Saint Training (5 page)

Mary Clare surrounded the lamp on her dresser with the statues and turned it on so they’d glow even brighter. Then she ran downstairs to the kitchen and started making phone calls. The Healy boys were gone, but she got hold of both Tina and Becky. She invited them over for cookies and they said they’d be right up.

Mary Clare ran downstairs to find that somebody had gotten into the cookies she’d hidden in the pots and pans cupboard. And she had given the kids a whole plate of cookies! At least they’d left enough so she could still serve her friends. Mary Clare placed the last of the cookies on a plate as the front doorbell was ringing.

“Who rang the doorbell?” Mom hollered from the basement.

“It’s Tina and Becky for me. We’ll be in my room for a while.”

“Okay,” Mom said. And the three girls were off to her room.

“Wow!” Tina exclaimed when she saw how the statues glowed in the dark.

“Isn’t that something!” Becky added.

Mary Clare was heartened by their reactions.

“Let’s see this one,” Tina said. She held up the statue of St. Theresa, the Little Flower of Jesus. St. Theresa was holding a bouquet of pink roses. Before taking Tina and Becky to the closet where the statues would
really
glow, Mary Clare explained about the roses falling from the sky after St. Theresa’s death.

“Talk about flower power!” Becky said.

Mary Clare laughed. She had seen the flower children on television holding signs that said “Make love not war.” How funny to think of the term in relation to St. Theresa—or any saint, for that matter.

Tina reached for the last molasses cookie. When Becky objected, she divided it in two and gave Becky half. Becky picked up the statue of St. Theresa.

The girls were responding exactly the way Mary Clare hoped they would. “I’m selling those,” she said.

“How much?” Becky asked with a mouth full of cookie.

“Twenty cents each,” Mary Clare said.

Tina and Becky gave each other looks that Mary Clare couldn’t quite decipher.

“That’s too much,” Becky said.

“Yeah,” Tina added. “No deal.”

Tina set down the St. Theresa statue on the dresser and Becky set the Virgin Mary next to it.

“Look, it’s already losing its glow,” Becky said.

Mary Clare had to act quickly if she wanted to make a sale.
She thought about what she’d read in the Baltimore Catechism the night before.

“Look, do you two know what indulgences are?” she asked.

They looked at each other. “No,” they said.

“Well,” Mary Clare started, “if you say certain prayers each day, you get time off of Purgatory. For example, if you say ‘O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee’ every day for a month, you get three hundred days off of Purgatory! If you look at the statue every day, it will help you remember to say the prayer.”

“What was that prayer again?” Becky asked. Mary Clare repeated the words and watched Becky’s forehead wrinkle as she said them.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Becky said.

Tina shrugged her shoulders. “Me neither.”

Mary Clare explained. “The Virgin Mary was born without original sin and we’re asking her to pray to God for us.”

“Original sin?” Becky asked. “What’s that?”

“Why don’t you just pray to God yourself?” Tina asked.

Mary Clare sighed. She couldn’t believe how little non-Catholics knew about theology. It was probably because they didn’t get religion classes in school. This was going to take time and patience, and she might not sell her statues today.

“I’m not sure my church even believes in Purgatory,” Becky said.

Mary Clare wanted to argue. She wanted to say that it didn’t matter what they believed, the Catholic Church was the
true
religion. She wanted to say that Purgatory was a fact, not a belief. She wanted to tell them that—that—that she didn’t know why you prayed through the Virgin Mary and not directly to God, but that was just the way it was.

“God gives us mysteries,” she said. “Mysteries to test our
faith.” Mary Clare thought she sounded a little like Father Dwyer when he gave a sermon. It felt good. “We don’t have to know
why
we pray through Mary or
why
we get three hundred days off of purgatory for saying that prayer every day for a month. We just have to believe and trust in the Lord. When I have doubts, I just remember that God tests us and that my faith has to win out.”

“Mary Clare,” Becky said, wearing a serious expression, “you’re weird.”

Tina giggled. “You really are, Mary Clare. You could be a minister.”

“Or the Flying Nun on television—giving sermons,” Becky added.

The balloon inside Mary Clare, the one with faith-filled ardor, burst in a flash of pain. She pictured her own face on the Flying Nun instead of Sally Fields’ face. She pictured flying around giving sermons from the sky and couldn’t help laughing along with Becky and Tina.

“Can we please change the subject?” Tina asked.

And they did. They talked about Mary Clare’s Paul McCartney poster and who had which Beatles records. Mary Clare had a few singles but didn’t have her own record player. She had to listen to them in the living room, so they decided not to bother. But when Becky said she had the new Sonny and Cher single “The Beat Goes On,” they tried to remember the words and sing it. Between the three of them, they got almost the whole song.

For the next hour Mary Clare actually forgot about the money she needed and trying to be a saint. They were only interrupted twice: once by her mother, who wanted to remind Mary Clare that there was no eating in the bedrooms, and once by Margaret, who needed a change of clothes because hers had gotten dirty in the wet sandbox.

When Tina and Becky were about to leave, Tina asked to
buy the Virgin Mary statue after all, but only if she could get it for a dime. “My brother is going to Vietnam,” she said. “And I’m gonna pray every day that he doesn’t get hurt.”

“Really?” Mary Clare said. “Didn’t he graduate last year?”

Tina nodded. “He was working at the chicken plant and got drafted.”

“Wow! I don’t know anybody else in Vietnam,” Mary Clare said. “I’ll write down the indulgence too. But the indulgence can only be for the person praying, not for another person—unless they’re dead.”

Tina’s eyes filled, and Mary Clare felt like an idiot. She hugged her friend. “I’ll pray for him,” she said. “Every day.”

“As religious as you are, that should work!” Becky said.

Tina laughed, and Mary Clare laughed in relief.

“I’ll pray too,” Becky added. “How about you sell me St. Theresa—for a dime.”

“Sold!” Mary Clare said.

Tina pointed to Mary Clare’s angel collection on the high shelf above her Paul McCartney poster. “I’ll give you forty cents for the kissing angels.”

Mary Clare shook her head.

“Fifty cents, then. That’s my final offer. C’mon. You’ve got about thirty others up there.”

Mary Clare was torn. She needed the money but…not the kissing angels. She shook her head. “You can have any other angels, but those are the ones my dad gave me when I was five.”

“I remember,” Becky said. “You broke your arm really bad, and he gave them to you for learning to write with your right hand because the doctors didn’t think you’d ever use the left hand again.”

Mary Clare nodded. “It was a miracle. Even the doctor cried when I could use it again.”

“I still want them,” Tina said. “Sixty cents.”

Mary Clare wanted to cry, but she steeled herself. Sacrifice was painful. She would offer it up to God, like St. Theresa always did.

“Deal,” she said, before she could chicken out.

Mary Clare O’Brian

188 Jackson Street

Littleburg, Wisconsin 53538

Sister Monica, Mother Superior

Saint Mary Magdalene Convent

1123 Good Shepherd Road Minneapolis, Minnesota 55199

April 9, 1967

Dear Reverend Mother,

It’s Mary Clare O’Brian again. Thanks for writing back. You sure gave me lots of stuff to think about. Is it okay if I keep writing? I have loads of questions and the more I think, the more questions I have.

I think that humility and humiliation are not the same. My family sometimes humiliates me, but humility is when you are modest about something. Right? I have been practicing humility all evening. I think I just about have it down. From now on when I walk into church, I’ll bow my head just a little and hold my missal against my stomach with my hands folded over it just the way the nuns do. I think the effect will be best if I wear a mantilla instead of a chapel veil. The mantilla is much longer. Mine is white and lacy. I tried walking with my head bowed at home tonight, but when I ran into the guitar my brother Luke had propped against the wall he yelled at me to watch where I was going. He’s not religious.

Also when people tell me I’m pretty or smart or good at something, instead of smiling and saying “thank you,” I’ll lower my eyes and say “No, I’m not.”

I tried to get
The Interior Castle
by St. Theresa but it was checked out. I’ll look for it at home, too. We have a million books.

I was thinking about the unwed mothers you work with. Do you think that having a child is a punishment from God because they were bad? My friend Kelly’s mom said, “They made their bed, now they have to lie in it.” But my mom said, “A baby is never a punishment.” That confused me a little because Mom cried buckets when she found out she was having another baby. I was just wondering what you think.

I think there are two kinds of Catholics—old-fashioned and modern-day. Sister Agnes is an example of the old-fashioned kind. (We call her Sister Agony behind her back.) When she reminds us that God is JUST, her eyes get hard. She thinks we should suffer for Jesus, and her mouth puckers like she just ate something sour when anyone mentions the changes because of Vatican II. She thinks the old ways of the Church are better.

Sister Charlotte, my sixth grade teacher, is the modern-day kind. She thinks that God is love and she thinks God wants us to live lives of joy. She loves Vatican II because she thinks it’s time to make lots of changes in the Church. So I was wondering if the Good Shepherd Convent is more Sister Agony or Sister Charlotte.

One other thing. I’m very worried that my mother may be losing her faith. She didn’t go to Mass Sunday, which I know is a mortal sin. I made her a huge Spiritual Bouquet promising to say seven rosaries, fifty Our Father’s, and seventy-five prayers to St. Francis. Is there something else I can do for her?

I sure hope you’ll write back—but only if you want to.

Very Sincerely,

Mary Clare O’Brian

P.S. Just a few more questions. How long do the babies stay at Good Shepherd before they get adopted? Do you get to pick the parents for the little babies? That would be exciting. Also, what happens to the girls after they have their babies?

P.P.S. I forgot to tell you that I’m also practicing silence. So far I can make it through a whole class, unless it’s boring, and I can usually make it for an entire Mass. Outside of that I’ve gone twenty-two and a half minutes in complete silence. How about that? It’s a good start, I think.

P.P.P.S. Does sign language count as silence? I was in
The Miracle Worker
about Helen Keller for the Community Theater and I’ve taught all my friends the finger language.

S
ister Agony raised her eyebrows in surprise when Mary Clare brought her the envelope. She motioned Mary Clare to have a seat while she counted the cash.

Mary Clare could hardly believe that she was in front of Sister Agony with every penny of Gabriella’s bill. She wanted to giggle. She wanted to jump for joy, but she kept a perfectly straight face.

After her friends left, Mary Clare had been too tired and sad about losing her angels to come up with any more ideas about making money, though she was still $1.25 short. But when she was laying out the kids’ clothes for the next day, she remembered that she needed to get the hot lunch money from her mother for the week. That was when it hit her: the lunch tickets were $1.25 per kid for one week of lunches. If she sacrificed her lunches for one week, she’d have exactly enough money to pay the bill.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many dimes and nickels,” Sister said. She frowned as she counted the change. When Sister was satisfied that the entire $12.50 was there, she pursed her lips. Mary Clare couldn’t tell if Sister’s furled forehead showed satisfaction or suspicion, but at the moment she didn’t much
care. Gabriella’s First Communion bill was paid! Mary Clare had to bite the inside of her lip to keep a straight face when what she really wanted to do was shout hip hip hoorah!

Sister Agony said thank you at the exact same moment the morning bell rang, so Mary Clare didn’t catch her tone of voice. Sister stood.

“Um, Sister,” Mary Clare hesitated. “Could I please have a receipt?”

Sister looked like Mary Clare had slapped her in the face. She held open the notebook. “I’ve noted it right here, Mary Clare. That should be satisfactory.”

Inside Mary Clare was a little shaky, but she made herself look confident. “My mother needs a receipt,” she said. It was only a little white lie, she reasoned. Her white lies were always for the good. Mary Clare’s mother
did
need a receipt. She needed to see that she had one less bill to worry about. Mary Clare imagined how she’d sneak the paid receipt into the house and try to find some uncluttered place where her mother would notice it. Her mother would probably think her father had paid it, and it would be one worry off her chest.

As Sister reluctantly pulled out a piece of paper and wrote, “First Communion supplies, $12.50, Gabriella O’Brian,” Mary Clare hid the pride that was swelling up inside. Sister ruffled through her desk for the red ink pad and the right stamp. Finally she planted the stamp firmly on the receipt. PAID IN FULL. She reached across the desk to hand it to Mary Clare. Mary Clare took it. As she turned to leave the room, her skirt twirled and her penny loafers squeaked.

“Don’t you want Gabriella’s First Communion supplies?”

Mary Clare stopped. She turned around. She hadn’t thought about actually receiving Gabriella’s things. Sister reached under her desk and retrieved a plump paper bag with Gabriella’s name
stapled to the top. She produced a tight smile when she handed it to Mary Clare.

“Thank you, Sister,” Mary Clare said, looking Sister Agony straight in the eye. “I’ll be sure to give this to my mother as soon as I get home tonight.” Mary Clare wanted to dance down the hallway, but she kept her composure. She couldn’t wait until recess, when she’d take the bag into the bathroom and carefully remove the staple to look inside. She knew that the items were basically the same as all the kids received—a missal, a rosary, a decorated candle, and a cross or scapular to wear around the neck. But there were numerous styles and colors. And it brought back sweet memories of Mary Clare’s own First Communion.

Mary Clare dropped off the bag in her locker. She looked up to see the DeLuca twins approaching from the other side. They smiled and gave her a quick wave, and she nodded toward them without smiling. She waited in the hallway, counting to sixty so no one would think she was with them, then clamored into the classroom where kids were chatting. She barely made it to her seat before the second bell rang.

In spite of her efforts, Kelly tapped her on the shoulder. “Did you walk to school with the DeLuca twins?” Mary Clare gave her a look that said
Don’t be ridiculous.

Sister clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention, and Religion class was underway.

At morning recess Mary Clare returned to her locker and pulled off her blazer to hide the bag. When she was safely inside a stall in the girls’ bathroom, she carefully removed the staple and peeked at the boxes inside. She knew the long one contained the same candle she had gotten on her own First Communion, so she didn’t open that. The missal was beautiful, with a white leather cover and two green ribbons to mark different prayers or the Mass or songs. Inside, the words to the Mass were all in
English. This was a brand-new thing. Up until Pope John XXIII decided that the Mass should be in the language of the people, one side of the page was in Latin and the other in English.

Next, Mary Clare opened the rosary. It had its own case, white with a gold cross that said “My Rosary” on it. The rosary was made of rose stones. Mary Clare laughed. A rose rosary for Gabby Rose. Finally she opened the little box that contained a silver cross on a delicate chain. Mary Clare smiled. These would make Gabriella feel like a princess.

By the time she put everything away and returned the package to her locker, recess was over.

“Where were you?” Kelly asked when they were taking their seats in the classroom.

Mary Clare whispered that she had picked up Gabriella’s First Communion things.

“Ahhh,” Kelly said, her eyes sparkling. “Are they nice?”

Mary Clare shrugged. “I haven’t seen them yet.”

Even though Mary Clare’s classroom was on the second floor and the lunch room was in the school basement, the food smells started torturing her by 10:00 a.m. She could smell something sweet and apple-ish from the lunch room. Dessert. Maybe they were serving warm apple strudel with whipped cream. Mary Clare’s mouth watered. She hadn’t even thought to bring a sandwich.

If only this were a sauerkraut day she’d be in good shape. Most everyone hated sauerkraut day, but Mary Clare couldn’t understand why. The way the lunch ladies made it, it was a casserole. The bottom layer was pork, followed by a thick layer of sauerkraut and an even thicker layer of mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Students would start moaning even before the lunch ladies served their plates. Everyone got the same amount of food and
everyone was expected to eat everything they were given. Waste was a sin. But plenty of kids would sin on sauerkraut day by stuffing the casserole in their milk cartons or napkins.

Mary Clare tried to help out as many friends as she could on sauerkraut day. Once she ate three lunches. It made her stomach hurt, but she was proud of her good work.

“I prevented you guys from committing the sin of wastefulness,” she said.

“Thanks,” Sandy said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jen said. Then she stopped. “Wait. You ate three meals at lunch. Isn’t that the sin of gluttony?”

Mary Clare hadn’t looked at it that way. But when her stomach had hurt all afternoon, she’d known Jen was right. She would have to confess gluttony and pray that she didn’t throw up.

But this day was not a sauerkraut day. By 11:00, the smell of beef wafted through the air. By lunchtime she felt like crying. She didn’t want to sit empty-plated with the hot-lunch kids, and she didn’t want to sit with the bag-lunchers. The bag-lunchers consisted of four unpopular kids—Joannie Marino, Phil Flannagan, and the DeLuca twins, Peter and Paula. Her friends would wonder what she was doing on that side of the room. Plus she didn’t have a bag lunch either.

So Mary Clare spent twenty minutes in the girls’ bathroom feeling sorry for herself. When she could hear kids chatting outside the lunchroom and the heavy metal doors screeching open as kids went out on the playground, she let herself out of the stall and went outside, too.

“Mary Clare, play four square with us,” Sandy said. But Mary Clare wasn’t interested in four square. She was interested in roast beef and apple strudel. She moped around the playground.

“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked.

“Nothing,” Mary Clare answered.

“You missed a good lunch.”

“I
know!”
Mary Clare snapped.

Kelly’s eyes opened wide. She hesitated for a second. “I’m going to play four-square,” she said, then ran off to join the group of kids on the blacktop in front of the school. Mary Clare watched as she whispered something to the other girls, and in a minute they were all looking at her as if she smelled bad.

Mary Clare leaned against the bicycle stand that stood between the convent and the school on the north side. There she could watch the little kids on the merry-go-round and see the boys playing basketball on the back playground. She wished she could explain the whole thing to her friends. They’d probably admire her for sacrificing lunch so her sister could have her First Communion things. But maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d feel superior to her, knowing that her family was that poor. If it wasn’t for the beautiful clothes her mother made from fabrics she found on sale and the fact that they wore uniforms to school, the other kids would have found out a long time ago.

Becoming a saint is lonely, God. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. I know I can’t brag about it, because then I’d be getting my reward on earth instead of in Heaven, but I want you to see that I’m really, really trying. Please don’t forget your part of the deal. I can’t wait for Mom and Dad to have everything they need.

She kicked a pebble across the asphalt and watched it fly, and then skitter until it hit a black habit several yards away. Mary Clare followed the shoes upwards past the habit, until she saw that the habit was connected to Sister Agony. Sister Agony looked down at the pebble, then followed its path with her eyes until she was looking straight at Mary Clare. She had hit Sister Agony!

Mary Clare took in a breath. Sister Agony headed straight toward Mary Clare, her lips pinched, her eyes flashing.

“You kicked that stone at me, didn’t you, Mary Clare?”

“No, Sister…” If Sister had let her finish she would have explained that she kicked the stone but not
at
Sister, that she didn’t even know Sister was there. But Sister interrupted.

“Well, where did it come from?” Sister raised her hands to the sky. “Heaven?”

Mary Clare opened her mouth again, but Sister’s arms were now spread wide like Christ on the cross. Her huge sleeves made her look like a bat. If the wind was blowing she could have been the Flying Nun. “I don’t feel any wind,” she said, “so the stone didn’t
blow
over to hit me.”

“No, Sister. It…” But Sister Agony wasn’t finished. She pointed toward the kids behind Mary Clare, who had stopped playing and were watching them. “It came from this direction, so I know the students playing four-square didn’t throw it.”

Again Mary Clare opened her mouth to explain, but Sister was flapping her chubby index finger right in Mary Clare’s face. “You’ll spend your recesses for the rest of the week sweeping the blacktop,” she thundered, then stomped away.

The reaction Mary Clare got from the other kids almost made the crime worth the punishment. The four-square kids surrounded her, quietly cheering her on.

“You got her,” Jen said.

“That was a pretty big stone, too,” Kelly said, admiring it.

“I wonder if it left a bruise,” Sandy said. Her face looked puzzled. “If it’s even possible for nuns to get bruises.”

The bell rang. Word spread to the boys as they came in from the basketball courts in the back, and soon everyone was grinning and clapping her on the back. No one asked Mary Clare if she had kicked the stone on purpose or even why she had done it. Sister Agony had caused each one of them pain at one time or another, and they assumed her actions were intentional.

Good. She’d let them think what they wanted. She knew it was a sin feeling good about Sister getting hit, but she couldn’t help it. After all, kicking Sister was an accident. But she felt good. She loved the attention from the other students. She loved the feeling that she had gotten Sister twice in one day—first by producing every penny for Gabriella’s First Communion and demanding a receipt. Then by kicking Sister. The satisfaction she felt filled her up so much she could hardly tell she had missed lunch. If there was anything she needed to confess it was probably that.

Saint Mary Magdalene Convent and School

1123 Good Shepherd Road

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55199

Mary Clare O’Brian

188 Jackson St.

Littleburg, Wisconsin 53538

April, 1967

Dear Mary Clare,

I
received your second letter soon after I responded to your first. In the second letter you expressed concern that I might think you were conceited. You also wanted to know if you could continue to write to me, and you raised some questions.

Yes, you can continue to write to me, and I will respond as long as we both feel that you are learning from our correspondence. I do not think of you as conceited, but as high spirited, confident, and sincere. But you have much to learn. Not very long ago, my job would have been to break your spirit so that it would be easier for you to be obedient to God. But I believe that you could do a great deal of good if that spirit of yours is channeled into God’s work.

About humility. My dear Mary Clare, humility is not acting, but a way of being in the world. The person with humility should know her own strengths and recognize them for what they are
—
gifts from God. Then she should use those gifts to serve God. That doesn’t mean you should strive to get my job just because you have leadership skills. Instead you should pray for direction and for the strength to serve God, no matter what is asked of you.

I’m sorry your mother is struggling with her pregnancy. Children are always blessings
—
even the babies of unwed mothers. Those
babies are blessings for people who can’t have children of their own. You just wait. When your mother has her baby, you will all love that child as much as you love each other.