"We want to see the nuns!"

I could have been a nun--after I gave up the Star Trek obsession.

I've been thinking about teenage girls worrying that they'll never get married (or, thanks to Beyoncé, that nobody will "put a ring on it" ) and was reminded of my own teenage emergency plan. My emergency plan was that if I were desperate I would just go to Communist-oppressed Warsaw and casually drop my Canadian passport by "accident" outside churches after Mass. Now that I think about, this was flattering neither to Warsawians nor me, but hey, I was a teenager.

It might have been as unthinkable to my generation of teenagers that we would never, ever get married as it is to the current crop. And perhaps it was even more unthinkable because there were no young nuns around. This may make you laugh, but there were fewer young nuns when I was a teenager than there are today. And although there were about 900 girls in my convent school--by which I mean it was a school attached to a convent--there was no, no, NO attempt to interest us in the religious life. (Oh wait. There was one. More anon.)

Generations of girls were curious about the nuns, most of whom we never saw. Most of us walked past the convent part of the building, and the big chapel, to get to the door to the school. We knew they had a swimming pool somewhere, too, just for the nuns. They were among the great mysteries of the place. Where was the swimming pool? Where were the nuns?

When I began at the school, the most infirm nuns were kept on the top floor, and a door with major locks and bolts kept them safely on their side of the building. (An infirmary has since been built.) That added to our curiosity, to say nothing of our dread of old age and dementia.  In contrast, a few elderly nuns in ordinary if dowdy clothes pottered around the library. There were two or three nuns among the teachers, and the principal was a nun. Two nuns gave music lessons in a sort of musical corridor hidden behind the auditorium. So, as a matter of fact, nuns were not that hard to find. They were, perhaps, just hard to see  because they wore ordinary, boring, dowdy old lady clothes. (Except for the principal, who wore power suits.)

Boy, we hated their clothes. Have I mentioned their clothes?

I discovered more nuns when I started going to daily Mass in the chapel--something nobody ever encouraged us to do, although I believe there was an altar guild of some kind. And finally my friend Stef and I went to some nun-authority---or perhaps just the nun who sat in the porter's office near the convent doors--and said, "We want to see the nuns!"

There was some communication about this, and Stef and I were permitted to see the nuns. That is, we were permitted to visit the very oldest nuns on the third floor. And I remember us chatting with a very sweet shrunken nun with an Irish accent who might have been one hundred years old. But that is all.

I wonder if the nuns thought the 900 female barbarians of many nations who came lolloping past their convent five days of the week, white shirts untucked and blue kilts rolled, were more of a pain in the posterior than potential nuns. It's a shame because underneath our underclad exteriors beat devout, passionate and energetic hearts. We were ready to be inspired by nuns, had there been any nuns who wanted to inspire us. And as the high school program was then five years long, the nuns would have had a captive audience for five years.

Any adult in a high school has a captive audience for five years.

The one attempt to attract us to the religious life was extremely lame. When we were on retreat, I believe, a plump, bespectacled, dowdy 39+ nun (presumably the youngest around back then) was brought in to tell us about her life. She emphasized that her sexuality was not dead, and that when she saw a cute guy in a grocery store she thought, "Wow!" And she punctuated "Wow" by throwing her arms in the air.

We were very embarrassed.  Other authority figures over 39+ did not share the secrets of their sexuality with us, so we were appalled that this nun did. And I think I was actually disappointed that religious life did not kill sexual yearnings stone dead. So much for that.

Looking back, my last year of high school was the last year of my life that I could have heard a call to religious life. The summer between graduation and the first year of university I discovered I had caught my first real Catholic victim boyfriend, and that was it. The whole messy cycle of infatuation-boredom-break-up-infatuation began. And although it all worked out in the end, and I have B.A.,  I must say I am an eensy bit cross.

But I do not blame the poor nuns. As a matter of fact, when I was 38, a few weeks before I came to Scotland and met B.A., a nun at that very convent crept up to me while I was strolling the grounds and asked me if I had ever considered joining the order. (Bless her heart!) No, I blame history, really. I was a teenager in the 1980s, when religious life in my city was at its zenith nadir. The Sisters of Life, the first of the "new" nuns, did not get started until the year after my graduation, and it was some years before they came to Toronto. Amazingly, they had habits. When I first saw a Sister of Life in person, I was blown away. A nun...a young nun...in a habit! She looked beautiful.

I am absolutely delighted that the situation is so much better for young women today and there are now religious orders with young women in them, religious orders whose charism I can really get behind. And, realizing that I am probably more read by teachers than by teenagers, I implore readers to make sure teenage girls actually know about them.  When I was eighteen/nineteen and thinking about religious life, I really had nowhere to go and no-one to speak to who was not old (or "old"). Nobody really welcomed me or encouraged me, and of course I gave up the idea as soon as the first cute NCB asked me to be his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, nineteen is not too late for other women. I know two women who went to the Benedictine Sisters of Saint Cecilia at Ryde, one after finishing her PhD, and one some years after finishing her B.A.  In my UK circles, the Sisters of Saint Cecilia is where you go, darling, if they'll take you.  And in the USA and Canada there are of course the Sisters of Life, not to mentioned the fabled Tennessee Dominicans and the Dominican nuns (average age 28) in Ann Arbor, MI.

Of course there are other orders, too, but these are the ones I think of first, as they are the ones most attractive to younger women--and to me. As I never cease to brag, the Tennessee Dominicans turned me down sight unseen, and I would never want to join any order that would have me. I mean, come on. They'd have to be desperate, and this is not humility speaking. It is self-knowledge.

I wonder if religion teachers ever arrange class trips to convents and monasteries....? Just throwing that out there.

Anna, daughter of Phanuel

I have been reading up on Candlemas (Feb 2) today, a feast I particularly love because one of the blessing prayers mentions the bees.  I am a bit afraid of bees, actually, but I think it is great fun when they are mentioned in church, especially in a solemn way, in Latin.

The Gospel reading is about the purification of Our Lady (after childbirth) and the presentation of Our Lord. It mentions an elderly man and an elderly widow, and although the elderly man composed the Nunc Dimittis on the spot, it is Anna who interests me today.

According to Luke, Anna lived with her husband for seven years before she was widowed.  I don't know why Anna was living in the temple; maybe her husband or her father  had some kind of important temple connection. (Off the top of my head, I would guess it was her father, as Anna is known as the Daughter of Phanuel, not the Widow of Somebody Else.) But at any rate, Anna lived there, praying and fasting, until at least the age of 84.

Now, if Anna married at 14, which would have been perfectly normal for those days, this means she was widowed at 21 and stayed a widow for at least the next fifty-nine years. Presumably she could have married again, but presumably she didn't want to. She was happy in the temple, praying and fasting and doing whatever it may have been that women who lived in the temple were expected to do, and after fifty-nine years of temple living, met Baby Jesus.

That's pretty neat, if you ask me. It's amazing how little space Anna's story has in the Gospel, given its hold on our imaginations. Anna, daughter of Phanuel, tribe of Asher. Widow, aged 87. Married 7 years. Never left temple, worshiped, prayed, fasted. Came to Presentation/Purification ceremony. Recognized Jesus for who He was. Praised and preached. The end--or the beginning, really. Now Anna is one of the most famous women who ever was, for the Bible is the most widely read book there ever has been. More importantly, of course, she got to see Jesus before she died, as an actual baby. Maybe she was allowed to hold him and bounce him up and down. Wouldn't you love to do that?

Anna seems like a serious and single-hearted woman, not given to mourning over what-could-have-been and feeling sorry for herself or envying women with children or any of the temptations adult women give into every day. Those fifty-nine years of  life, though pious, couldn't have been dull. They must have been lived in joyful expectation of something great to come, and lo and behold, He did!

Searching Singles Seeking Something Better

I write rarely about Single women who long very much for the religious life. When it comes to discerners, I am more likely to dance a tarantella on the pretensions of male discerners, if they enjoy bouts of angst-filled dating between exciting visits to monastery and seminary.

However, today I am sparing a thought for women who desire, with real longing, religious life and for men who also seriously desire either religious life or the priesthood. I am thinking especially of men and women who have "tried their vocation" with an order or seminary, who are turned away from this order or seminary, and seek admittance at another order or seminary.

When it comes to men and women who so strongly desire religious life or the priesthood that they pick themselves up after a rejection by one order or seminary to risk rejection by another order or seminary, I shut up about pretensions. I feel nothing but respect, compassion and hope for these Catholics.

It can be a terrible shock to discover that a friend has disappeared into a contemplative order to "try her vocation". The last time that happened I felt a great sense of loss, and resentment at not being told, and finally a hope that she will find acceptance and happiness in this convent.

It's not like I will never see her again, as eventually I will be able to visit once a year. And anyway, look at me. I disappeared across the ocean as a foreign spouse and my old friends and family see me only once a year.

It would be nice if you said a quick prayer for my friend right now.

I am thinking also of a young man I know--rapidly not so young--who very much desires the priesthood, has a very good character, and has been turned down again and again from the seminary. I simply do not know why this would be, unless it is because some people mistake his cheerfulness as frivolity unless they bother to get to know him better. He is trying again, sponsored by yet another bishop, so it would be nice if you prayed for him, too.

In constrast, there is another young man, again not so young, who has left his seminary after a significant period and has, not to put too fine a point on it, apostasized from Christianity to chase after a more eastern enlightenment. Although in this case it is all too obvious he did not belong in the seminary, he too needs prayers.

I have never had a strong desire for religious life, so I do not know personally how awful it is to be bounced from convent, monastery or seminary. I do know a lot about rejections, however, about firings and about break-ups, and so my heart is as wrung by someone who is asked to leave a community as it is by someone who gets broken-up with.

Because I write so much for Singles searching husbands, I thought it would be nice to think, today, about Singles searching "something better."

I realized it is controversial nowadays to call religious life "something better", but as a matter of fact the Catholic and East Orthodox traditions have long held consecrated virginity to be ontologically superior to married life. Marriage is humanity-as-usual; consecrated virginity is a sign of the Kingdom. Not everyone is called to it, just as not everyone is gifted with breathtaking beauty, or impressive powers of reasoning, or the athletic skill of an Usain Bolt. But it is nevertheless "something better" and I am full of admiration for those who, despite hearing No and No again, struggle towards the "something better," hoping one day to hear a Yes.

Lord, accept your stubborn children to religious life, or if this is not Your will, please show them more clearly and less painfully the way.

This Is Not About Finding Husbands

I fear I've been neglecting Serious Singles of late.

As you know, I mentally think of Singles as Searching Singles, Singles who don't want to be Single but Married, and Serious Singles, Singles who enjoy being Single, prefer celibacy and look forward to a long life of single blessedness.

The second group is usually more tranquil than the first, which is one reason why I don't think of them as often. However, it is wrong to neglect them completely. For one thing, they are often good role models for happy living of the Single life. And for another, they are irritated by the idea that there is something wrong with them for just enjoying being Single. They deserve support, encouragement and references to Saint Paul.

During one homily I've heard, a diocesan vocations director, a priest, complained about the various married people who had looked at him with big pitying eyes and said, "It's such a shame you can't get married." He didn't like feeling pitied, and he thought their attitude cheapened his celibacy and devalued his priesthood. He actually liked celibacy and never wanted to get married, but he found it very hard to convince these happy married people of this.

(Happy people are often unimaginative about happiness. Happy married people think everyone who isn't married must be miserable, and happy priests thinks every young man should think about the priesthood, and happy Catholics pity Protestants, and happy writers encourage young men at parties to write their first novel before they are 25 so as to get maximum publicity.)

I received an email from a reader working in some remote spot who just wanted permission to stay home and not have to go out and find a husband. There was
no-one eligible in town, and when people in town, eyes glistening with sympathy, asked her if she had found anyone, she would point out that there was no-one in town for her to find. And the townspeople would think about this and conclude that she was right. I cheerfully gave her permission just to stay home.

Even Searching Single girls can stay home and veg if that's what you want to do. My now husband found me because I spent quite a lot of time blogging and writing funny stories. I literally did not have to leave my room. And when I did leave my room, it was to visit readers in the UK, not to buy clothes and meet cute new boys, which led one of my best friends to conclude I didn't really want to get married, "and that's okay."

Listen, girls, if God wants you to get married, you'll get married. Don't go to that stupid party if you really don't want to go.

By the way, I'm talking to girls here. Searching Single Guys should be out there meeting girls. It's okay for Searching Single girls to slump in front of the TV and feel bad because they aren't wildly popular, but it's not okay for Searching Single guys. Most women make daily efforts to look more attractive; most of us, for example, put on lipstick. So it is not really all that much to ask when we ask Searching Single men to improve whatever it is that needs improving and get back out there. Girls like manly guys. Getting back out there is manly. And if you really, really hate "out there," think about marrying your slavishly devoted secretary.

But back to Serious Singles. Being married to a relatively young and healthy guy, it will probably be a long time before I am Single again. I hope so because I am rather fond of B.A., and it would suck if he just went and died on me. But trying to see life from a Serious Single perspective, I can see how good life can be when you make all the decisions and there is nobody there to tell you you can't have a pony or a pot-bellied pig or a pug. (By the way, I finally have a pet. It is a sour dough starter named Herman. Every day I get to mix Herman, and he eats only once every four days.)

For me, trying to imagine myself as a Serious Single, the most important factors in my life would be family and friends. Not all Serious Singles would agree, of course, as some are rather hermit-like, and for some much more important are work and prayer. But I would be conscious that the two great temptations for Serious Singles (and Singles in general really) are (A) becoming isolated and (B) doing everything for everybody out of fear that if I don't somebody won't like me.

Family and friends would thus be very important, both for company and for more-or-less unconditional love. I would be lucky in that I already have lots of Serious Single friends, and really the hard part would be convincing nervous confirmed bachelor friends that I wasn't merely hunting down Husband Number 3.

This blog, like my book, has never been about finding husbands. It has always been about appreciating and living the Single life as happily as possible, and the Single life includes friendships and dodgy old dating, which is why I write about them so much. But I honestly don't think it is a woman's job to go out and find a husband. I think it is a man's job to go out and find a wife. And therefore I am never going to write a book called "How to Find a Catholic Husband" even though my own Catholic husband would love the money it would bring in. Ka-ching!