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Did I really not tell the nun story?

I can't believe I never blogged about the nun story. It's classic, although it was slightly mortifying to me at the time. I looked in my archives, and I didn't see it anywhere, so I guess I chickened out about telling all of you.

Alas, it is time.

I decided to catch up on the blogs I love to read while I was sick and can't leave the couch. I stopped over at One4JC's web site and saw that she had a post just for me. I am a little sad that I am the only Catholic she knows with a sense of humor, but I'm hoping it's because she doesn't know lots of Catholics. Anyhow, what a funny post, and it inspired me to tell the nun story (not to be confused with The Nun's Story. I love Audrey Hepburn.)

OK, so the nun story. (Can you tell I'm stalling?)

I think you should all know this by now, but I was born Catholic and went to Catholic school until college, where I decided to bypass Notre Dame, The University of Detroit, Siena Heights and Georgetown to go off and be nothing more than a social security number at a huge state-run university. It also helped that most Catholic liberal arts colleges don't offer a journalism school, and I'd known since 6th grade that all I ever wanted to be was a writer. I didn't want to be an English major; I wanted to be a hard-hitting journalist. When I started out, I had dreams of being an international correspondent. Now, I'm just happy to be writing.

Well, college was complete and total culture shock for me. Things were just so different from my strict college-prep high school. However, I thrived once I got used to the craziness. I loved it, although I think I will strongly recommend that my future children go to Fordham, Dayton, Seton Hall, Xavier, etc. Just because I've seen public school doesn't mean I want my future teenage daughter to be anywhere near one.

But anyhow, I don't even remember why now, my freshman year in college I get this brilliant idea that I'd like to be a nun. So, I went over to the church near campus and spent hours in the church library researching all the various religious orders. What did I want to do with life? Did I want to be a teacher? Work with the impoverished? Be cloistered and contemplative (yeah, that was a hoot)? Well, I never really seemed to find an order that fit. Then I found out about The Daughters of St. Paul. It's a group of nuns who use various forms of media to spread the message of Jesus Christ and the Church. As a journalist, that piqued my interest.

So, I got on the phone to the vocations director to get more information. She was a nice woman and I was eager to hear more about religious life and their order in particular. It seemed like a great way to combine my love of my faith with my love of my professional trade. In fact, a few years ago the Public Relations Society of America featured the Paulines as the cover story in their member newsletter. I reviewed their materials and had I joined the convent, I am sure this would have been the right fit for me.

Back then, I made the mistake of mentioning this soul-searching to my parish priest. Actually it wasn't a mistake then, but when I was mortified last week, I was rethinking that. While my dream to be a nun has come and gone, he'd still very much like me to become a nun. I did pray about it. I did talk to friends who were nuns about it. That's probably the main reason I didn't do it; a friend of mine who was a nun (my grade school principal, actually) told me that she didn't feel like I truly was being called. Looking back on it, I think I was just going through that religious-identity crisis most go through in college. Some become Presbyterians or join Campus Crusade for Christ. I guess I thought since I was content with Catholicism that maybe packing up and joining the convent was the way to go.

I did think about it quite a bit. And pray about it. And the Paulines encouraged me to get that journalism degree because it'd help me there if I did join. So I gave it until graduation. Of course, when I graduated I was seriously dating someone whom I thought I would marry and got a job that put me on the fast track to becoming a Yuppie. Needless to say, the convent wasn't in the forefront of my mind. And after that relationship ended and I read that article in the PRSA newsletter, I called Sr. Margaret Michael just one more time. I had intended to go to Cleveland and spend a weekend at the convent, just to be sure I wasn't being called. For some reason, I never made it. I am just thinking that was God's way of telling me that he wasn't interested in that life for me. I can be very active in the church without being a nun. In fact, I am probably much more involved with my home parish through my lay ministry. If I were in an order, I'd be having mass in the convent and ministering in a totally different way.

And, honestly, I had serious issues with wearing a habit. Not because I'm shallow and don't want to outwardly show my faith, because I do that all the time. Mostly because in one brochure they sent me, they were all sitting on the beach in nuns' habits. At the beach?! Seriously? And at a Red Sox game (they're based out of Boston). I'm all for habits, but all the time?!? Aren't they like "work" clothes?!? The nuns who taught me in school didn't wear habits at all. During school they'd wear respectable skirts and blouses, but on the weekends it was jeans and sweatshirts. So, the habit wasn't a deal-breaker by any means; I'd have sucked it up if I were truly called. But my reaction to it just seemed like proof to me that maybe I'd just seen the Sound of Music and that Hayley Mills' movie too many times. I just figured that meant that God had other plans for me. And honestly, that's still how I feel.

Oh, I wish my parish priest felt the same way. He still wants me to be a nun. I can't figure out if this is better or worse than all the other parishioners who would like to set me (the only single girl in our church) up with the only single boy at our church. He is cute and if I were staying here I'd have asked him out by now. But I need to leave because there are no jobs for me here.

So all this lead-in to get to the funny, yet mortifying, part of the story. I hope it's not a big let-down. I am on cold meds, remember?

As you know, I am going to faith formation classes every Sunday to be a confirmation sponsor for one of the folks participating in RCIA, which stands for Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. It's how adults join the Catholic church, and it requires about 8 months of classes. We've been doing this since September. It's actually very interesting to a "cradle Catholic" like me.

There is a gal in our class named Wendy. Wendy and her kids are all joining the Catholic church. She comes from an evangelical background and she always has lots of questions. Another gal in the class asked about annulment because her husband left her at some point during the process. So we get on this big conversation about marriage, divorce and annulment. I learned a lot about that stuff. Then I asked about a guy I know who is joining a religious order but told me that he didn't need an annulment because he was taking a vow of celibacy. Father says that is wrong because if you are married in the church's eyes, you cannot take a vow of celibacy. Well, I hope my friend figures all that out.

So Wendy asks Father about if someone has to be completely pure to be a nun or a priest. Do they have to be a virgin or could they have had sex before. And Father answers her, looking directly at me, that they don't have to be a virgin to join the convent, they just have to take a vow to not have sex after they do.

I almost died. I kinda wished that the world would crack open and suck me up at that precise moment. I didn't have a mirror, but I'm pretty damn sure that I turned 18,000 shades of red. I was so mortified.

Of course, when I relayed this story to a friend, she pointed out to me that everyone in the class didn't know that Father wanted me to be a nun and was letting ME know that it was OK that I'd had sex before. But I did, and that didn't make it any less embarrassing to me.

So, that's the nun story. Hopefully, you aren't sitting at home thinking, "Did I seriously wait all night for THAT?" I thought it was funny. Well, now I do.

posted by Laura at 6:28 PM