Catherine Sevenau is a writer and storyteller who is out to capture your skittery mind. She's penned three books, compiled numerous collections of family genealogy, and has been a regular columnist in the SUN since 2016. She can be reached at [email protected].
That’s just the way it is…
Chapter 58: Summer 1949 • Sonora, California ~ As Sonora was a backwater with no Catholic school, five Franciscan nuns in black habits and white wimples were imported every summer to bring the local schoolchildren a proper religious education, and for five weeks the nuns had complete charge of the Catholic children of Tuolumne County.
Claudia was impressionable, taking all the teachings to heart. Barely seven, she learned about brass hand bells, and that when the nuns rang them, there was to be complete and total silence. The young charges single-filed in and genuflected by the bell. They sang, knelt, sat, and rose by the bell. When practice was over, the children made the sign of the cross, genuflected again, and single-filed out by the bell, forty miniature soldiers obediently marching in God’s army. For Larry, Carleen, and Betty, the majority of the teachings simply washed over them like a fine, quickly evaporating mist.
The Sisters didn’t go into the Bible; that was Father Gilmartin’s job, which he solemnly delivered during Sunday sermons. The nuns had the task of ingraining the Baltimore Catechism in these youthful minds, preparing the children for their First Holy Communion and Confirmation. They taught them the Ten Commandments. They drilled into them the distinctions between mortal and venial sins. They told them stories of saints, famous and obscure, and the three miracles performed by each necessary to propel one to sainthood. Then they dispensed a heaping dose of guilt to tide their students over until the next summer.
As rewards for having the right answers, the nuns gave out felt scapulars and holy cards. Knowing all the answers (and she took no duplicates: “no, I already have that one, thank you”), Claudia got the most, which was easy as there was no shortage of saints. She wore her scapular every day. After a month, when the felt strap and backing got too ratty, the sacred heart of Mary and the face of Christ looking up towards God were carefully folded and tucked away in her panty drawer.
In the beginning, Claudia was a believer, but by the time she entered the third grade, skepticism was gaining ground. During catechism, she had many questions: “How could the blood and body of Christ be in a wafer that came in a box from the post office? Would you really get blood in your mouth if you bit into one?” She knew the boys did and none of them got blood in their mouths. “How come only men can be priests? Did God say that? Why can’t girls go behind the altar rail? How come girls have to cover their heads in church?
She didn’t get any satisfactory answers, other than somehow most of this was Eve’s fault; our downfall began with her. And then when Claudia found out that Eve was made out of Adam’s rib, that made it clear to her that women were not as good as men from the get-go. The only answers she gleaned from the nuns were, “Some things you simply have to take on faith,” or “It is a mystery; no one knows the answer.” These responses simply increased her confusion. When she double-checked with Mom, her comeback was generally, “Well, that’s just the way it is.”
Catherine Sevenau is a writer, humorist, and storyteller living in Sonoma, California. The stories in this series are excerpts from her book, Through Any Given Door, a Family Memoir; the full memoir is available as a web series at Sevenau.com. A longtime Broker/Realtor at CENTURY 21 Epic Wine Country, she can be reached at [email protected]
