Some parting words from Sr. Ros

St. Louis Catholic has posted a great "exit interview" with Sr. Rosalind Moss. It's full of her bubbly personality and deep faith. It also explains why she can wear a postulant habit and call herself "Sister" even though her order is not fully "open for business." (Basically, the Archdiocese said she could.) This wouldn't have been so confusing had Archbishop Burke not been transferred shortly before she was to take her vows. Seeing Sr. Ros's efforts to start an order has been a unique part of the religious life education I've been receiving this year. I like to joke that my nun acquaintance has increased 2000% since I moved to St. Louis.

Godspeed, Sr. Ros!

I usually don't post pictures of myself, but I love this one of Texas Volunteer and me with Sr. Rosalind Moss. This weekend was our first time meeting her in a while. Sadly, it was also the last since the occasion was her goodbye party. She's leaving St. Louis, too, albeit for only a year of novitiate study and training.

Expansion of the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope is on hold while Sr. Ros is in her novitiate. Work renovating her convent and organizing educational materials will go on, thanks to her new administrative assistant and an army of volunteers. Hopefully next summer St. Louis will again see Sr. Ros and some new sisters out and about in full habit, evangelizing the neighborhood. (And hopefully there will soon be more information on the order's website.)

We're really going to miss Sr. Ros. Even thought we've only met her a few times, she always treats us like we are the most important and wonderful people in the world. We put in a few Saturday hours helping around her convent, but went away feeling like we had received ten times what we have given. I don't know what I would have done without her comforting advice the Saturday I messed up on the GRE and was dealing with stress in the VSC community.

Where else could one find a nun with great Jewish humor? (She is a convert, after all.) After hearing my rantings, Sr. Ros turned to Texas Vol and asked "Does she believe in God? Because the way she's talking it sure sounds like she doesn't."
Then she turned back to me. "This is what you do. Go home, write a hundred times on the chalkboard 'Jesus I trust in you. Jesus I trust in you. Even if I don't feel it, Jesus I trust in you.'"

And so I will.

Catholic humor alert

Life in the convent continues to roll along as we find new ways to have fun together. Last weekend was out first Renewal Weekend at a cozy Franciscan retreat center about an hour west of the city. Il Retiro met all the usual retreat location descriptions in my head. When I go on retreat, I expect to drive a long time to some place I have never heard of on a two lane road that is winding and confusing. I expect to stay in a house covered in wood paneling and sit on a worn-out 70's era couch. And I expect to snack myself silly. Yup, we had all that this weekend. The cook outdid herself with gluten-free cookies, fudge cake, and even pancakes! It's a good thing we only stayed 48 hours, or I would have gained about 10 pounds.
The focus of the weekend was the results from our Myers-Briggs tests (I'm an INTJ, apparently.) Seeing our similarities and differences mapped out really helped foster some discussion and understanding. Just because people don't do what you would do doesn't mean they are crazy, they just process things differently.

For instance, no one else seemed to be thinking the same retreat-center monologue I was. As we drove through the trees past a run-down barn, everyone else's minds turned to .... horror movies! "Just wait, tonight we'll all get the urge to scatter in separate directions and then get picked off one by one." So, we spend a good part of our first night at Il Retiro hiding in dark corners trying to scare each other. It's not what I would have thought up, but hey, it was pretty fun. Different can be good.

I'm glad we didn't think to bring any DVD's, because it forced us to get creative. Besides the usual marathon Trivial Pursuit sessions, we played Sardines in the nooks and stairways of Sr. T's bunkhouse. (She was busy writing thank you notes on her Daughters of Charity notecards.) Nothing forces you together like being trapped in a closet in a spooky house.

Random songs lyrics have become another hallmark of VSC bonding. Jessica and I are the main offenders usually. She'll launch into something, and then I'll finish when she forgets the words. There is one song, though, that has lodged itself in everyone's brain. At least once a day, one VSC girl must turn to another and inform her:
"Girl, you can have whatever you like...YEAH" or
"I want your body(body), need your body(body)...to gather for group prayer."

It got so bad that Jess and I had to stop ourselves from singing the song on the way to visit the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope. Yeah, T.I. would not go over well in a real convent.
Our visit was great, and the real convent had the feeling of a calm spiritual oasis. I was touched when Sr. Rosalind ecstatically showed us their little chapel which had contained the Blessed Sacrament for three whole days. "Jesus is in there!" she giddily whispered before we peeked in. Over lunch, she revealed that she's also celiac, but has miraculously been able to receive a communion host ever since she visited Lourdes. Sr. Ros' unabashed love for the Eucharist reminded me not to take our own chapel for granted.

Shouldn't we all look toward our tabernacle and hunger for the Bread of Life? Shouldn't we say

"I want Your Body
Need Your Body
As long I got You I don't need nobody."

Yeah.

Religious heritage can be habit forming

When I was in Catholic high school, all those masses and rosaries during the week left me on spiritual overload. Now, the 9-5 workweek has me eager for some church time on the weekends. I don't even mind extra church services, like confession at the cathedral.

This week's Catholic field trip was to St. George's parish convent, the home of the new Daughters of Mary, Israel's hope. Our presence there was an exercise in Degrees of Separation.

• The VSC used to use the convent as their residence until 2 years ago. When they left, there were only 3 people living in an enormous building that can house 22. Good thing we left - that would have been creepy. Also, St. George is even farther from the city than we are now.
  
• Jessica found out about the convent open house via Catholic Radio, which is run by Catholic Answers. I used to be a total Catholic Answers junkie, reading their magazine This Rock *ahem* religiously.
  
• Daughters of Mary are the project of Catholic Answers celebrity Rosalind Moss. Her claim to fame is that she was born a Jew, spent several years as an Evangelical Christian, and now is Catholic. Jessica is a revert to the Church, and I am ethnically what I like to call 1/4 Jew, 3/4 shiksa. (Harrison Ford's a quarter Jewish, not too shabby.)
  

Sr. Rosalind and company's open house was preceded by a holy hour. Back in the high school days, I did one of those silent Eucharistic prayer times once a month. It's been a while, but all those lovely rituals are deep in my soul. I could say the Benediction hymns and prayers half-asleep. In fact, O Salutaris is one of the few songs where my voice sounds really good. I was pleased that I could help walk Texas Volunteer through it, showing her where to find lyrics in the hymnal. And then I realized: I want my future children to be able to sing these songs. I want to drag them to Eucharistic adoration, even if they get as bored as I used to. I want them to attend so many church services that sacred words are automatic reflexes for them.

Did my parents think the same thing before they had me? There are many aspects of their Catholic upbringing that I missed, like schoolteaching nuns in habits. Seriously, the first real nun I met in person was at Fr. Paul's first mass my freshman year of high school. Here in St. Louis I have increased my Sister acquaintance about 2000%. And I am not completely sold on the full habit thing - it seems a little anachronistic. Long skirts and wimples are no longer solidarity with the simple folk, they're an old fashioned costume. Modified habits - the blue suits with optional veil, etc. seem more practical and less sappily nostalgic. Mother Teresa was on the cutting edge when she went with white saris for her Indian sisters.

Ironically, here I was at a party for a fledgling order that prides itself on the full-on habits they will wear in the future. Their mission is evangelization, which apparently will take the form of walking the streets in full habit, distributing religious articles. Simple? Old fashioned? Maybe, but people seem to love it. There are hundreds of inquiries already from women interested in joining. The two sisters already enrolled had dozens of stories about people thanking them for their courage to display their religious identity in public. One old man kissed their hands in the grocery store, asking "Where have you been?!"