One of the post-Vatican II (here we go) tropes I lived through was the consistent denigration of physical expressions of faith, from medals and holy cards to church buildings themselves. People these days comment on this, but they never really seem to grasp the motivation – they rumble on about wreckovation and revolution without any attempt at all to look at what was actually being said and written at the time.
It was actually pretty simple: All of that stuff was an expression of, first, an immature faith that required “props” and externals. Secondly, all that stuff was time bound – it did not express the faith of Modern Man. Third, all of that stuff functioned as a distraction, a diversion. It lulled people into thinking they were practicing the faith, that they were faithful, but actually all they were doing was sitting in a pretty building, listening to nice music, not even actively participating, the horror. Fourth, it was essential that people get past all that to understand and live the reality of Church, which is the people of God, not a building.
It was absolutely necessary to strip all of that away so that we would grow up, recognize Christ in each other and in the community, witnessing to Christ in the modern world as modern people, who of course, as Modern People, have no use for those externals. They’re put off by all of that. That stuff is not what’s going to attract Modern Man.
Well, they were wrong, weren’t they?
This is a false dichotemy. For church buildings are witnesses to the presence of Christ in the world: in the middle of a city, in a neighborhood, in a suburb, on a rural road in the midst of cornfields.
And people – yes modern people in the 21st century – still see them, go to them, and experience them as such, even if they don’t believe. Even if it’s just functioning as a prop or a background –
…that prop or background is the most powerful and immediate way to connect action or an inner state with important, essential human experiences and promptings: contemplating love, death, meaning, purposeand connection.
And it’s not just cultural baggage. There really is something integral about the sights and sounds of traditional Christianity, east and west, that organically evokes and connects even non-believers to these truths and sensibilities.
So in John Wick 4 – you not only have John, in a candle-doused church (I mean…who lit all those candles? Who’s maintaining them? Okay, it’s a movie, I know….) musing to Caine, the blind assassin – Donnie Yen is the best part of the film, I think – about whether or not he can communicate with his dead wife, but you also have this….
I wish I had a screen shot – one might eventually turn up, but it hasn’t yet – but one of the final scenes of John Wick 4 has John sitting on the stairs in front of Sacre Coeur, the gleaming white church in the background, and not just because a huge fight scene has taken place on the 222 steps leading up to the basilica, but because….it’s an important moment. What’s below is a shot of filming from this website.
Whether the filmmakers intended it or not, whether it was chosen just because it was cool and because of those steps, this moment happening in this place carries a meaning that it wouldn’t if it were happening in front of another iconic Paris landmark like the Eiffel Tower. They can’t help it. It’s just there: built into the building that stands as a witness in the midst of the city, in the thick of the chaos, violence and death.
If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know that the nest has been mostly empty since last summer. Oh, people come and go on breaks, and this summer I certainly won’t be sitting around here alone, jazz on the Spotify, worshipping the sun.
And I do wish we all lived closer together. But everyone is off doing what they should be doing right now, and that’s the way it should be.
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a female acquaintance after Mass here, telling her about the Italy trip, and she stopped me – “You went…by yourself? Not on a tour?” Yes. No. “You went alone?” Yes.
Now this woman is married and of course enjoys being with and traveling with her husband, so it’s understandable that traveling alone isn’t part of her mental landscape. I get it. If I were married, I’m sure I’d feel the same way. I did, in fact.
But even married women like to go off by themselves. I met one on the plane back from Italy. There was a group of middle-aged to almost-elderly women who had just finished two weeks in Morocco. One of them sat next to me, and we had great conversations off and on over the many hours in the air. The group, she said, was of solo female travelers, most of whom were, indeed married, but whose spouses didn’t have the same bug. So a couple – or more- times a year, they went off in a group. The trip before this had been South America.
But my seatmate said, too, that even though she enjoyed the group – she also liked to take trips on her own (I guess her husband really doesn’t like to travel – or perhaps can’t – she was probably in her mid-70’s), and was currently planning her next. A group can be fun, she said but sometimes you just want to experience things on your own, and you don’t want the burden of wondering and worrying about other people’s needs and wants.
“I have no trouble,” she said, “going into a restaurant or bar by myself. It’s…wonderful.”
The rest of this post is going to meander and probably spiritualize in a predictably tedious way, so I’ll pause and be very practical for a moment. Let’s talk about safety and security.
Driving a thousand miles by myself…going to Mexico…going to Naples…driving alone in Italy…did I feel safe?
Absolutely.
Just hearing the words “Mexico” and “Naples” makes some nervous, but I’ll tell you – I was in and about downtown Denver in November, and I felt more ill-at-ease and a creepier vibe there than I did in either of those other places – and I wasn’t alone there. Walking around Naples at night felt safer to me than walking around downtown Denver during the day.
But specifically: I’m not stupid. I don’t wander around staring at my phone (which is not an Iphone, so extra layer of theft protection there) oblivious to my surroundings, a ready target. I don’t wear jewelry. I give off a vibe of awareness and attention. I go where there are people.
And I have five people at home who know, every day, my general whereabouts. I don’t know if my phone can do any locater thing, but what I do is text them most mornings and let them know my plan – I’m going to Herculaneum today. Because in case something happens – and things do happen – believe me, you don’t have to lecture me about the unexpected – they’ll at least know where I was supposed to be that day.
Now, back to meandering.
Of course, personality affects your interest in or comfort with traveling alone. I’m an only child, and normally completely content alone. I’m an introvert, which means that my energy and recharging comes from being alone, too. The best way to understand that, I think, is to think, “What do I need to do to feel like myself? To feel really present in the world?” For some, it’s interacting with others – they don’t feel alive unless they’re engaged with other people. I had one kid who was very much an extrovert of that type, and believe me, until I figured out the personality type differences at the heart of our differences, it was..challenging.
For me and other introverts, it’s alone time. If I’ve been with people all day, I need about two to three hours to myself in the evening to settle in and reconnect with myself, and not feel as if I am somewhere out there that needs to be gathered in. That’s why, when the kids were here, I was such a night owl, usually up until at least midnight, usually later. Now? I’m quickly, weirdly, tumbling into Old People Hours – I don’t go to be super early, but I’m not unsettled until after midnight anymore, either. I’ve been mostly alone all day, so…I don’t need that late night alone time. Makes sense.
So where was I?
Oh yes. So that only child-introvert-Harriet-the-Spy personality means that traveling solo through life is my natural state. I’m always alone in my head. Not – I hasten to say, especially for my family’s sake – that I don’t like it when they’re here. Not at all! In fact, even though the solo state is natural – it nonetheless feels somewhat incomplete. When a car pulls up or even a phone rings and it’s one of them, it feels as if a missing pieces has fallen into place. It feels right when the door closes and I’m alone, it feels right when they’re back.
The adjustment for this new traveling solo stage has come, not with any sense of awkwardness or discomfort, but with purpose.
And that was hard. It was hard because for fourteen years, I’d done so much travel with the two youngest (now both in college), and the choices of destinations were rooted in three factors: any particular interest of theirs (Mexico and Central America, for example), cost and my sense of what might be a good…yeah…educational/formation experience.
It wasn’t just about culture, history and nature, either. When we set out on our traveling life, I had another purpose: I wanted them to see and live in the reality that there was much more to life than, say, the 5th grade at Our Lady of Sorrows School in Birmingham, Alabama.
Not that that was a bad place, at all. But after raising three much older kids and witnessing their navigating through adolescence and young adulthood and getting a sense of how the American social landscape was shifting: getting, ironically, more insular, enabling narcissism, self-involvement and self-concern, not to speak of tribalism – I thought that one of the best gifts I could give these guys was to remove them from that for periods of time and help them see that the world was a very, very big place, with lots of people with lots of different viewpoints and lifestyles and that yes, as Rick says,
And yes, the first two solo trips were just a little difficult because that period had come to an end.
I was a little at sea as to what to do and why I should do it. I missed my fellow-travelers and while I didn’t miss much of the logistics and the interest-balancing andfor sure didn’t regret spending 2/3 less (at least – I’m very low maintenance) on travel – I actually did miss being a part of my kids’ experiences as they discovered a new part of the world.
I enjoyed and got a great deal out of seeing new things with them and partly through their eyes.
So now…what?
During those first two trips, especially, I battled conflicting emotions: glad to be somewhere, interested in what I was seeing, grateful for the freedom, guilt about privilege, guilt about self-indulgence, wondering if I could live in this new place, missing all of my kids, not just the two frequent travel companions, thinking about what they would and wouldn’t enjoy about this new place, plotting on a return with one or more of them, wondering if this was at all justifiable, so aware, again, of the privilege that screams from even having these questions at all.
There were, indeed, times, when I was a little sad – sad that those days were over, because you know what? They were fun. I really enjoyed taking those guys all over, and I’ll probably be sitting here when I’m 80, looking at those pictures over and over again, no doubt.
The nostalgia, though, is quickly overtaken by the goodness of the present moment. Everyone is doing well. Oh, there are struggles, and serious ones, but there always have been and always will be. I’m glad everyone is where they are, doing what they’re doing.
Do you see where this is going?
Because it’s not just about one woman’s attempt to put her empty-nest solo traveling in perspective.
It’s not even just about the empty nest – although any newly-minted empty nester probably understands.
It’s about any change, any transition, I think.
For me, the answer to my questions are evolving. For right now, anyway, I am really not alone. The two youngest adults are in and out and we’ll be hanging around together, with some comings and goings, most of the summer, really starting now with all the spring breaks and Easter breaks and graduations. The fall is up in the air, as well, depending on other people’s decisions about their lives.
Some people preach a gospel that we’re all better off following our dreams and organizing our lives – and the lives of others – around our individual dreams and goals, even as parents, making sure the family system is one that facilitates our success. Okay, fine for you, but I try – try – to make my framework for living, especially as a parent, and even as a parent to adults – as something I call “radical availability.” On the phone, to shoot over and help with the kids or help you move – I’m there. Being available to my kids? That’s something I’m never going to regret.
So, my days as tour guide might be mostly over, but I can and want to host and facilitate and hang out at night while during the day everyone’s gone off and done their own thing during the day. But then there’s that next generation, rising fast, too, and just about old enough to take a trip and start the journey…
Someone said to me a few months ago, as I was mulling over all of this, Stop! You deserve this time! You’ve worked hard for your kids and given them a lot!Relax!
Well, I don’t know if “work hard” describes me in any way, even as a parent. But even if it did, I’m not sure I could agree. My time on earth wasn’t given to me for self-indulgence – even the introvert, content to be wandering the streets of Naples alone, knows this. There has to be fruit that serves others in some way – even if it’s something as simples as: this refreshes you and gives you more energy to serve or you’ve learned something that you can teach someone else or share or you were in this place at that time, and you encountered that person, and you both were enriched or one more lesson in: you’re not the center of the world or you learned how to navigate a difficulty and a challenge which will help you help someone else someday.
Oh, and then there’s you people: You can write about this and maybe someone reading it will be helped, entertained, educated or inspired.
Not that I’m settled into this as the complete answer, no more challenges needed or desired. I’m not nestling into some identity as “middle-aged traveling woman.” I am keenly aware that the space that I am privileged to inhabit now, first, could be gone tomorrow. Life changes, as we know, on a dime.
But I also know that this space is not just for me. Because the spaces we live in – as they change, evolve and shift – are never just for us, because of course, that space is always shared.
This is one of my favorite Gospel narratives for a number of reasons. The dynamic and exchanges it describes just ring so true, with this man being sent around, buffeted from the puzzled on all sides, friends, enemies and family members trying to figure out what happened to him and who did it.
And even he isn’t too sure.
The way in which Jesus heals him points ahead to the sacramentality at the core of Christian life.
Some despise ritual, say none of it matters, say that God is not bound by any of it. Of course God is not bound by it. God can do anything he likes. But in this world he created, he uses all that he created to reach us, to touch us, to heal us. Jesus could have just used his words and said – go – you’re healed, but here he didn’t. He spits. He makes mud. He rubs it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash.
How often are we tempted to gripe about the complexities and mysteries born of the Incarnation – God mixing up with us is so very confusing. Wouldn’t it be simpler if God bypassed all of this mud and gunk and waved a wand, and got our attention with big gestures that no one could ignore?
Would it be simple?
I don’t know.
But it wouldn’t be consistent with the very act of Creation and God’s presence within it, that glory and mystery of God-With-Us.
No magic wands, clearly labeled, magic words from a handbook. Just spit and mud and a push to go find the waters and wash it off.
One of the other points of this narrative that I come back to repeatedly is the process of the blind man’s faith – and I do see it as a process.
Just look at how he answers the questions he’s asked – they get gradually more specific with each time he is challenged. At first the one who healed him is just “a man.” And no, he doesn’t know where he is.
Then, to the Pharisees, he says that he supposed the healer was “a prophet.“
Then second time with the Pharisees he argues that obviously this man must be “from God.“
And then, finally, after he has totally frustrated everyone, scandalized others and been thrown out of the presence of the Pharisees…. he meets Jesus. No accident. Jesus seeks him out. And gently asks him some questions – and in response, in recognition, the man, now seeing in every sense, calls him “Lord.”
It seems to me to be a very accurate account of how faith grows and develops – in response to questions and challenges in which we are forced to examine our encounter with God, who we think God is, exactly, open ourselves more and more to him until finally, we meet him again, having been through the ringer, from within and without, and can finally put our ultimate trust, no matter what others say we should do, in the One who touched us way back when.
About two years ago – I just looked up the email, and yes, it was two years ago in April – a local man, a relation of one of my kids’ friends, had purchased a bunch of copies of some of my books, including Be Saints and the Loyola Kids Book of Heroes from me to distribute to kids in disadvantaged populations with whom he worked.
We exchanged emails about this, and in one he said, Unsolicited suggestion for a book in the future -“Children’s Book of Holidays and Holy Days…”
Me:Smacks forehead.
Of course. Why had I not thought of this before? So I pitched it, Loyola said yes, and here we are.
The Loyola Kids Book of Saints was published in 2001 and still sells very well! Over twenty years…not bad.
Anyway, you can get a closer look at the new book in the feature below. And since you’re here, I posted the Issuu videos on the other books as well.
Thank you for your support, for purchasing and sharing these books!
(Note: My links, if possible, do not go to Amazon, but to the publisher. I only link to Amazon when a book is out of print or it’s one I republished for Kindle. Please support your Catholic publishers and local booksellers.)
On the Second Sunday of Lent, every year, no matter what the liturgical cycle, we hear the narrative of the Transfiguration.
(There is also a Feast of the Transfiguration, on August 6, in case you are confused about that.)
We only hear of the actual moment on the mountain, but what precedes it is important, too, and perhaps your homilist alluded to it this weekend.
Before Jesus takes Peter, James and John up on the mountain, he had been conversing with them and the other apostles. It was the moment when he asked them Who do people say that I am? And Who do you say that I am? Peter had, of course, responded in faith and truth: You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
The conversation doesn’t end there, for Jesus continues, telling them about the way of this Messiah, his way – a way of suffering. Peter can’t believe it, Jesus rebukes him, and lets his friends and disciples know that anyone who wishes to follow him will be taking up a cross.
And then they climb the mountain.
******
On a Second Sunday of Lent several years ago, I attended Mass at the convent where my sons often used to serve. Those were the years before one of them went off to college and the other’s Sunday mornings became occupied by his organist job at a local parish, and then, eventually went off to college himself.
A while ago.
It was a small congregation, as usual. Sisters, friends, family members. There were two older men in wheelchairs, several children, a developmentally disabled young man, and concelebrating with the friar, a hundred-year old priest with his walker, his pillow, his handkerchief and his glass of water.
Hearts, minds and spirits bore crosses, too, not visible, but no less real, we can be certain.
Life is serious, challenging and hard. It’s rugged and scars you.
Jesus doesn’t promise a bountiful best awesome fulfilling amazing life on earth to his disciples. He promises – promises – a cross.
Why is liturgy formal and serious?
Because life is serious.
God didn’t make it so – we did – but God enters this life as it is, as our sin has made it, and God redeems it and takes up that Cross we have fashioned upon himself, on his own wounded back.
Up the mountain.
We follow him, all of us carrying crosses and burdens, and there atop the mountain, in a moment, we are blessed with a gift: light, love and glory.
It awaits, we are promised, but there on the mountain, we see something else. That gift isn’t just waiting ahead – it’s here now. It’s here in this Body of Christ, in the gift of Word and Sacrament, a glimpse of what awaits, an anchor and a hope.
It’s a gift that’s not dependent on us. It’s not dependent on how much we understand or know, or how well we speak or see, how quickly we can move, how accomplished we are, how fulfilled we feel, or how rich or poor we are.
Formality and ritual makes this clear. Redemption awaits, and it is offered to you and each of the wildly different people around you, each trudging up the mountain under their own cross, but it is one thing – the love of God – and it is sure, definite, solid and glorious. No matter who you are or what you can do, God offers it, and offers you a chance to respond the best way you can, in whatever way your soul can move, love and say yes, it is good for me to be here.
My sons serving, flanking Fr. Lambert, who died in 2018 at the age of 101.
Here’s the beginning of the account of the Temptation in the Desert – always the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent – from The Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories.
Remember, those stories are arranged in sections according to the liturgical season in which one would normally hear that particular Scripture narrative. So, this is in the “Lent” section.
In this sermon, Newman speaks of the consequences of fasting – quite honestly, as it happens. For, he acknowledges, we are often assured of the good fruit of fasting. But as he notes, it was his fasting that exposed Jesus to the possibility of temptation. So it is with us. That is – it’s not all roses:
THE season of humiliation, which precedes Easter, lasts for forty days, in memory of our Lord’s long fast in the wilderness. Accordingly on this day, the first Sunday in Lent, we read the Gospel which gives an account of it; and in the Collect we pray Him, who for our sakes fasted forty days and forty nights, to bless our abstinence to the good of our souls and bodies.
We fast by way of penitence, and in order to subdue the flesh. Our Saviour had no need of fasting for either purpose. His fasting was unlike ours, as in its intensity, so in its object. And yet when we begin to fast, His pattern is set before us; and we continue the time of fasting till, in number of days, we have equalled His.
There is a reason for this;—in truth, we must do nothing except with Him in our eye. As He it is, through whom alone we have the power to do any good {2} thing, so unless we do it for Him it is not good. From Him our obedience comes, towards Him it must look. He says, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” [John xv. 5.] No work is good without grace and without love.
….
Next I observe, that our Saviour’s fast was but introductory to His temptation. He went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, but before He was tempted He fasted. Nor, as is worth notice, was this a mere preparation for the conflict, but it was the cause of the conflict in good measure. Instead of its simply arming Him against temptation, it is plain, that in the first instance, His retirement and abstinence exposed Him to it. {6} Fasting was the primary occasion of it. “When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterwards an hungered;” and then the tempter came, bidding Him turn the stones into bread. Satan made use of His fast against Himself.
And this is singularly the case with Christians now, who endeavour to imitate Him; and it is well they should know it, for else they will be discouraged when they practise abstinences. It is commonly said, that fasting is intended to make us better Christians, to sober us, and to bring us more entirely at Christ’s feet in faith and humility. This is true, viewing matters on the whole. On the whole, and at last, this effect will be produced, but it is not at all certain that it will follow at once.
On the contrary, such mortifications have at the time very various effects on different persons, and are to be observed, not from their visible benefits, but from faith in the Word of God.
Some men, indeed, are subdued by fasting and brought at once nearer to God; but others find it, however slight, scarcely more than an occasion of temptation.
For instance, it is sometimes even made an objection to fasting, as if it were a reason for not practising it, that it makes a man irritable and ill-tempered. I confess it often may do this.
Again, what very often follows from it is, a feebleness which deprives him of his command over his bodily acts, feelings, and expressions. Thus it makes him seem, for instance, to be out of temper when he is not; I mean, because his tongue, his lips, nay his brain, are not in his power. He does not use the words he wishes to use, nor the accent and tone. He seems sharp when he is not; and the consciousness of this, and the reaction of that consciousness upon his mind, is a temptation, and actually makes him irritable, particularly if people misunderstand him, and think him what he is not.
Again, weakness of body may deprive him of self-command in other ways; perhaps, he cannot help smiling or laughing, when he ought to be serious, which is evidently a most distressing and humbling trial; or when wrong thoughts present themselves, his mind cannot throw them off, any more than if it were some dead thing, and not spirit; but they then make an impression on him which he is not able to resist. Or again, weakness of body often hinders him from fixing his mind on his prayers, instead of making him pray more fervently; or again, weakness of body is often attended with languor and listlessness, and strongly tempts a man to sloth.
Therefore let us be, my brethren, “not ignorant of their devices;” and as knowing them, let us watch, fast, and pray, let us keep close under the wings of the Almighty, that He may be our shield and buckler. Let us pray Him to make known to us His will,—to teach us ourfaults,—to take from us whatever may offend Him,—and to lead us in the way everlasting. And during this sacred season, let us look upon ourselves as on the Mount with Him—within the veil—hid with Him—not out of Him, or apart from Him, in whose presence alone is life, but with and in Him—learning of His Law with Moses, of His attributes with Elijah, of His counsels with Daniel—learning to repent, learning to confess and to amend—learning His love and His fear—unlearning ourselves, and growing up unto Him who is our Head.
It is quite predictable that at the beginning of every Lent, the claimed laxity of Catholic fasting and abstaining is decried – I’ve seen it all around Facebook this year, and I’ve done it, I’ve thought it, too. We’re weak in comparison to past generations, Latin Rite Catholics are amateurs when compared to Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox.
Well, critics have been saying the same thing for about four hundred years, it seems. The Middle Ages was Peak Fast for Latin Rite Catholics and it’s been downhill ever since, they’ve been saying for centuries.
I suppose it has struck many persons as very remarkable, that in the latter times the strictness and severity in religion of former ages has been so much relaxed. There has been a gradual abandonment of painful duties which were formerly inforced upon all. Time was when all persons, to speak generally, abstained from flesh through the whole of Lent. There have been dispensations on this point again and again, and this very year there is a fresh one. What is the meaning of this? What are we to gather from it? This is a question worth considering. Various answers may be given, but I shall confine myself to one of them.
I answer that fasting is only one branch of a large and momentous duty, the subdual of ourselves to Christ. We must surrender to Him all we have, all we are. We must keep nothing back. We must present to Him as captive prisoners with whom He may do what He will, our soul and body, our reason, our judgement, our affections, {64} our imagination, our tastes, our appetite. The great thing is to subdue ourselves; but as to the particular form in which the great precept of self-conquest and self-surrender is to be expressed, that depends on the person himself, and on the time or place. What is good for one age or person, is not good for another.
…
Even in our Blessed Lord’s case the Tempter began by addressing himself to His bodily wants. He had fasted forty days, and afterwards was hungered. So the devil tempted Him to eat. But when He did not consent, then he went on to more subtle temptations. He tempted Him to spiritual pride, and he tempted Him by ambition for power. Many a man would shrink from intemperance, {68} of being proud of his spiritual attainments; that is, he would confess such things were wrong, but he would not see that he was guilty of them.
Next I observe that a civilized age is more exposed to subtle sins than a rude age. Why? For this simple reason, because it is more fertile in excuses and evasions. It can defend error, and hence can blind the eyes of those who have not very careful consciences. It can make error plausible, it can make vice look like virtue. It dignifies sin by fine names; it calls avarice proper care of one’s family, or industry, it calls pride independence, it calls ambition greatness of mind; resentment it calls proper spirit and sense of honour, and so on.
Such is this age, and hence our self-denial must be very different from what was necessary for a rude age. Barbarians lately converted, or warlike multitudes, of fierce spirit and robust power—nothing can tame them better than fasting. But we are very different. Whether from the natural course of centuries or from our mode of living, from the largeness of our towns or other causes, so it is that our powers are weak and we cannot bear what our ancestors did. Then again what numbers there are who anyhow must have dispensation, whether because their labour is so hard, or because they never have enough, and cannot be called on to stint themselves in Lent. These are reasons for the rule of fasting not being so strict as once it was. And let me now say, that the rule which the Church now gives us, though indulgent, yet is strict too. It tries a man. One meal a day is trial to most people, even though on some days meat is allowed. It is sufficient, with our weak frames, to be a mortification of sensuality. It serves that end for which all fasting was instituted. On the other hand its being so light as it is, so much lighter than it was in former times, is a suggestion to us that there are other sins and weaknesses to mortify in us besides gluttony and drunkenness. It is a suggestion to us, while we strive to be pure and undefiled in our bodies, to be on our guard lest we are unclean and sinful in our intellects, in our affections, in our wills.
Well, I made it. The trip went very smoothly, with no problems or delays at all, but as it stands, I haven’t slept since Sunday night, and I am wiped out, barely coherent. So here are some photos – I’ll be back in the middle of your night with something of more substance.
Guess the location from one photo, first:
There’s a lot more on that theme…
Yes, Naples. Which is, judging from my afternoon and early evening walking around, getting the lay of the land, not a frightening hell hole. Yes, it’s a 3000-year old city that has been invaded and bombed and neglected. It’s not Swiss levels of cleanliness, but it’s not as trashy as I expected either.
I thought – well, that’s interesting. I’ll have to read that. It’s too early for it to be available via interlibrary loan, so I wondered what else she’d written and found this. Let’s go.
Before I present the summary (which I am going to crib from another website) – let me tell you what I appreciated about the book, what it illuminated and the context it helps establish for thinking about religious life today. The summary I’m going to post is pretty long, and some of you might drift away before the end of that, so I’ll make my points first.
I say to you again and again that reading history – and by that I mean accounts relating small corners of the past, not sweeping general works – can be very helpful in keeping your bearings in the present. Of course, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of the past, especially if we’re talking Church, which we are in this space, most of the time. But beyond that, to read a monograph like this – or to even a summary of it – highlights a lot of plain truths, mainly this one:
Life in the church is always lived by complicated human beings in complicated times. Church structures are always impacted by their cultural, social and political context. They shift, change and develop. People argue. People fight. People in spiritual positions act out of non-spiritual reasons all the time. In fact, in this life on earth, in this incarnational existence, is there any other way?
So in this case, I was prompted, for one, to think a lot about the role of religious orders and their sustenance. Very often today, we look at the struggles and the general decline (with some exceptions) of women’s religious life, and we compare it to the apparent flourishing of the same in the past, and we can see nothing but a reason for condemnation of the present. Faithless, we say. Look what previous generations were able to support!
Well, let’s look at how those Mexican enclosed convents existed. The choir nuns – fully professed – were at the center of convent life. These choir nuns had to be of certain racial stock (not indigenous, not even a drop), and they entered with a dowry. The dowry was then generally invested and used as a lending source. In short, most of these convents were banks and mortgage institutions – that’s how they financially survived, and for a time, flourished. It wasn’t because of incredibly faithful donors who sacrificially made it all possible. It was because of canny financial activities. There was a time in which the convent at the heart of this book suffered financially, for several reasons, including an excess of expenditures, but also because the majordomo hired to collect rents and interest wasn’t doing his job well.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that system. I don’t know enough to judge that. It’s just the way it was. All I’m saying is that knowing this gives essential context when we attempt to compare the apparent strength of religious life in respective eras.
Before the summary, I’ll skip to the end of the story. The Mexican government suppressed all convents in 1863. Many enclosed nuns tried to stay together after the suppression, taking up residence in private homes, attempting to maintain some sort of common prayer life. The Purisma nuns were apparently not able to do so – Chowning can’t find any evidence. However, in a rather moving coda, when Chowning visits San Miguel in the writing of the book, a sister at the church tells her the story of more recent history. Four sisters attempted to return in thee 1920’s, but were driven out, of course, by yet another revolution. But then:
Before you read, however – something this reviewer omits is that the foundress was a (very) young woman from San Miguel named María Josepha Lina. An orphaned heiress, she very much wanted to continue her father’s wish for establishing a convent in the town. She was influenced to support the Conceptionists, despite the fact that she had reformed (austere) tendencies – and that had been her father’s intention – probably because of a spiritual advisor’s ties to the Conceptionists. The Conceptionists were not reformed – they followed the more worldly model of female religious life. So you can see that there are potential problems from the beginning. So:
The rebellion revolved around the issue of reform. La Purísima was established as a reformed convent, where nuns strictly observed their vows of poverty and enclosure and lived the vida común (common life), sharing meals and sleeping in communal dormitories. Donadas (lay sisters) and nuns did convent work, in place of personal servants.
The first abbess interpreted the convent’s mission narrowly, insisting on a taxing devotional schedule even though nuns had multiple responsibilities beyond spiritual duties. A rebellious faction emerged, led by Phelipa de San Antonio.
Like the abbess, Phelipa had come from an unreformed Conceptionist convent in Mexico City to help found La Purísima. She was the first to suffer an illness that later moved among her followers. Described as the salto (jumping sickness) or the mal, it was characterized by sufferers’ trancelike state and jerky movements. Afflicted nuns stayed in their cells, received extra food, and were released from many obligations. Contemporaries suspected fakery, although Chowning considers the possibility of somatic causes, at least in Phelipa’s case. Yet Phelipa and others may also have manipulated the symptoms in order to resist the vida común and undermine the authority of the abbess and bishop. The abbess and her like-minded successor were forced out after the first period of rebellion and, after six peaceful years, Phelipa became abbess. Reform-minded nuns complained to the bishop about Phelipa’s administration. Under her tenure nuns wore secular clothes, received male visitors, and mounted plays.
It was during this period that the salto spread. Although an episcopal investigation failed to remove Phelipa, she was not reelected, probably due to factors including rigged elections and the untimely death of the esteemed pro-reform foundress, possibly seen as a martyr.
In 1792, however, Phelipa’s wishes came true (although posthumously); the bishop imposed the vida particular (individual life) on La Purísima, with nuns receiving stipends for their individual needs. This was touted as a solution to ongoing financial problems, partially caused by the remarkable, and endowment-depleting, practice of letting dowryless donadas profess as white veil nuns after a decade of service.
However, the adoption of the vida particular was as much an ideological as a financial decision; Chowning argues that it was inspired by the belief of the bishop and his advisers in free market ideals such as rationalism and individualism. The convent, like the region, suffered economically during the war of independence, but recovered afterwards, although recruitment, a longstanding problem, decreased precipitously. This was due partially to anticlerical characterizations of nuns as prisoners and non-service convents as useless, and to laws making church property taxable, which affected finances. Both factors made convents less attractive to potential novices and their families. In addition, the bishop forced La Purísima to radically limit admissions—because it was not attracting elite, dowried women, new entrants added nothing to the endowment. Finally, with the Liberal government’s closure of convents in 1863, the nuns were turned out.
As I said, this was well-written history. The only thing missing was a timeline of major events. That would have been helpful. I’m looking forward to reading her newest book:
What accounts for the enduring power of the Catholic Church, which withstood widespread and sustained anticlerical opposition in Mexico? Margaret Chowning locates an answer in the untold story of how the Mexican Catholic church in the nineteenth century excluded, then accepted, and then came to depend on women as leaders in church organizations.
But much more than a study of women and the church or the feminization of piety, the book links new female lay associations beginning in the 1840s to the surprisingly early politicization of Catholic women in Mexico. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials spanning more than a century of Mexican political life, Chowning boldly argues that Catholic women played a vital role in the church’s resurrection as a political force in Mexico after liberal policies left it for dead.
Charlotte was Both 