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You don't have to be very handy with the google to find your share of nun jokes on the internet. Or disrespectful photos of women (or men!) dressed like nuns doing all kinds of awful things. Your local dinner-theaters are probably showing some zany stage production of nuns doing all kinds of wacky things. I bet you know a couple nun jokes that you would never tell to an actual nun.
Growing up, I never really saw what was so entertaining about these depictions of nuns. And it wasn't because I had some high-and-mighty holier-than-thou ideas about these women (like I have now), but it was really just some abstract disconnection to nuns that I couldn't understand. Heck, even though I went to Catholic school from Kindergarten through High School, I only knew 3 nuns the whole time. One of whom wore a simple brown veil, a tidy white blouse and a calf-length brown skirt every day--the other two did not dress in a traditional habit, rather dressing like a number of aging women of their generation in polyester flower-print dresses from the middle 80's, albeit a decade after these outfits went out of fashion.
I hope that sentence does not sound like criticism. I don't mean it like that, honestly. I just want to say that I can't relate to the picture of a fire-breathing, knuckle-smacking penguin jokes. The 3 nuns I knew from school were pleasant and demure women who did not fit the stereotype that another generation lambasted with such delight. By the time Whoopi Goldberg was making her nun movies, the real joke was that the convent she would have allegedly hidden in probably wouldn't have existed. For one thing, they all wore full black habits in an era where most convents had given up the formal dress for polyester suits. And most convents in the United States have been dying out for several decades now-- real life sisters have had a hard time replacing their numbers as their older members are beginning to wane. It was just a style of life and worship that lost its appeal. And really, it still hasn't caught on again.
I don't know exactly why American nuns so uniformly renounced their habits in the days after the Second Vatican Council. Any guesses on my part would be too-influenced by my 21-century cranky traditionalist Catholic mindset to be fair, so I'll charitably say that I'm sure they had good intentions at the time. In truth, this assuming that they had "good intentions at the time" sums up a lot of my opinion about the Council and its aftermath. But I digress.
"Father Z", the incomparable blogger at What Does the Prayer Really Say?, often writes about rekindling a sense of "Catholic Identity". I like this sentiment very much and have often wondered how to incorporate a Catholic Identity into my life (an undertaking of mixed success). Catholic Identity wasn't always a big focus for the Church--indeed, I'd say that in the days after the Council, the zeitgeist was actually quite the opposite. Catholics were encouraged to suppress their identity--to blend in and be unseen. And there is some theological and traditional merit to this argument. For instance, Jesuits have a very old rule that when they are working amongst the poor, they should shed their clerical dress for street clothes.
And priests don't actually have to wear their clerical dress every day for the rest of their lives. I've been a few camping trips with priests who wore clothing suitable for hiking and camping, and when Father goes to the beach, he doesn't actually have to wear that Roman collar while sipping boat drinks in the sand. And so it was with nuns, I suspect. In an age that was hostile to tradition and a era that was redefining its terms of authority, I suspect that a good number of convents began to feel that their habited dress was hampering their godly work. They might have thought that the habit was the weight of history and a yoke that kept other people from truly recognizing their work in the world. Alas, I've done what I promised not to do, trying to come up with reasons why so many convents cast their habits aside.
There is a new body of research that says something interesting though: for the last few years, there has been some anecdotal evidence that the few religious communities who still dress in a full religious habit are going strong. Now it looks like the data backs up these anecdotes. In a brief on the Catholic News Service:
Book says young women attracted to orders whose members wear habitsDENVER (CNS) -- While the last 40 years have seen an overall drop in the numbers of women entering religious life, a new book released by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious says orders that are more visibly countercultural seem to be flourishing. The council represents the superiors of more than 100 religious communities of sisters whose members wear an identifiable religious habit. A canonically approved organization founded in 1992 to promote religious life in the United States, the council notes that the average age of its member communities' sisters is under 35. The book, titled "The Foundations of Religious Life: Revisiting the Vision" and published by Ave Maria Press, is a project of the council. It explores why the orders represented by the council are gaining numbers and how they are living out the vision of consecrated life described by the Second Vatican Council. The book, released May 16, consists of essays written by six religious sisters representing five orders. The topics they address are: religious consecration, the spousal bond, the threefold response to vows, communion in community, and mission.
Particularly interesting to me is the phrase "visibly countercultural".
Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher (of CrunchyCon fame, linked in the sidebar) often makes the case that real cultural conservatism (as opposed to mainstream conservatism) is actually counter cultural. In the 60's and 70's, when you wanted to rebel against mainstream culture, you listened to rock music, did a lot of drugs and had lots of liberated sex. These days, that's not counter to the culture--it is the culture. In 21st Century America, if you want to rebel against your parents, it turns out that you're supposed to do well in school, respect authority and join a convent. Now that's countercultural! Ha!
You know, our modern world isn't all that different than the world has ever been. I think of St. Francis's famous moment where he rejected the modern world. Francis was born a rich boy of a very cosmopolitan family. His father was a successful merchant and provided well for his family. When Francis began to see that living a worldly life of wealth was destroying his soul, in an argument with his family, he famously went to the middle of town, stripped himself bare and left all his worldly possessions behind. Walking out of town, he decided to follow the Lord unencumbered by the desire to be rich. When Francis got dressed again, he wore a plain brown tunic. It was in this plain brown tunic that Francis founded one of the most venerable traditions in Catholic history: the Franciscan orders. Today, variants of Franciscan friars still wear a brown tunic as their dress. The Franciscan nuns that kept their habits wear brown as well.
The Ursuline sisters that taught in my Catholic high school for many years gave up their habits years ago. As their congregation has dwindled in numbers, they've put their convent up for sale and moved in with some Ursulines in Kentucky. It's really sad to see their good history disappear from Kansas. At the same time, a Benedictine convent in Oklahoma has joined up with some Benedictine nuns in Atchison, each without a habit.
Meanwhile in town, two other communities of nuns are thriving! The pale-blue habited nuns (and white habits and black habits) of the Sister Servants of Mary in Kansas City, Kansas are receiving vocations from all over the world. The Archdiocese has continued to be blessed by these nuns for generations. In our neighboring diocese in Kansas City, Missouri, the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles are a logic-defying congregation of fully-traditional, habited nuns. These Benedictines' history only goes back to 1995, but their fast growth and dedication to the Lord promises that they will be a very successful fixture in the God's vineyard for a long time.
Perhaps it is a logical fallacy to say that because nuns gave up their habits, they lost their distinct identity. Perhaps it is also a logical fallacy to say that losing a distinct identity is why so many convents are struggling to find new members of their congregations. Post hoc ergo propter hoc analysis is an enticing trap for traditionalist cranks like me. But still I wonder if there isn't some truth in the matter.
Catholic identity is something that needs to be preserved if it is going to survive. If we Catholics don't speak up to preserve our legacy, the little sparking-mouthed wind-up toys are going to preserve that history in our place.
As I type this, the 3-day weekend is about to begin. If you're the sort that visits gravesites on Memorial Day, take a moment to do more than leave a flower on the tombstone of your deceased family. Please say a prayer for the repose of their soul.
From a friend of mine who provided the caption for this image:
It's actually a Knights of Columbus poster done during WWI. The first national organization of Catholic bishops in the United States was founded in 1917 as the National Catholic War Council (... how awesome does that sound ... ) formed to enable U.S. Catholics to contribute funds for the spiritual care of Catholic servicemen during World War I. The Knights during this time period were quite active in this most honorable endeavor as this poster shows.
The Knights of Columbus Museum notes that the KofC had a big role in the war effort.
During the war the Knights' Committee on War Activities provided "huts" with the slogan "Everybody Welcome, Everything Free" and staffed by a secretary and a chaplain.Stationery, candy, cigarettes and entertainment were provided for all, as well as Catholic religious services. Educational programs were sponsored by the Knights for returning soldiers.
The Knights' work is not just chronicled by other Knights. The Great War Society writes:
"Everyone Welcome, Everything Free" was the motto of the Knights of Columbus clubhouses which sprung up in Doughboy training camps, in major U.S. cities and wherever a Doughboy could be found. Manned by K of C secretaries who were affectionately known as "Caseys" the clubhouses provided recreation and a few of the amenities of home to any serviceman regardless of race or religion. And to Catholic servicemen they provided Chaplains and place to practice their faith. The Knights were one of the youngest volunteer organizations drawn into support to the AEF. They had been founded October 2, 1881 when a small group of men met in the basement of St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut. Called together by their parish priest, Father Michael J. McGivney, these men formed a fraternal society that would one day become the world's largest Catholic family fraternal service organization. They vowed to be defenders of their country and their families and their Faith. These men were bound together by the ideal of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the Americas, the one whose hand brought the Holy Faith to this New World. They called themselves Knights of Columbus.During World War I, Supreme Knight James A. Flaherty proposed to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson that the Order establish soldiers' welfare centers in the U.S. and abroad. The Order raised more than $14 million for this program on its own, and was allocated another $30 million from a national fund drive. The pioneer work was done by half a dozen Knights of Columbus chaplains whoreached France in October 1917 and combined with their priestly duties the activities of Knights of Columbus secretaries. They were given a sum of money and one of them started the first Knights of Columbus club in France, at St-Nazaire, then the principal debarkation port of the AEF. A survey was made and the first group of secretaries arrived in March 1918. They set up headquarters at 16 Place de la Madeleine, Paris, and from that center the activities of the Knights radiated all over France, through England and Scotland, touching on Ireland and Italy, and following the Army of Occupation into Germany.
The Gjenvick-Gjonvik Archives recalls:
This organization is doing excellent work at the camp. One notices on each of its signs the inscription : "All Welcome.""I want to emphasize the significance of those two words," one of the secretaries told me. "Some people think that the K. of C. building is for Catholics alone, but that is by no means the case. It makes no difference whether a man if a Catholic, a member of the society, or not; is he isn't, he will receive the same cordial treatment as any one else. We are not doing this work for the K. of C. men alone ; we are doing if for our soldiers, and we want every American soldier to make our house his headquarters."
The Knights were a valuable piece of hospitality in the midst of an awful reality. Their goal then is the same as ours today: be a Christian neighbor to those around us. In your weekend, sometime between baseball games and barbeques, take a moment to pray for the souls of the brave people who tried to show the light of Christ across the smoke of a torrid battlefield. Praying for the living and the dead is a corporal work of mercy.
The founder of the Knights of Columbus, Father Michael McGivney, is in the Canonization process of becoming a saint. There is some discussion as to whether a soul in purgatory can interceed with prayer the same way that a saint can interceed, as far as I can find, the matter is not known. Well, I'm going to try anyway. Fr. McGivney's humble Knights organization designed to care for widows has ended up caring for a good number of people since their founding in 1882. And in so many ways, Americans are still entrusted to his care-- so I'll ask his name without hesitation. Fr. McGivney, pray for us!
Have you ever had the realization that when you pray for someone, you might be the only person on earth praying for them?
What a weight.
One of my nephews had his Confirmation in the Church a few days ago. Confirmation is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit, where a person formally receives the Holy Spirit into their lives. Catholics carry on this action that was first described in the Bible in Acts 8. When the apostles heard that a number of Samaritans heard about the Good News of Jesus, they went out to confirm them in the Faith:
Now when the apostles, who were in Jerusalem, had heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John. Who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For he was not as yet come upon any of them; but they were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw, that by the imposition of the hands of the apostles, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying: Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I shall lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said to him: Keep thy money to thyself, to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
A note of vocabulary may be prudent here: The Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost are the same thing, er, are the same member of the Trinity. The terms can be used interchangeably, though in today's parlance, they seem to evoke different imagery. "Ghost" is the English version of the German word "geist", which approximates the word "spirit". But "ghost" also conjures up images of cartoonish floating white blobs, so the general trend has been to refer to the third person of the Blessed Trinity as the "Holy Spirit". Yet because "spirit" also seems a bit disembodied and impersonal, it leaves something to be desired. As well. Such is the weakness of our language, I suppose. Either term can be used interchangeably. But I digress.
In any measure, Confirmation is the charge of those first apostles that bishops carry on to this very day. Bishops of the Church are the holders of those original apostles today. Bishops are consecrated by other bishops, and thus they have a documentable lineage--and somewhere in a file of unending length, every Bishop can trace themselves back to the Biblical era. While this might seem like a clever piece of trivia or cocktail party tidbit, it actually has significant theological implications for Christianity. The term is "apostolic succession", and is considered one of the four marks of the church, "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic", that Christians (strangely, not just Catholics) profess in the Nicene Creed that sets out the basic beliefs of a Christian.
And so when bishops in 2009 lay their hands on the Confirmands today, they carry the same authority as those apostles in the book of the Acts of the Apostles quoted above. In some circumstances, bishops give this authority to regular priests who can confer the sacrament in their stead: the most notable example of this happens on the Easter Vigil every year where converts are received into the Church and confirmed by the priests in their local parish.
The bishop will cup his hands (like you would do if you were warming your hands over a candle) and place them on the confirmand's head, praying that the Holy Spirit would come upon him or her. Then the bishop will dip his thumb into a tin of chrism, a greasy blend of oil and balsam that has been blessed by the bishop, and mark a cross on the forehead of the confirmand, saying "N., I sign thee with the sign + of the Cross, and I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation; in the Name of the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy + Ghost." In the old days, they'd give you a gentle (or not-so-gentle) slap on the cheek to toughen you up as a newly made soldier of Christ. But those days have come and gone in the new form of the sacrament.
Where the prayer above says N., the bishop will use the person's confirmation name. A confirmation name is the name of a saint that the person chooses as spiritual inspiration. Heh. I was confirmed when I was 14 years old (the conventional age for confirmation is sometime between second grade and junior year of high school unless a person converts to the Church later in life or otherwise missed their confirmation) and just wanted to choose a unique name. I picked Saint Wenceslaus. Seriously. I was a peculiar 14-year-old. Oh, I had some rationale, of course. I'm sure my Catholic grade school wouldn't have let me pick something just as a spectacle. Wenceslaus was the Duke of Bohemia in the modern-day Czech Republic; his mother was a pagan who, before Wenceslaus took control of the duchy, tore down most of the Catholic churches in Bohemia. Good King Wenceslaus (yes, of the Christmas carol) spent his short life as a duke rebuilding those churches before he was ultimately killed by his brother for faith-based political reasons. Back then, I was the Senior Patrol Leader in my Boy Scout Troop and it was my responsibility to plan and run our weekly Troop meetings. As I saw it then, the previous Senior Patrol Leader was suffocating the troop by just playing two-hand-touch football in the parking lot every week instead of holding meetings--each successive meeting was like trying to rebuild a proper Scout Troop with scouts who didn't want to be there. I thought Wenceslaus could commiserate with me. Ultimately I had a better fate than Wenceslaus; my year as SPL was up and someone else took the position from there. I wasn't murdered from someone else in the Arrowhead patrol to ascend to the throne. Lucky me!
The late Bishop Marion Forst confirmed me that year. He was gentle, kind and jovial bishop who chuckled when he read my confirmation name. He asked if I was Czech. "No, Wenceslaus was Bohemian", I replied, not knowing that Bohemia was in (then) Czechoslovakia and had a far-different context than geography. The bishop smiled and announced to the full parish, "Oh, he's a Bohemian!" Hahaha. Laughs all around! Har har! But he confirmed me and welcomed the next boy in line after I moved on, feeling lucky that I didn't get a slap. When Bishop Forst died in 2007, he was the oldest bishop in the United States. It's too bad. I would have liked to talk to him as an adult--his Excellency was among the last men on earth to have attended all 4 sessions of the Second Vatican Council. I bet he had some stories.
My nephew took the name "Boniface" as his confirmation saint. Saint Boniface was known as the "Apostle of Germany" for his work to convert the people of Deutschland. In one particularly famous story, Boniface once found a group of people worshipping some pagan god in the form of a 6-foot-wide oak tree. He took off his shirt, picked up an ax and cut down the tree while the people looked on aghast. Boniface jumped up on the stump and shouted to the crowd "How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he!" Boniface, predictably, was martyred shortly thereafter. I don't know what motivated my nephew to pick this medieval saint as his confirmation patron. But knowing 14-year-old-boys, I suspect it has something to do with the cool-sounding name "Boniface".
Adults who go receive the sacrament often pick a different kind of name, usually dedicating themselves to people with bittersweet stories of trial and redemption like St. Monica or with steadfast courage like St. Thomas More. Not to say that either St. Boniface or St. Wenceslaus don't have their own credibility, of course. I'm just saying that adult confirmands often have more complex reasons for choosing the saints as patrons than a cool sounding name. As one of the world's most recently canonized saints, St. Zygmunt Gorazdowski might be a real inspiration for people. But he also might get the interest of a 14-year-old boy for being the last canonized saint in the alphabet.
But confirmation is, of course, about more than just cool-sounding names and a chance to shake hands with a bishop. It is the moment where a Catholic dedicates him/herself to Christ and His Church; it is where the confirmand receives the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Gifts are particular traits that are present in a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) writes:
The gifts of the Holy Ghost are of two kinds: the first are specially intended for the sanctification of the person who receives them; the second, more properly called charismata, are extraordinary favours granted for the help of another, favours, too, which do not sanctify by themselves, and may even be separated from sanctifying grace. Those of the first class are accounted seven in number, as enumerated by Isaias (11:2-3), where the prophet sees and describes them in the Messias. They are the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety (godliness), and fear of the Lord.The gift of wisdom, by detaching us from the world, makes us relish and love only the things of heaven.
The gift of understanding helps us to grasp the truths of religion as far as is necessary.
The gift of counsel springs from supernatural prudence, and enables us to see and choose correctly what will help most to the glory of God and our own salvation.
By the gift of fortitude we receive courage to overcome the obstacles and difficulties that arise in the practice of our religious duties.
The gift of knowledge points out to us the path to follow and the dangers to avoid in order to reach heaven.
The gift of piety, by inspiring us with a tender and filial confidence in God, makes us joyfully embrace all that pertains to His service.
Lastly, the gift of fear fills us with a sovereign respect for God, and makes us dread, above all things, to offend Him.
So we receive wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord at confirmation.
Well gentle reader, I can tell you that I was validly confirmed, yet I've spent a tremendous amount of my life since then acting totally without wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety or fear of the Lord. So was it all a scam? No, of course not. The gifts of the Spirit require sanctity to be efficacious--people have to be living a life inspired by Christ to be filled with these gifts. It reminds me of the rebuke from the ancient Jewish prophet Isaiah:
Hear, ye deaf, and, ye blind, behold that you may see. Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, but he to whom I have sent my messengers? Who is blind, but he that is sold? or who is blind, but the servant of the Lord? Thou that seest many things, wilt thou not observe them? thou that hast ears open, wilt thou not hear? And the Lord was willing to sanctify him, and to magnify the law, and exalt it.So it is with the Lord, his gifts are freely given to those who accept them and totally ignored by those who abdicate them.
As I continue to type this post, it occurs to me that maybe Wenceslaus might still be an inspiration to me-- albeit one that I haven't considered in many years and in a way that I would have never consider until lately: So much of our world, of our Church, of our Faith has been destroyed by people with strange motivations. I will hesitate to call some "pagans", the evidence can speak for itself. Indeed, sometimes I am convinced that we need more holy leaders like St. Wenceslaus to rebuild a destroyed and devastated Church. Ack. This was way beyond my imagination as a happy and strange young kid. But so it is. And so it will be that the rebuilders and restorationists will have their reputation slaughtered by their brothers in the faith. Character assassination. Ecclesial martyrdom. We could all use another helping of those gifts.
St. Wenceslaus, pray for us.
A lot of things in this article ring very true to me, especially with today's Christian culture of broad Jesusy platitudes and the 
Father Mitchel Zimmerman is the vocations director for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas and one of the finer priests in this part of the country.
I don't usually talk about politics on this site. That's partly because I've been in a state of politics-burnout for the last 4 or 5 years and partly because religious politics are so over-covered in other people's blogs.
Still, the Church does not endorse candidates, she promotes issues for 
If you are a committed atheist, there's probably not much that I am going to say or type that will convince you otherwise. To one who does not believe, no proof is sufficient; to one who believes, no proof is necessary. Anyway, that's not my goal here. When I flirted with atheism for a year or two, it was this thing that brought me back. I couldn't stand the thought that all of creation was some cosmic accident; that big bangs were the random happenstance of physics; that if the Earth was just a little closer to the sun, it'd be an unlivable ball of fire and if it was any farther away, it would be an uninhabitable ball of ice; that the reason that dinosaurs crawled the earth and the reason I run barefoot in the grass and the reason that my grandchildren's grandchildren can run barefoot in their grass is just because some random bolt of lightning struck some random patch of carbon and generated the genesis of amoeba life... and it all is a cosmic accident. I couldn't take that. Maybe I am weak and naive. Fine. I don't care. Call me weak. It shouldn't matter to you anyway--if you're right, then all I'm doing is distracting myself before I'm worm food.
This period gave birth to great discipline in the church. It founded so many great religious orders like the 
It's Sunday up at the parish center of St. Patrick's Church on State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. If you don't know St. Patrick's, it's East of the Legends in KCK. The building is kind of an unfortunate relic of 1960's architecture and suggests maybe that it's an International House of Pancakes, but at least it's a proper rectangle church rather than the round spaceships we have in Johnson County.
There's some people who consider the decline in religious vocations and point to the changes in the Church after Vatican 2. This was the thesis behind Kenneth Jones' work 
The following prayer was composed by John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore, in 1791. He was the first bishop appointed for the United States in 1789 by Pope Pius VI. He was made the first archbishop when his see of Baltimore was elevated to the status of an archdiocese.
I remember as an adolescent Boy Scout, I was working on meeting the requirments for the "Ad Altare Dei" religious emblem award, (which is something like a Catholic Merit Badge, basically one exists for every major and most minor world religions) and the handbook talked about "witnessing" to people who had no religion. I don't remember exactly if it was a call to witness to other faiths and non-Catholic Christians, but thinking back-- I kind of doubt it. It wouldn't have been very PC to drop that on a 13 year old kid... but I can't recall that part exactly. But it's beside the point.
So I was talking to my friend 
Well, all-in-all, I don't think much of "reconciliation rooms". I'll take the anonymity of the booth, thankyouverymuch. (Though, in fairness, many of those "reconciliation rooms" are now being retrofitted with awkward Japanese screens and kneelers for penitants who want to be thought of as "chickens") For regular confession goers, confession is kind of a businesslike practice. Wait in line, hit the kneeler, give a list and a quantity, get your penance and get out. Next! There's a little talking involved, of course. Father will probably want to know some circumstances of some stuff, he'll give a little advice and perspective, give penance and pray the prayer absolution. Priests will get reputations as "good confessors" (though I can't say that I've ever heard of a "bad confessor") and when you go to the confession services during that last week of Advent, their line is the longest. The REALLY good confessors are the ones who get reputations for being able to "read your heart" and open you up when you weren't willing to do that on your own. Two Saints in particular come to mind: 
