually having to help a customer, other customers gather around hoping for an audience with the employee who will not deign to let you hold his robes, let alone ask where in the store they make keys.

Third, if you actually get an employee to talk to you, they will tell you they'll go 'check on it' and then run away never to return, no doubt laughing in the break room with the employees who didn't have to even talk to the customer first. And smoking.

All three of these Home Depot rules are thrown to the wind if the customer is an attractive woman. Several employees will gather around an attractive woman, hold her purse and shine her shoes, offer her a cold drink and feed her grapes while they carry her to her car on a litter.

So you can imagine how flumaxed they are to see us coming. Sister St. Aloysius is rather attractive in a nunny sort of way. She was invited, after all, to a cuddle party. She might even be more attractive if she didn't wear the nun shoes. Hard to say.

But she IS a nun. She is wearing a small veil.

And she's with me. I know I scare small children. I can't imagine what I do to Home Depot employees.

The two of us together looking for help in the Home Depot causes the employees to short circuit, I think. The combination of an attractive (enough for Home Depot) woman, the employee's need to simply wander around the store aimlessly until it's time to go home and me, who embodies a reminder of eternal damnation, causes them to go completely haywire.

So we've learned to snag them while they are caught in the headlights of stupefication, wondering why they are both attracted and terrified, both curious and repelled, and get them to do our bidding. Which brings me to point four:

When you actually do snag a Home Depot employee to help you they will tell you absolutely anything that pops into their brains, hand you the wrong thing in the wrong size and disappear. I think at this point Home Depot employees actually have the ability to disintegrate and reintegrate in the break room. And smoke.

I have no small amount of glee knowing that both Sister St. Aloysius and I did in fact stick it to the smokers in last Tuesday's election.

Headed for confession on Saturday. Wondering if the suffering involved in a trip to Home Depot will cancel out the penance for the glee. Probably not.

Mc Voting

We vote in a garage. Not a place where mechanics fix cars-- the neighbor's garage. Like most polling places it is run by the elderly. The very, very elderly. I remember a kid years ago who brought a toy to school from a cartoon called "He-Man". The toy was the the bad guy, "Skeletor". I always think of him when I'm talking to the people who are sitting in the garage. "Hello, Skeletor," I think to myself as I approach.

The garage is in what we here in Los Angeles call a 'McMansion'. This simply means build the biggest house you possibly can on a tiny lot. You' d be amazed at how much house can be stacked up on there when you use every inch. It seems odd to me, considering the weather is virtually always lovely (even on a bad day unless you live in fire territory or mudslide county), that people would opt to have no back yard. Or front yard. The people at the voting garage McMansion actually use the tiny strip of ground on the side of the driveway for a vegetable garden. They don't notice their own yearning.

I notice their garage is big enough to hold an election.

We took Sister Mary Fiacre along for the ride, since we can just stroll over there. She's always a hit with the people at the polls. Everyone talks to her. No one seems to care that she is more or less unresponsive. It seems to encourage people even more to speak to her as though she were five years old or so, or as though she didn't speak English, in that way people have with non-English speakers, speaking loudly and slowly so the foreigners will suddenly understand the meaning of words they've never heard.

I could tell that the Fiacre chatter behind us was horribly distracting to Sister St. Aloysius as she tried to vote. We don't go behind curtains. If only they did. I could roll Sister Mary Fiacre in there and no one would be the wiser. The only curtains in the McMansion garage are there to hide the junk these people keep in their garage. Which is always fascinating. Why keep that beat up snooze alarm? Is there a garage in America without one? Why are there always minute paint splatters on it?

Anyhow, I could see by Sister St. Aloysius' body language that she was getting more and more tense at all the baby talk and left over Halloween candy going on behind us. Sister Mary Fiacre loves her sweets but we can't just stuff her with candy and cookies, willy nilly. I wasn't concerned that sister St. Aloysius would blow her stack or anything like that. She never blames anyone esle for her woes. But I was concerned that as she grew more and more flustered ....we'd never get out of here. Ever. I can only stare at the stacked up paint stains on the snooze alarm for so long.

Sister St. Aloysius takes her voting very seriously. She studied the voter's guide for days after it came, highlighted things with a yellow marker, read all the propositions, read all the arguments pro and con, noted who was making these arguments, agonized as to whether she should stick it to smokers with the proposed $2.60 cigarette tax.

Then in typically "you had me, you had me, you lost me" Sister St. Aloysius fashion, she didn't take any of these materials with her as a reference. Her idea was that the whole point of all this study was to know the issues. It was as though she was taking an exam and not knowing the answers cold would be cheating.

I fail to see how this would be cheating. The whole point is to cast your vote in the way you choose. It's not a test on how many facts you can retain and relate them to numbers 1A through E.

Which is exactly what happened. In her zeal to study the propositions she didn't memorize what number or letter went with each proposal. Even that is not a disaster, since there is a little sentence with each proposal to explain it. With all her study, that should be plenty.

And I'm sure it would have been had it not been for the Sister Mary Fiacre symphony of sound. The candy wrappers, the introductions to entering voters, more candy wrappers, the constant use of the royal 'we', "Sister! (what's her name? Fiacre? is that French?) how are WE today?"

I can only hope for my own voting that my guardian angel guided my handthe way God protects the Church from a teenage Pope. Heaven only knows what I voted for. I punched holes as fast as I could, skipped all the judges I didn't know, which was most of them and stuck it to the smokers. Then I zoomed Sister Mary Fiacre out for 'some air', even though we were more or less outside anyhow.

I marveled at the vegetable strip and felt a pang of guilt for that lady out there smoking.

Brownie Theology

I felt sort of bad that my eyes glazed over when Sister St. Aloysius was explaining how making brownies on All Souls Day was the ultimate sacrifice for her so I asked her about it again. It was wonderful that I did that, because the consequent suffering on my behalf had to have blown the roof off Purgatory, at least for the half an hour that followed.

She explained that the more uncomfortable she made herself, whether purposefully or by accident, the more she could offer for the Poor Souls. Giving away her favorite treat is just the top of the iceberg. She didn't actually assign a value for her sacrifices, but I will, in order to explain her thinking.

I'm not sure if it's not more math than theology but here goes:

How to Score Sister St. Aloysius' Suffering:

1. The Brownies are made from scratch. 100 points.
If you use a mix, it's a tablespoon of water and an egg, stir, blob into a pan. Voila! Delicious brownies. Made from scratch, the brownies involve melting chocolate pieces (on my really clean stove, 50 points for me), and quite a few more ingredients that must be measured.

2. She measured everything. 100 points.
Sister Saint Aloysius is one of those natural cooks who doesn't measure much of anything left to her own devices.

3. She gives the brownies away. 100 points.
She loves brownies more than anything but will not so much as taste the batter or lick anything off her fingers.

Now, we can't really award points to suffering, but here's how her theory works if we were to break it down mathmatically:

If she were to have simply make brownies from a box she would only make 100 points for having given them away (#3). She likes to cook and brownies from a box are an enjoyable easy treat.

Now she has 300 points instead of 100 points because she added #1 and #2.

She purposely made the brownies from a recipe she had never seen before so she would be forced to measure everything. That ups the points for #2. I'll add 50.

She was made the brownies from a very promising recipe she found in a fancy magazine she saw in the doctor's office while waiting for Sister Mary Fiacre's cholesterol results, making the no taste/give away factor all the more high. I'll add another 75.

She burned her thumb. hmmmm..........25 points..........it wasn't bad. She was joyful about it. 25 more points.

She spilled flour down the front of herself and was very upset about how stupid she was for not wearing an apron. Minus 10 points.

She worked even more slowly with no apron and made sure she didn't spill anything else on herself just to make it harder. Plus 15 points.

Teddy loves chocolate. I know animals aren't supposed to eat chocolate, but Teddy eats chocolate whenever he can get away with it and he's not dead yet. Maybe it's only dogs who aren't supposed to eat it. Maybe every time he eats it he's giving up one of his nine lives. She gave the spoon to Teddy. The spoon that had the only taste of the fabulous new recipe on board. The wonderfulness of it was not even lost on Teddy who can purr really, really loudly.

Listening to Teddy purr over the chocolate, 30 points. Feeling jealousy toward a cat, minus 40.

(I am often jealous of Teddy. No one can sleep like that guy.)

It didn't end there. The brownies smell great when they're cooking, they have to cool and be cut and wrapped up to give away. 300 more points.


She made a double batch. This doubles all the points she has received so far.

She wrapped each brownie individually to give away, 300 more points. She used that horrible cling wrap that constantly clings to itself. 1000 points. It was the expensive decorated kind. Minus 50 points.

She was very proud of her beautiful, individually wrapped, made from scratch from a fancy recipe brownies. Minus 400.

She saved one brownie out for Sister Mary Fiacre. Plus 400.

What's her score?

I don't know.

It doesn't matter since I made it up anyhow and since we don't even know how much suffering it would take to free a soul,the math is all moot.

I do understand her thinking, although it gave me a headache. Oh joy! 500 points.

All Soul's Day

This is a very big day for all of us. As important as All Saints Day is, we have quite a mission today, All Souls Day.

Today we pray for all the souls of the dearly departed, even if they didn't depart so dearly, or weren't very dear leading up to their departure.

Here's the 911 on the whole shebang. We here living on earth are called the Church Militant. If that doesn't make you snap to attention, I don't know what will. The people who died and went to heaven are called the Church Triumphant. Hooray for them.

We don't know who got in and who didn't, and we don't make assumptions about anybody except when we canonize someone as a saint. Everyone who is in heaven is a saint. But we only have proof by way of miracles about some people who we officially deem are in heaven.

That's why we never ask our dead Aunt Julia to pray for us from heaven, because we don't know whether she made it or not. We hope she did, but we can not assume she did. Not at all if you knew our Aunt Julia, but that's beside the point.

Everyone who isn't dead and in heaven or alive here on earth are called The Church Suffering. Boy, are they ever suffering. They are in Purgatory where an hour is like sixty years and they're always on fire. Mary and the angels come and bring them water to freshen up with. St. Patrick swings by on Saturdays to lead some souls out.

Today is dedicated to praying for the Church Suffering in the hope that some of them get paroled. We offer our own sufferings and annoyances and our prayers, rosaries, masses....Sister St. Aloysius is making brownies.

I'm not sure what her reasoning is there. She explained it to me but it gave me a theological haircut. Whizzed low over my head. I think she loves brownies and plans to give them all away. I know I must have missed something. Her explanation took an entire half an hour, which for me was an opportunity to suffer thirty years worth in Purgatory time for a soul TBA.

Anyhow, you can pray for everybody there in the Church Suffering, or you can pray for your dead Aunt Julie, or anyone else you think may be suffering.

Dont' worry about being judgemental. Chances are the person or persons you have in mind did indeed make a stop in Purgatory. Take a gander at any booklet put out by the church to help you examine your conscience before confession and you'll find out you probably can't get through a day without sin. You probably sin every hour on the hour. For men, one minute out of every five, according to the American Psychiatric Association. So you're not being judgemental, you're being practical.

And don't worry that you might pray for someone who got out of Purgatory and that you've wasted a whole day trying to pray Uncle Al into heaven and he's been there for the last three months already. You're prayers will go up to heaven and bounce back out again. They'll be deflected to a needy soul just like a no look pass from Steve Nash to Amare Stoudemire. The souls in Purgatory are always yelling, "Over here! I'm open!"

(We like basketball around here and are very excited the season has begun. We'll offer up missing the opening games because we have important work to do. But we'll be parked in front of Charles Barkley on Thursday, yes we will. Sister Mary Fiacre likes things that move fast. I hope she doesn't get stuck in Purgatory too long because it's way too slow moving for her. She'll really suffer.)

What are you doing here!? Why aren't you at Mass?

Hopefully you've already gone. Otherwise it's straight to hell for you.

Today is All Saints Day, a Holy Day of Obligation. The obligation is going to Mass.

Don't think you can let this slide because you're all crashing from your sugar rush from All Hallow's Eve. Don't get confused by the loosy goosey, substitute Saturday for Sunday Mass, 'New Rules'. Your lump of flesh needs to be in a pew with a priest in front of it today.

Halloween is short for All Hallow's Eve. That's because we now have two whole days of hallowing ahead of us.

Today we honor the saints. These are people we know for a fact are in heaven. It's a REALLY long list. We read part of the list at the Mass you're supposed to be attending.

It used to be a short list. At first it was just the martyrs, and only two of them at that. Just St. Stephen, the first martyr and John the Baptist.

St. Stephen was out preaching away, shortly after Jesus ascended back to heaven. The mob wasn't very happy with what he had to say and they stoned him to death. Saul, who was about to become St. Paul any second, was in the crowd holding cloaks for people, thus freeing up the rotator cuffs for those who needed a full range of motion to throw their stones. St. Stephen is the patron saint of people who have headaches.

Understandable.

St. Paul is the patron saint of tentmakers. Maybe he kept the cloaks.

St. John the Baptist was imprisoned, but not for his riverside enterprise. It was entirely personal. It's that nasty Herod at the helm again. Or rather one of the nasty Herod's. This isn't the same Herod who ordered the death of the Holy Innocents when Jesus was born. That Herod is Herod the Great.

Herod the Great was the builder of the temple of Jerusalem, although he angered the Jews by sticking a giant Roman eagle on the top of it when it was done. The Jews took it down, and he found out exactly who did that and had them executed. Herod the Great was officially called 'The King of the Jews'. So when the Wise Men showed up asking the king where they might find the 'new king' (how wise was that?!! I guess we can't call them the Foolish Kings since they did manage to find Jesus, but...holy cow!), Herod went ballistic and had all the male babies that fit in the right age range slaughtered. All in a day's work for Herod.

An angel comes to warn Joseph about this mess and Joseph takes the Holy Family off to Egypt until after Herod is dead. Unfortunately, Herod is never really gone.

Herod the Great the King of the Jews had three sons. (He had a few more sons but he had them executed. Ho-hum.) When the first Herod died the kingdon was divided between the three of them.

They were all named Herod. So George Foreman isn't the first guy to really confuse everyone by naming all his kids George.

The first Herod boy, Herod Jr., is in power for ten years and then is booted out because he was just lame and the Romans got rid of him. He did effect the Holy Family, though, as Joseph moved Mary and Jesus north to Galilee to stay low profile.

Here's where John the Baptist comes in. Herod's cousin divorces her husband and marries Herod. Not the one the Romans didn't like, the second is this Herod who married his divorced cousin and we don't care about the other one.

Are you still with me here? There's the George Foreman Herod and his three sons. We're now talking about son number two.

John the Baptist had a fit about this divorce and Herod Jr. Jr. had him thrown into prison. Then during a party Herod asks the divorcee to dance for him, he'll give her anything she wants. Her mother sees a great way to shut John the Baptist up and Salome the divorcee takes her mother's advice and asks for the head of John the Baptist. It's made for some fabulously gory works of art.

This is also the Herod who presided at the trial of Jesus.

But it is not the Herod who executed James the Elder, also known as St. James the Greater. He could have been called St. James the Taller, or St. James the chosen by Jesus before the other James.

And it is also not the Herod who coined the phrase "Christian" when he referred to St. Paul as such. That Herod is two Herod's later than the John the Baptist, trial of Jesus Herod.

These last two were not more sons of the George Foreman Herod. They are nephews. Riding the coat tails, I say.

St. James the Greater, by the way, was the son of Salome. Not THAT Salome.

I've totally lost my train of thought. What was my point here? Make sure you go to Mass and honor the saints. I'll be here, lost in a maze of Herods. Someone throw me a rope.

The Mark of the Long Dead Beast

On the day before Halloween let's discuss a personal pet peeve of mine.

666.


Boy, does the superstitious craziness around this number bug me. The "Mark of the Beast!" The return of Satan! Who could it be? Hitler? Ronald Reagan? Every other Pope? The Omen I, II, III and IV?

Scholars, historians and various and assundry Church elder types feel that 666 refers to the emperor Nero. I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Actually I've been on the band wagon for years.

Why just yesterday Mrs. Morris treated me to a coffee in a neighborhood coffee shop and the bill came to $6.66 (she had the curly fries). The girl behind the counter got all googly-eyed and actually changed the bill to $6.65! As though if we paid $6.66 the devil would come to get her.

I suppose he may anyhow, if we are to believe what we read on her tattoos.

It was everything I could do to stop myself from shouting, "It's NEROOOO!" But I didn't want to cause yet another scene. I did explain to her that she needn't worry, that 666 refers to Nero, so everyone can just let it go. I left a penny in the tip jar.

Mrs. Morris, by the way, the poor thing, blew my extra hour from the" fall back" time change right out of the water with her kind deed of taking me out. She forgot to set her clock back and showed up for our 8:30 AM coffee shop plan at 7:30 AM. I never told her. I didn't want her to feel foolish. The fact that my veil was way crooked should have tipped her off something was up. I've never met anyone who forgot to set their clock back...or forward..who didn't feel foolish after they show up an hour early for the party or almost miss the whole thing and realize what went wrong. Our Lord in Heaven, NEVER plan a surprise party on the day after a time change.

At some point Mrs. Morris must have discovered her mistake and felt foolish in private. I hope so. ................I mean I hope it was in private.

I'll admit that there are some who argue about 666 being Nero. Jehovah's Witnesses, for example. But the evidence stacks up.

I think the first thing I read about the matter explained that, like the ancient Roman language, there are no such things as numbers in the language in which Revelations is written. Think Roman numerals. Letters are used as numbers. Anyone reading Revelations back in the day would have read the word as 'Nero' and all of this Damien nonsense would never have occured.

I tried to fact check that, about the letters and numbers and came up blank. I'm sure I didn't dream it.

I did have a dream that I dropped my school papers in a puddle and when I went to try to grab them out they just kept getting further away and when I waded in after them I sunk like a rock into a black oblivion. Oh well. At least I was fully clothed.

If you look up Nero and 666, you'll at least see that I'm not making this up. Look on the Google. It's on the internets.

Also, it's extremely likely that the Book of Revelations was written during the reign of Nero. It was definitely not written before his reign. If it was written after his reign it would have only been about 30 years later.

Does Nero fit the bill? Yes. However it happened that Rome caught fire and whether or not he danced a jig during it (the fiddle was not yet invented), Nero did catch the blame from the rumors that he did both things and he needed a scapegoat. The Christians were chosen for their "hatred of Humanity."

Let me just stop right here and say that in the light of history, this lunatic idea that there is a 'war on Christmas' makes me even more berserk than this 666 stuff. A bunch of people out Christmas shopping wondering whether to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to a perfect stranger can't hold a candle to being dragged off for your alleged hatred of humanity and made into a human tiki torch for an imperial dinner party. Now that's what I call a war!

Nero threw the Christians to the lions. But that was only step one. He also paraded them around in animal skins and let wild dogs tear them apart. It was all great fun for the Romans until the tiki torch episode, which no one much cared for. They thought it made Nero appear cruel.

Ya think?

So can we all just take a deep breath and let this go now? The Church Fathers had a big fight in the 4th century as to whether or not to include the Book of Revelations in the New Testament in the first place. Why? They thought people would get too confused.

Ya think?

Fall Back

I know most people love the 'fall back' thing, gaining an hour in the middle of the night. I certainly did as a child. Some of you have noticed I'm a bit of a night owl. I always have been. I was asleep at my desk as a child. Being awake in the morning is a perpetual penance for me. Hooray!

So where most people are content with the extra hour of sleep, I am perplexed each year as to what to do with the extra hour. Perplexed is putting it mildly. It' s like a little mini-Lent. What should I do with the time? I'm ridden with guilt.

So what else is new. Is the Pope Catholic?

Every year I think I'll come up with a great plan and every year I just spend the hour saying the rosary. Not that that is so horrible. Our Lady told us the only thing standing between all our recent sins and the wrath of Jesus is saying the rosary. 'Recent' being since at least the turn of the century...not this one..the last one. If He was mad back then, imagine the smoke shooting out of His ears now.

I pay really close attention to Mary sightings. Here is Mary come right down from heaven to give us the latest messages. Just about every time she visits she tell us that Jesus is pretty much up in heaven saying to her , "Hold Me back! Hold Me back!" And she has been doing just that since at least 1917. She tells us that if we say the rosary the world will be a better place and Jesus will calm down. So far it's been working.

Sure things are bumpy at the moment. But Russia did fall and two World Wars ended. I can't imagine Jesus is very calm at the moment, especially if He's been watching campaign commercials, so once again this year, the rosary it is for my extra hour.

Still.... I feel I should try to be more ....creative. I thought maybe I would take Sister Mary Fiacre out in her wheelchair for a spin around the neighborhood to look at the Halloween decorations. She won't notice them. But it's the thought that counts. It's always good to give her an airing.

Hanging around with Sister Mary Fiacre covers five out of seven of the corporal works of mercy. She's both sick and imprisoned. Imprisoned in her own body. We have to feed her, get her dressed. All that's left is sheltering the homeless and burying the dead. Maybe Teddy will bring us something dead and we won't fling it over the wall this time. Then I'd be six for seven.

Or I could clean up the neighbor's driveway. Our neighbor's like to use their driveway for extra storage space. I've never seen a car there. I've seen bikes, tires, TV's, lawn chairs, trampolines, beer cans, amplifiers, fishing equipment, big wheels, empty bird cages and a pony. I suppose there could be a car there under all that stuff. Cleaning the driveway would probably take more than an hour though and the neighbors might be insulted.

I could do most of Sister St. Aloysius' chores. Fat chance. They're somehow always done. I think maybe she is a secret bi-locator, like St. Martin de Porres and Padre Pio. The refrigerator is immaculate. And I don't use that word lightly.

I could dust pews. Go the extra mile and use Murphy's Oil Soap.

I think I"ll go for the walk. I can probably say a rosary at the same time. We'll all sleep better. The next question is...just when does the hour start?

Mission Accomplished

I don't mind telling you that sometimes Sister St. Aloysius bugs me. I'm not talking behind her back here. I told her just today, "You are REally bugging me." She would laugh if she had a sense of humor.

Occasionally it's a daily living thing, like when I found out she had never ever cleaned the stove. There was another time when I lost her at the grocery store for over an hour because instead of staying put like I asked her, she was looking for me while I was looking for her. That never works. Sometimes she doesn't pay attention to where we've parked and we have to get someone to drive us around in a golf cart until we find the car. That's embarassing.

But most of the time she actually bugs me in a good way, in that she comes up with things I hadn't really thought about, like the possibility of a future war in heaven. I can't stop thinking about that. I'm very upset about it.

When we got back from the Catholic Charities empty handed again and with the clock ticking on Halloween she opined that before we go back we'd better have a plan. I couldn't think what she meant by that. We have a plan: get stuff to make Halloween costumes.

"No, " she said. "We need to know what we're making exactly and what's appropriate."

Okay. The Little Mermaid, out. Saints, okay but not necessary.

"When we were little we loved to dress up as tramps, " I told her. This is a no-brainer. First of all it's an easy breezy lemon squeezy costume to come up with, especially if you're shopping at the Catholic Charities. It's easier than being an Episcopalian. And secondly, it's fun to be a tramp. Tramps don't live by the same rules as the rest of us.

"No," she said. "Tramps are just homeless people. It's not right for children to pretend to be homeless for fun."

She had me there. The Foster Brooks factor. Drunks used to be funny. No more.

You may be surprised to find that I'm all for political correctness. To me, that just means pay attention if you're hurting someone else's feelings. And if you get your knickers all in a twist because it causes you to behave in some way that makes you uncomfortable bingo! You'd better take a look at why it makes you so unhappy to consider the feelings of others.

But this is a slippery slope costume-wise. "If that's the criteria, then are we crossing pirates off the list? Pirates are really evil people. Is it okay to dress up as evil people?"

I'd like to stop thinking about this and mull over the war in heaven. I feel like Donald Rumsfeld talking to James Baker.

"My brother thinks that Halloween should only be about scarey stuff. Goblins, ghosts, monsters..." she said.

"Oh, I don't think so. It's also about clever costumes, and dress up, and pretty, pretty princesses...." I argued. Although I have to admit my two favorite costumes during my days as a trick or treater were the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow and the two headed monster my friend Jackie and I made by sewing a two tramp costumes together. We scared my six year old cousin out of his socks when we came lurching up out of the basement in it.

I was scaring children even back then.

Silence.

"Ghosts are always easy, " I offered. "We probably have enough old linen to skip going back to...."

"NO!" she gasped. "We don't want the children getting involved thinking about ghosts!"

She's got me there, again.

I mentioned before that the Catholic church doesn't get all silly about Halloween. But we do want you to stay away from seances and ouija boards and all that kind of thing. Here's why: the devil is a tricky guy. You may think it's your beloved Aunt Julia haunting the old house, but it could be the devil dressed as your Aunt Julia. And he doesn't wait around for Halloween to behave this way like you do. Or it could be your Aunt Julia on a field trip from hell. How well did you really know her anyhow? We need you to stay away from that whole thing. You'll be in over your head and end up the subject of a movie where you spew a gallon of pea soup.

I believe it was at this point that I told her she was really bugging me.

"You're really bugging me, " I said. "We have to get this done with so I can crawl up in the garage loft and get out the Halloween decorations and put them up."

You'd love our Halloween decorations. They are as old as the hills. Jointed skeletons and witches and black cats. We have a big caldron we put the candy in and we wear pointy hats and stand out on the porch and hand it out. If we have time we grab some dry ice. Spooky. My knack for scaring children is the perfect finishing touch.

That sort of clinched the deal, I guess. She loves the decorations, too. What's a skeleton, really, but a naked ghost? What's a witch if not an instrument of the devil? Let's just have costumes and candy and make believe and feel a little scared and try to keep your mother from eating all the Snickers bars you got and leaving you with candy corn.

Candy corn! Now THAT is evil.

Jesus Doings

Sister St. Aloysius and I made a trek down to the Catholic Charities bins. We offered it up and took Sister Mary Fiacre with us. There are about nine ladies that work at the local Catholic Charities store (it's like the Salvation Army store, but closer to salvation) and they rotate their hours. They can't seem to stay away so all nine of them are almost always there. Three of them are in their nineties. None of them are under seventy. They always make quite a fuss about Sister Mary Fiacre. They feed her cake.

We went there because of my fiasco at the fabric store. I left empty handed for all of that. Poor Sister St. Aloysius didn't get anything she needed.

If ever there was a forgiving soul it would be Sister St. Aloysius. Everything is so difficult for her, she never faults anyone for their short comings. (Especially when they come up short at the fabric store during a weekend sale in October.) It made her a terrible teacher, though. Nothing got done. Teachers have to drag people through their shortcomings.

Anyhow we hit the Catholic Charities store thinking we could find things for costumes there, or at the very least she could find some things she could rip apart for parts, like zippers and buttons and fabric.

As soon as we walked in the door we were overwhelmed with a horrible stench. Sister Mary Fiacre, who rarely speaks, shouted, "What STINKS?" That's how bad it was.

I couldn't get my bearings. If I could have I would have remembered that the ladies have often told me that there is a poor man who shows up there from time to time and they never know what to do about him. They had told me that he stinks so badly that no one can breath while he's there or for hours afterwards and the whole store stinks for days. They don't know what to do about it. They want to ban him from the store somehow.

So there in the corner were Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Gott with this talking mound of grime. They looked stricken. The other ladies were cowering in the kitchen. The one lady that could still stand, Mrs. Andrews, was attempting to make a couple of sandwiches for the man, since that's why he came there.

I am ashamed to say that if I could have gotten away with it I would have spun around and high tailed it out of there, Sister Mary Fiacre and all. But when she screamed, "What STINKS?" The ladies spotted us. I saw the look of relief on their faces, as if here at last was the answer to their problem.

I'm really not the answer to their problem. They have told me about their problem before and I had no answer then. It's a charity. You are there to help people like this man, of all people. You don't want to hurt his feelings, but you can't let him hang around or even come very often because you can't help other people with that awful stench there. Mrs. Gott and Mrs. Morris, certainly the most capable of the bluntness needed here, have told him he can't hang around, so he has been more scarce. But he also hasn't taken care of his problem.

It begs the question, "What would Jesus do?" Jesus would, of course, embrace the man.

I knew I wouldn't be doing that.

I am supposed to, though. Or at least I'm supposed to take the most Jesus-y route.

What would Jesus do? Obviously we are dealing with mental illness here. So I think Jesus would have cured that right off. Then while the man was blithering in gratitude, Jesus would have gotten the women to wash this guy up. Not with anyone's hair this time. "Go now and stink no more."

It's also conceivable that since people didn't bathe so much back then the whole thing wouldn't have bothered anybody so much. Or maybe Jesus was just too polite and forgiving to worry about it. Maybe St. James the Greater and St. James the Lesser actually refers to the way those two smelled and not the order of their apostledom as everyone thinks.

The thing is, no matter which way you turn it I'm in over my head here. I can't cure him, there will be no hugging, and even if we all had hazmat suits we can't wash him. There's no shower here. And suppose we did? What happens after he goes home and sits on his couch and sleeps in his sheets? Since his smell is a direct result of his mental state, what kind of state might he be in if he's clean? He's docile right now, but after a little Irish Spring.....................

"Oh, Sister!," Mrs. Morris said. Mrs. Gott took the opportunity to high tail it out of there. I think she might have run right out the back door.

"Mrs. Andrews is making Bob some sandwiches," Mrs. Morris told us. That is shorthand for "any moment now, we'll get Bob out of here." As Bob lurched toward me Mrs. Morris signaled me, by looking to the sky and waving her hand under her nose, that she was about to faint. Mrs. Morris is 85. Mrs. Gott, the sprinter, is 75.

As Bob moved in my direction I wished everyone could have the experience I was having. That way there would never again be any argument of the divinity of Jesus, the embracer of guys like this one.

I was formulating some remarks. "Bob, " I would say in my kindest non-Margaret Hamilton voice, "the ladies have told me about you. They would be happy to help you get cleaned up and fix you up with some new clean clothes....." No, I can't say that....that would be a lie...the ladies would kill me if I volunteered them for that........happy!!!!???

Right then Mrs. Andrews came flying out of the kitchen. "Here you go, Bob!" she said in her nicest non-Bay Buchanan voice.

Just like that, Bob was gone. I hope that the door closed behind him before he heard Sister Mary Fiacre shout , "You STINK!" Although maybe it would have been helpful. "The truth shall set you free." Who said that?

We tried to help fumigate, but the ladies assured us it would take a day or for the cartoon stink lines to evaporate. That means we'll be back there again this week. We took some cake for Sister Mary Fiacre to go.

Another Guy With an Odor Problem

So there I was at the fabric store, sitting with that poor woman who had thought I was in a costume, looking through the pattern books. For the uninitiated, which I'll assume is just about everyone since no one makes their own clothes anymore, even the children chained to sewing machines in China for Wal Mart, the pattern books are huge and there are tables full of them.

At this point I had spent about an hour in the parking lot of the fabric store and a good forty minutes roaming in unfamiliar territory. They don't just sell fabric at the fabric store. They sell: ready-made costumes, holiday decorations which already include Thanksgiving and Christmas (I remember a time when no Christmas items were sold until after Thanksgiving, but then you can wear white after Labor Day now, too), baskets, craft paint, yarn, books, fake flowers, scrap booking items which take up three aisles, clay, wood, already made wooden items to paint or decoupage, batting, pillows, lamps, special lamps that mimic daylight, buttons, ribbon, purse handles in case you make the rest of the purse yourself, quilt making paraphenalia, emboidery hoops, thread, floss, three more aisles of jewelry making goo gaw, beads and what not. And 'notions'.

The pattern books are in the middle of the store like an oasis -- an oasis because there are chairs there. You can sit. But if it's really crowded there is a line for a chair and maybe one of the books. You look in the book for the pattern and when you find something you like you get the number and find the pattern in giant file drawers which surround the oasis. There wer a lot of peole looking at patterns. It was like being at a Starbucks inside a Barnes and Noble, minus the coffee.

The woman who thought I was wearing a costume, we'll call her Miss Gourd, was buzzing around me making sure I had a chair and grabbing books to bring over. She never stopped talking. I was trying to listen politely, but I was on a mission to find a pirate. I was nervously thinking ahead at how difficult it was going to be to figure out how much fabric to buy, which I must have spoken out loud because it seemed to have tripped a tape recording in Miss Gourd's brain that caused her mouth to broadcast an oration about why she is not good at math. During this I overheard the woman next to me telling her daughter that they could find her costume here.

The tired whiney child sat on her lap as they looked through the big book, a little angel of maybe four years who was about to smear chocolate everywhere.

I am a nun. I am NEVER without a hankie. I keep it up my sleeve. I sprang to action.

I really did spring.

I had forgotten that children are terrified of me.

I get that I'm a little scarey looking. I would be a little scarey looking if it were still 1950. I think I might be in the same category as Santa and clowns to a four year old even back then.

But these days when no one ever really sees a nun in a habit, when the only people in long robes you see are on TV pumping uzis over there heads, to have some old lady dressed in black with only her face and hands showing.........an old gnarly face and hands at that.... leap at you. I was all red in the face from the last two hours of fabric store shock and awe. I was sweating. I must have looked like some demon that had arisen right up out of the floor ready to snatch her from her mother's lap and pull her down into one of the books never to be seen or heard from again.

The child shrieked. The whole store stopped.

It could have ended there if I had just not tried to fix it. I was apologizing but the woman would have none of it. She gave me quite an earful. When I said, "I'm sorry", she said,"What did you think you were you doing!?" When I tried to explain, she said I should mind my own business. (How many times did I say just that to the second graders?) How dare I scare her child. "I wasn't trying to scare her, I was trying to wipe her!" I think the manager started heading our way right about then. Miss Gourd was trying to tell Mrs. Mommy that I wasn't in a costume which caused Mrs. Mommy to let Miss Gourd have it with both barrels.

"I'm not stupid!" Mrs. Mommy screamed. Miss Gourd, dim bulb that she was, understood the implication that meant that she was stupid.

"I'm not stupid enough to let my kid wipe chocolate on the whole store!" squealed Miss Gourd. When in doubt, accuse and exaggerate.

I gave up on the mother and tried to console the screaming child that I was not an ancient monster dropped from a lightening cloud. "What are you going to be for Halloween, dear?" I asked. I probably sounded like Margaret Hamilton after the green paint she was wearing for make-up caught fire as she dropped through the trapdoor. I certainly felt like Margaret Hamilton after the green paint caught fire. At least for her, production stopped. No such luck for me.

As Miss Gourd and Mrs. Mommy continued their argument, my eye fell upon the pattern book with a picture of the child's choice for her costume. The Little Mermaid.

"Oh my goodness!" I gasped. I must have sucked all of the oxygen out of the room. "You're not going to let her wear that?!"

"What?" snapped Mrs. Mommy. "It's warm outside and it's not really flippers...she can walk in it...."

I think since I had sucked all of the air out of the room everyone was a little dizzy.

"She'll look like a harlot with fins!" I sputtered. "Her arms are bare and it's a brassiere top made of garish flowers and her middle is bare..."

From waaaaayyy across the store I could see the manager speaking to some sort of security person whose hand was already on his giant flashlight in the doorway. I thought I'd better make a run for it.

"Don't you want to be St. Cecilia?" I asked the child. "She's very pretty and she plays the harp. She likes water, too. She died in her own bath tub...."

I heard her mother calling me crazy from across the store as I left. I distinctly heard her say, "That crazy nun!!!!" I'll bet she was pointing at me while she said it.

As horrible as that was, we now face the horror of not having the supplies we need to do the sewing Sister St. Aloysius has promised. Guess everyone will have to go as ghosts. Even I can make a hole in a sheet.

Norma Who?

My melee at the fabric store was not the first time I have noticed that some employee has their hand on the phone and is ready to call the police to take me away. I was nearly taken away in handcuffs at the bank.

This was a while back. The bank was cutting down on tellers in an attempt to push people into using ATM's for as much banking as possible. That way the bank can keep all the fees and not use the money to pay employees. I believe they call that 'downsizing'.

It up sized the lines at the bank. The lines at the bank were more than 40 minutes long on any given day. I'd have a black mark on my soul if I was lying. I became the "Norma Rae" of the bank line.

In ever escalating protest, I riled up the folks in the big long line. Mind you, they were already in a foul mood. First it was the bank woman who would walk up and down the line and ask people if they knew they "could use the ATM" for whatever they were doing at the bank. I asked her if SHE knew that she was working really hard at ending her own job. I imagine that she figured she wasn't ending her own job, but the jobs of the people behind the bullet proof glass, which somehow in her mind made it all okay.

Then I found out that if you wait more than ten minutes the bank had a policy that said you would get $5. I made sure everyone in the line asked for their $5. I don't think the policy is still....a policy...any more.

On one occassion, while having my turn at the teller's window, I innocently asked the girl what the 800 number was should I need to call the bank and I wrote it down in very big letters. The minute she finished telling me the number I whirled around to face the huge line, holding the number over my head. "This is the number you call to complain!" I told them all. Everyone whipped out a pen.

Sally Field, stand aside for Sister Mary Martha.

And then one day....

The line stretched all the way across the inside of the bank. We were lined up in those rope things, as though this were Disneyland. Each minute the line got longer as more people arrived.

Now picture this. The tellers stretch across the front of the bank, so the last teller is really near the door. (Don't worry...bulletproof glass....) The end of the line is in front of the last teller. But when you are at the front of the line, meaning, you'll be next, you are clear on the other side of the bank, corraled by the ropes until the next avaiable teller beckons.

So I was at the end of the line, in front of the last teller. A terrifically old man came in. He could barely walk, let alone stand. He crawled over to the last teller, kind of hanging on the counter for support. He had just arrived in front of her when she called the next customer from across the bank. This customer was a young man, fully able bodied, not more than 30.

The teller was saying to the old man, "You'll have to wait while I take this man..." I sprang across the ropes.

Okay, I didn't spring. It feels like springing to me. I'm just lucky I didn't yank my veil off on the ropes.

I ran up to the window, inserting myself between the young man and the old man. I said to the teller, "Oh no....you have to take this man next." She politely told me she would as soon as she took the young man. "No, I said to her, " this man can barely stand here let alone wait. And this man is perfectly capable of waiting." I was using both of them as a visual aid. We teachers love our visual aids. I actually said to her, "Look at this man (Mr. Rude Pants) and look at this man (Grandpa Falling to Pieces)."

It turned very ugly from there. Shocklingly the young man did not step aside. I asked the teller why they bothered to have handicapped parking spaces outside if this was how they were going to treat people. I told the young man he should be ashamed of himself. I wasn't quiet at all while making these statements. The old man was thanking me.

To no avail. She made the old man wait!!!! I'm sure this is whyso many people are so taken with the idea of karma, because we would like to think of that young man someday hanging on a counter hoping to get help and hoping he doesn't collapse or faint and no one even trying to help or defend him.

But we are asked to forgive instead. oops.

So I went back into the line. Thirty minutes later when I finally arrived at a teller window the bank manager strolled up behind my teller...a totally different teller at that....and said to me, "I didn't appreciate the way you spoke to my teller." (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

"Really?," I said. "Well, I didn't appreciate the way she treated that poor old man!" I restated my argument, and since he the manager was talking over me, I got louder and louder. Somewhere in there he said, "I'm the manager....." and I said, "Well, you're a very terrible manager! Just look at this place!" At this point the line actually stretched out the door, so once again, I had a wonderful visual aid. And the people in the line were very happy to be part of the visual aid, and began to relish their role as 'angry mob'.



That's when I noticed he was headed for the phone. I had a vision of myself in hand cuffs, the large hand of a police officer on the top of my head, protecting me from bumping my head on the squad car as they loaded me in. You know how they do that, we all see police shows. So I left the bank.

I did get a written apology from the bank a few weeks later, after I had called and written to complain myself.

It was shortly after that that more tellers were added and the lines ended. Last year the bank even opened a second branch in the neighborhood.

But the donnybrook at the fabric store.....I think I may be banned for life from there...

Where have I been? When last we met I mentioned that Sister St. Aloysius has been swamped with sewing, what with Halloween approaching. I also explained that she refuses to go to the fabric store during the month of October. These two things are not compatible.

My toe is better so I sprang into action.

No I didn't. I'm really too old for that. It's also really difficult to spring in any direction in a habit. The whole veil can get caught on a door knob.

I did see it as a hugh opportunity. First of all, the hum of the sewing machine really seems to soothe Sister Mary Fiacre into a doze, so it's much easier for me to get out and about. Secondly, I love a bargain. (I have to....) The fabric store is having a half off event over the weekend.

And third! If the fabric store is as horrific as Sister St. Aloysius seems to thing it is, imagine the penance opportunity to go in there, not knowing beans about sewing, on a weekend in October with Halloween closing in and a huge half off sale!

I believe Dorothy Parker had the right idea when she said, "What fresh hell is this?" The phrase came to mind in the first hour which only involved the parking lot. I'm excited at the prospect of someday shaking hands with all the souls who were released from Purgatory while I offered up my suffering driving in circles in the tiny parking lot, while someone who just got there managed to get ahead of me and zip into a space over and over again. It's not all that easy to drive in a habit, either.

Can I just ask of all the people who wish all clergy and nuns would always wear a habit or the collar so you know right away they are clergy...... is that so that you know to treat us nicely? Because it doesn't work, anyhow. And shame on you anyway for wanting a heads up so you can treat the clergy in a better way than you treat everyone else.

Also, I now know what happened to all those people who think they were sucked up by a UFO and are missing time. They went into a fabric store on a weekend in October during a half off sale. They just don't remember. They have blotted it from their minds.

Once inside, things went smoothly for a while. One woman was amazed at what a fabulous costume I had made for myself and asked which pattern I had used. Was her face red....
What on earth would make her think I had made myself this whole habit in the middle of October and then run out to the fabric store in it? Not the brightest bulb. I didn't want to make her feel bad for asking such a stupid question and I felt bad for judging her question as stupid so I asked her advice about how to look through the patterns. God gave me the opportunity right away to do penance for all of it by allowing me to spend the next hour with her.

It all went downhill from there. Eventually, I had to be asked to leave the store by the manager. It seems my involvement in the salvation of souls by warning mothers about what not to wear was not appreciated.........more on that tomorrow.....................

Enough

Sister St. Aloysius likes to sew. You'd never know it from her red faced frustration when she actually does sew. But once someone knows you can sew LOOK OUT. Everybody and their dog Rollo will be knocking on your windows. They knock on your windows because they know that way you'll see the longing in their eyes. Bugs Bunny referred to that look as 'the sorrowful eye routine'. They'll be standing there with their kid's pants in hand or some fabric they got on sale hoping that maybe you could make some kitchen curtains ....for them...


Sister St. Aloysius says it relaxes her, but she refuses to go to the fabric store during the entire month of October because it's "amatuer month." I think she could be getting some souls out of Purgatory, but I can't judge. I imagine all the sewing she gets stuck with does enough good for them. Of course when your soul's on fire--in a bad way-- should we ever be using the word 'enough'?

Now the poor thing has the double whammy of people who have asked her help on their children's Halloween costumes.

Let's stop here for a moment and mention that the Catholic church doesn't get all silly about Halloween. We're as afraid of the devil as the next denomination, but people in masks don't scare us. The very word Halloween is derived from the eve (Hallow, Holy, e'een, evening, Holy eve) of all Saints Day, a holy day of obligation. (That means that you and your children, if you're not all throwing up candy, need to get to Mass. If you don't, when you're all in hell, you'll all look like that costume you wouldn't let your child buy.)

But we have always stressed the idea of finding ways to make the holiday holy. One bright idea has been to encourage the children to dress as their favorite saint.

And I just have to be honest and say, enough already.

It would be one thing if the child dressed up as St. Hubert, with a bishop's outfit and hat and had a stuffed deer with him or a mad dog or a bloodhound (St. Hubert invented the bloodhound), and then wrote a report on St. Hubert and sat with other children discussing why they picked the saint ("he has a bow and arrow" is not a good answer). Perhaps we could send little St. Hubert out and see if he can talk any heathens into melting down their idols.

But that's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is that the child, dressed as St. Hubert, is going to find the largest bag he can lay his hands on. Smart children know about the pillow case. Then little St. Hubert is going to walk door to door and scream, "Trick or Treeeeeat!" and thrust out the giant bag. At least little St. Hubert knows enough to say thank you. Jesus will not be mentioned.

I suppose we could suck all the fun out of this fall festival by having little St. Rose of Lima with her pretend crown of thorns covered in plastic roses ask for money for the poor, or we could make little St. Sebastian, proud of how he got it to look like arrows are sticking out of him, give all his candy to the poor children.

Even I am not THAT big of a wet blanket.

I say, give the child your broom and a pointy hat and let her have fun gathering and eating candy. Tomorrow she'll be at Mass. For a child, that is enough.

And that way, Sister St. Aloysius only has to buy one pattern. We're on a budget.

A Brief History of Eternity

My goodness, we've had quite the feedback on Stephen Hawking's marital status. I can't really talk about it any further without resorting to gossip. Let's just say we don't care much for divorce in the Catholic church and leave it at that.

Or....at least let me explain that as far as we know (without a certficate of nullity), Mr. Hawking and his first wife are not apart, even though are divorced.

Prepare to be confused.

Here are the rules.

The church recognizes civil divorce and even the need for it. If a couple separates there are things like child support and property issues that have to be resolved.

But the church never recognizes the divorce as a thing that dissolves a marriage, even if the marriage is bubbling like an Alka Selzter tablet waiting to tackle a hangover.

A marriage is impossible to dissolve. You take your vows before God and the community. "What God has joined together"...you know the drill.

In order to not be married anymore you have to show that you were never really married in the first place. For that you need a certificate of nullity, commonly, but erroneously called "an annulment." To get one you have to show that somebody didn't live up to their promises, or that they entered the promise with their fingers crossed behind their backs. For example, you stupidly marry a person of another faith (a recipe for disaster, what were you thinking) who promises to raise the children Catholic, and then they don't. Since this person never even intended to get the kids up for Sunday Mass and help them figure out what to give up for Lent, but just said he did so you'd marry him. He ( or she...don't get your knickers in a bunch) entered the contract under false pretenses, thus the contract never took place: it is NULL.

The children aren't null. They probably have a lot of catch up work to do, though.

If you are divorced, but haven't had a certificate of nullity, you are not 'divorced'. That means if you re-marry you are living in sin. Tons of sin, really because everything you........do......as a married couple ........each..........is a sin. Or thinking about that with the intent to...have that happen..... whether it actually happens or not. It's a double sin, too. Because you are causing the other person to sin, that's a sin on you, too. Two mortal sins, every time.

Since you're still married, you're even in big trouble if you're dating.

If you're the dump-er we better not see you in the Communion line with that mortal sin on your soul.

If you're the dump-ee you are sin free. Unless you start dating. Then you're on the down escalator. You'll recognize it, it's the one that's on fire.

I don't know the status of our favorite physicist in the eyes of the church, but...it doesn't look good. You can see why it's difficult for me to focus on unified theory when I have to worry about his immortal soul.

At least he has a good understanding of the word 'eternity.'

Stringey Theory

The other day I had occasion to mention Martha Stewart. A long time ago I saw an episode of her program where she was making quesidillas. She was in her fabulous kitchen where she has a special small refrigerator built into her kitchen 'island' that is just for keeping dough cold. Her actual refrigerator, like her linen closet, is the size of our entire kitchen. Don't get me started on that linen closet. If there is a housing shortage in your area it's because of the space Martha Stewart's linen closet takes up. Back to the quesidillas...she had a special pair of scissors, a pair of her old sewing pinking shears. She explained that they were no longer good for sewing any more and she had marked them with one of those embosser things where you can label everything you own and your dog Rollo, and she had put on those scissors "quesidillas".

I use a knife.

Still, after I got my hair to lie back down, I enjoyed her segment on ironing. She did it the way my mother used to, by spritzing each piece of the laundry and then rolling each piece up so it stayed damp, putting each piece in a laundry basket next to the ironing board ready to iron. I don't believe she turned on a soap opera. My mother did that. It brought back happy memories.

I have a love/hate relationship with Martha Stewart. Okay, I don't hate her. I don't think I hate anyone. If I do....straight to hell for me. But she does cause my teeth to clench.

The other person I have a love/teeth clenching relationship with is Stephen Hawkings, the brainiac physicist. You have to admire a person who has soldiered on the way he has, with all his horrible health problems and how hard it is for him to do anything at all, let alone what he has done. Not to mention how brilliant he is. Quite a package.

Then I heard he dumped his wife who stood by him all these years for his nurse. How did he even do that?

We can't judge.

But..

It's pretty depressing when even Stephen Hawkings trades his old wife in for the new model.

You might be surprised that I spend any time thinking about Stephen Hawkings at all, but I do. I do because once I heard him say that he believed in God because he thought he could prove God's existence mathmatically. At least I think that's what he said. Maybe I was dreaming.

But from the little I know about physics, that makes sense to me.

Calm down. I don't need anyone to prove God exists. If I did, why am I dressed like this? I mean, really. I could just be wearing comfortable mumus.

But that doesn't stop me from thinking how great it would be if someone did prove it for people who aren't dressed like this, so to speak. I would love it!

And I would hate it. Not for the reason you probably think...that God is all about faith.

I would hate it because I would have to take Stephen Hawkings word for it that his equation actually proved God's existence. Stephen Hawkings, who like zillions of other middle aged men, dumped his wife for the younger model. I can't check the math because people like Stephen Hawkings talk like this.

I have more faith in Marth Stewart.

My Best Friend the Saint

Nuns always address each other as "Sister". You would think that would be confusing, like when my uncle named his dog after himself and every time his wife said, "George, come here" they both came running.

Of course, it's not a problem for us here at the convent. Since Sister Mary Fiacre is pretty much not going to respond, when I say "Sister", Sister St. Aloysuis knows I'm talking to her.

Still, you would think in a large convent, if there was such a thing these days, the nuns would call each other by their full names or just the back half. Maybe they do. I can't do that with Sister St. Aloysuis or I would be calling her St. Aloysuis and then the actual St. Aloysius would be confused. I don't ask the actual St. Aloysuis to go start the car or bring in the mail.

But isn't it interesting that we are all on a first name basis with the saints? No matter how big, or popular or obscure, we just call them Peter or Paul. Even when there's more than one of them, like the St. Theresa's, we don't say St. Avila.

The only one I can think of is Padre Pio, who some people call St. Pio. But then Padre isn't a first name, is it? That would be like calling me Saint Sister if I became a saint. (Fat chance. Although I do think I'll make it to heaven after a long roast in Purgatory. Then I will be a saint, just not a title holder. * But you never know. I could snap some day; people do.) Or Mother Teresa. She's Blessed Mother Teresa. If we call her Blessed Mother we'll have mayhem. But she'll never be St. Teresa, either. She'll have to be St. Mother Teresa or everyone will be confused.

Anyhow, I was wondering why this happened, with so many saints through history that we're still on a first name basis with all of them. I have a theory. (I always do.)

At first, we didn't have that many saints. We had the twelve apostles and a few girls. So we were okay there except for the two James'. Poor St. James the Lesser. That was a stinky thing to do to him, sticking him with that moniker forever. He's only called 'the Lesser' because he became an apostle after St. James the Greater. Couldn't he have been St. James Next or St. James Squared or something?

So everyone is used to calling these saints by the first name, because they didn't have a last name, except for Mary Magdelene. It's good she had a last name because right away we have no Mary confusion. We have the Blessed Mother, Mary the sister of Martha, and Mary Magdelene, so there is only one St. Mary...although...some people do refer to the Blessed Mother as St. Mary. Oh well. We seem to always know to whom we're referring.

And everyone thought Jesus was coming back pretty soon for quite some time, until He didn't. So there was no need to expand the saint naming system.

Then, all heaven breaks loose. But by then we do have a system. Following the lead of Mary Magdelene and Joseph of Aramathea, we just tack on where the person came from. One saint to a town, I guess. Good thing there weren't two St. Josesph's of Aramathea's or we'd have St. Joseph of Aramathea the Lesser.

The second part of my theory is how we managed to maintain the first name basis with so many Peters and Johns and Catherines. I think it's because we like to remember they were just like us, with terrible problems and doubts and crosses to bear and horrible illnesses with no pain killers or portable oxygen tanks and the all that life throws at us, and they still were able to do Christ's bidding. So we look to them, like buddies, to haul us through our own tribulations, which often seem minor compared to, say, having your skin combed with wool brushes or leading an all male army through an entire war and then getting burned as a witch.

I'll be interested to see if Matt Talbot makes it to sainthood, what he's called. I'll put my money on St. Matt Talbot, because even though we're on a first name basis, St. Matt, just sounds too casual.

*Everyone who is in heaven is a saint. A canonized saint is someone who the church as proved to be in heaven, by virtue of two miracles the saint has performed.

Alexa writes:

Dear Sr. Mary Martha,
We have a new car. Twice today my husband parked it and took up two parking spaces on purpose -- to insure against anyone opening their car doors and hitting our new car.
Twice we wondered if that is a sin.

My husband also wants to know if you are more like "Mary" or more like "Martha". We are big fans of yours.

Dear Alexa,

In response to the second part of your question, am I a "Mary" or a "Martha", I have mentioned here on the blog, which you apparently haven't bothered to read, that I am totally a Martha.

(Alexa is referring to the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. I told the whole story and mentioned that I am just like Martha, the patron saint of over zealous Martha Stewart types and waitresses.)


It's certainly not a sin to have skipped reading the rest of the blog and then asked a redundant question. If I end up with a big head because I have 'fans' and I get annoyed when they claim to be fans but aren't actually reading the blog...or maybe they are skimming through looking at the pictures...then I'm sure I'll have some serious Purgatory time ahead of me.

I've also mentioned here on the blog, that the clergy roasts in Purgatory longer than other folks because our sins are automatically worse than everyone elses, one, because we know better, and two because we are in charge of guiding the souls of others. If we fail, we fail you right into hell. That's quite a responsibility.

Luckily, the Blessed Mother is in charge of Purgatory and brings the suffering souls water. Maybe she only does that on Saturday's, though, when she comes to let the people out who were wearing scapulars when they crossed over.

But the car thing, Alexa...I have to tell you I think we have some sin going on here. Taking up two spaces is not good. It's selfish. There's just no way around that. It's putting your needs before the needs of others. So that's bad enough.

Then, what if the lot fills up and I have to try to get Sister Mary Fiacre into church and go park, but there are no spaces because YOU took up two and so I have to leave her on the curb while I go hunt for a space? Sister Mary Fiacre might wander off, or at least, roll away. Meanwhile, I'm thinking evil thoughts about a person without even knowing who they are so I'VE sinned.

Now we have a chain reaction. As other people drive into the lot and find there are no spaces but there WOULD have been if some parking glutton hadn't taken up two spaces and THEIR blood boils, all hell has broken loose.

But it's really worse than that, Alexa, because the REASON you took up two spaces is not because you have to get a wheelchair out, or you have vision problems and are seeing double (in which case you shouldn't even BE driving) or even because you are bad at parking and are too lazy for a do over.

NO.

You took up two spaces so your NEW CAR doesn't get SCRATCHED.

How can I explain this, Alexa?

Jesus left His disciples with specific instructions before He made His way back to heaven. He told them to take no shoes, or money, or walking stick.

I can't think that He said "But do take a brand new car and take up two spaces when you park so it doesn't get scratched."

Here's what I think you should do, Alexa. Get out your keys. Go into the garage. Take you keys and scratch you car with them.

There. Now it's all over with.

Hope this helped.