June 6 – Dear Diary, Now I am the keeper of a very big family secret. It’s not enough that Mother was married to someone we just found out about. I think she had a baby, too! If there is a secret baby, I feel like I have loved it for a long time. Even though it would be older than me by now. I don’t want to tell anyone. It’s my secret.
Yesterday I was home with a really bad cold. After school, Wanda called and said the teacher read my mystery story “The Bleeding Crucifix and the Next Pope” out loud in class. She said it was really good and everyone liked it. The only thing I got wrong, Sister Everista said, was that Christ is not “magic.” He’s God. Everyone was talking about our family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, being a candidate for The First American Pope. I smiled a lot and got tons of attention. If this is God’s will, then let it be done!
It almost went without saying that once he got elected Pope, Father Stefanucci would have to visit us. I wanted to be on the altar with him, to hold the incense and cross my hands over the heads of the faithful. Because I was a girl, being a nun was the closest I could get.
Mother gave me a wish book of all the orders of Sisters. I flipped through the pages, looking keenly at the uniforms. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I couldn’t decide. The nuns at our school were the Sisters of The Holy Name. I didn’t like their uniforms, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. Their mystique had been depleted by daily contact.
At first I imagined myself in the various habits. The Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul wore long black wool dresses, white bibs, and starched white hats folded into huge wings. I thought that would be cool, balancing that thing on my head and caring for the poor. Everyone in the family would be beam at the sight of me in one of those contraptions, and best of all, my red hair would be invisible! But I was shopping, no commitments yet, and the Carmelites started to look pretty good. Theirs was a chocolate brown habit with a street-length sleeveless chasuble over their plain dress. The round, white capes were set off by the dark brown and framed their faces. A rope belt at the waist and a huge dangling cross completed the look. This outfit made them look more like monks. Bonus! I was sold. Secretly, I just wanted to be one of the guys.
In preparation for my vocation, I knew I was supposed to behave like a saint, which for a girl, meant to keep my head down, silently cross myself randomly, and never get irritated at anyone. So I developed this nibbling mouth gesture, like I was praying under my breath, that I adopted in case someone was looking at me. I directed it at the numerous paintings and portraits of God and the saints hanging on all the walls of our home, making a point of stopping at each statue and doing a mini-genuflect. Sometimes I imagined we were all having a party: The Sacred Heart, St. Patrick, St. Anthony, and St. Therese of the Little Flower, standing on the mantle around the chalice, interrupted by the clock chiming every fifteen minutes. I noticed for the first time that there wasn’t a single room where some face of heaven wasn’t looking out at us. Even in the bathroom. I felt the pressure of all of them, watching me and adding it all up. Sin? Devotion? Vanity?
But the vows. I felt a little constricted by the vows I’d have to take: Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. I was tired of being the poor family on the block. I didn’t understand the need for Chastity. (What is it really?) Obedience was another thing. According to Mother, I was always being “willfully disobedient.” Maybe I could sow my wild oats like St. Paul did. (Not sure what “sow my wild oats” really meant, but I knew I could probably do it!) I could go back to the nun’s life after I had something to be sorry for.
On the other hand, I was kind of lured by the idea that I would be the bride of Christ. What little girl doesn’t like to think of herself as a bride? Or a princess?
I began to conjure the wedding scene.
A white flowing gown, tight to my bodice and cinched at the waist (very grown up), a veil covering up my strawberry blonde hair, and tiny white flowers around my head. Red roses across my arm. Gloves up to my elbows.
All thirteen of us, from Paul to Jude, plus Wanda, Sister Everista, Monsignor Boyle, and the nuns fill the pews. Families dressed in Sunday best stuff the church to overflowing. I catch a glance from Teresa Feeney. She’s steaming jealous, but I forgive her, because Why Not? Jesus is my fiancé; she’ll never do better than that.
Daddy stands with me at the back of the church wearing his Navy Summer Dress Whites, which I love - the hat and gold bands on his shoulders and across his chest. He’s a Commander and when you see him in the outfit, you just want to salute.
Maria Callas gently rolls out the soft notes of “Ave Maria.” I can tell by the back of her head that Mother has tears in her eyes at this very second!
Martin Caslow and Zeke Brody lead the boys’ choir up the middle in white surplices over their cassocks, forming a semi-circle at the altar facing the congregation. All the boys who throw spit- balls in class and get smacked by the nuns look angelic up there. Two altar boys swing the incense --there’s so much of it that grey clouds rise to the dome.
This is Stefanucci’s first duty as the new Pope, and he’s next in the procession. Decked out in gold vestments, huge glittery gloves and the tall Pope Crown tottering on his head. “Here Comes the Bride” begins to play on the organ. I’m getting goose bumps. A bunch of officers (friends of Daddy’s) stiff and tall in white Navy uniforms walk up on either side of the pews and face each other. You can hear their shoes clicking on the marble floor. They pull out long swords and touch the tips to form an arbor. All eyes are on me as I go up the center aisle, walking under the swords on Daddy’s arm.
I can’t believe it. Jesus (in his best sandals, beige cassock and gold-edged chasuble) is waiting for me.
Jesus Christ!
The most famous man in the world. More famous than Shakespeare! He’s so tan (!) from all that time in the desert, his blue eyes twinkle at me affectionately, and his beard is freshly shaved around the edges. His teeth are so white he looks like a toothpaste commercial. He has that Christ glow around His head, so you know for sure it’s Him.
I pass by His family in the pew, God the Father, God the Holy Ghost, the Blessed Mother, her cousin Elizabeth, her husband Joseph, the whole gang. And they’re all hoping that Jesus has finally made the right choice : “Two thousand years, and He picks this cute little red-head Annie Shea to be his bride. Yeah, she’s feisty, we like her.” His mother, The Blessed Mother, is so happy she’s glowing, like you see around the head of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She glances over at my mother who has been staring at her. They exchange an inspired look of destiny and pride across the aisle. Daddy is now at the front; he gives me a kiss on the cheek and then, Jesus Christ, the bridegroom, reaches out for my hand. It’s shaking.
Of course, Father Stefanucci, now the Pope, says Mass. When He asks for the ring, Jesus just snaps his fingers and it springs from the pillow and appears in his hands. It’s kind of a surprise for the little kids, who are staring at the pillow when the ring disappears. Jesus is right there next to me, his arm around my waist, but he takes the white wafer on his tongue like it’s perfectly normal to eat your own body and blood. Everyone is holding their breath for the moment when the Pope says, “I now pronounce you Husband and Wife. You may kiss the bride.”
I’ve never been kissed before, but lately I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been sitting crossed-legged in the closet kissing my two fingers like they were lips and I’ve practiced to where I’m pretty good now. When you kiss a guy you have to lift your face and look into his eyes. Then, just before he leans in and brushes his lips against yours, you close your eyes…
So that’s what I do. I close my eyes and lean in…
But then… “Brides of Christ.” Hey! That’s plural.
Just then, I look around and see a line-up of brides behind me out the church and a mile long into the street, waiting their turn to seal it with a kiss. Agggh! I hadn’t thought of that! They say “Bride of Christ” to any girl who wants to be a nun. That means that all the nuns of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond are already married to Him! Plus the modern ones. Think about it! The situation is pretty convenient for Him to have thousands and thousands of brides; He can read your thoughts and actions all the time, but you can’t see anything He’s doing. As a nun, you understand this going in. You turn a blind eye to all the other relationships that Jesus has with the other nuns. Right?
You act as if the idea is perfectly normal.
It’s gross. Some of the nuns aren’t even that good-looking. Even though their outfits cover up everything but their faces, I can tell. A big nose is a big nose. Ugly is ugly.
Okay, maybe that’s the point: that Christ loves even the ugly ones. But… married to them? The whole thing is creepy. Why would He set up something so sleazy as that? As a nun, I’m just another girl in a black wool dress and a white bib with wings on her head who has to bow and scrape to the priests, the monsignors, and the archbishops. I have to admit that things being what they are, I’ll never be good enough to even be an altar boy, never mind getting to step behind the white gates up on the altar and dangle incense with the priest. I certainly wouldn’t be the chosen one! I would just be one of his many nuns, all covered up in strange headgear. Besides, I want to be the center of the universe. I want to be Number One, I want God to love me the most.
No, no, no, this nun thing is definitely not for me.