I was born a
catholic and attended convent boarding schools most of my young life. I
attended Sacred Heart in Washington D.C., St. Mildred’s Academy in Laurel
Maryland and St. Angela Hall in Rockville Maryland, a very fancy school where
we had horses, our own vegetable plot and took our lessons in drawing
rooms. In these schools, we
started the day with a mass and communion before breakfast. On Thursdays, we had a 4:00 p.m. meditation
during which we would sit and do nothing in front of the Eucharist for what
seemed like four years. During
these meditations, a nearby dog would start to howl sending us into convulsive
hysterics that we had to hide.
There was a Holy Roller Church down the road and we could also hear
their excitable songs and shouts drifting over the Maryland hills.
I learned to
sing the mass in Latin and occasionally read the “lesson” during mass.
We never saw the
nuns in anything but full habits that were long and made a particular noise (a
swish) accompanied by the slight click of long rosary beads bouncing against
each other. Their faces were framed by the starched white wimples.
At age seven we
got to receive the wafer that we were told was Jesus. We swallowed it whole without
daring to chew. It was the body and blood of Christ. At nine, the bishop came to confirm us
and part of the ceremony was to kiss his ring and get a slap on the cheek when His
Grace gave us our confirmation name. We couldn’t wait to get slapped. We also got to pick a confirmation name
and we all chose Mary or Marie. My full name could be Consuelo Mary Saah.
Every Saturday
Father Breen would hear our confessions and even at seven and eight we had to
collect and itemize our sins - the only sins we knew were lying, stealing, bad
thoughts. If we didn’t lie or
steal all week, we would say we did just to have a decent confession. “Bless me
father for I have sinned. I told
three lies, I stole a piece of candy and I had a bad thought about my friend.” Father Breen gave us all the same
penance: “One Our Father and a Hail Mary and ask God’s forgiveness.
I was reminded
of all this recently when I read that Pope Benedict XVI canonized 7 persons
making them saints. If you think the epitome of slowness is the line at the
DMV, canonization is slower. One
of the new saints has been “on hold” since the 17th century.
Here are the steps that must be
followed in the process of canonization: evidence of heroic virtue, evaluation
of the candidate’s life and (the clincher) two Vatican verified posthumous
miracles. I was very interested to find out what some
of these “verified miracles” were.
St. Teresia
Benedicta was canonized in 1997 after the Vatican verified that a young girl
who ate seven times the lethal dose of Tylenol was suddenly cured after her
family prayed to the spirit of Teresia.
Mother Teresa is
in the canonization process. Here are her miracles:
1. A woman who
broke several ribs in an accident was healed because she was wearing a Mother
Teresa medallion.
2. Mother Teresa
appeared in the dreams of a Palestinian girl telling her that her cancer was
cured.
There’s no doubt
that these were good and holy women but next to the miraculous antics that take
place on the internet every day, I think the Vatican is going to have take it
up a notch.
I still go to
church occasionally but I have a lot of trouble with the handholding and hand
shaking and talking and the mediocre english translation of the latin.
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