Nuns Are A Trip

St Anne's Academy was my first experience with the Catholic Church. At the time I went there, the Mass was still said in Latin, and priests and nuns still wore their distinctive habits. All the Sisters used the name "Mary" before their chosen name. There was Sister Mary Jerome, Sister Mary Olive, Sister Mary Mercy, etc. Sister Mary Olive was the Sister Superior.

I think they were some sort of outpost, rather than a true convent, as there were no Novices. I was there for three years, and there were no new nuns incoming, just a steadily-aging group, trying to eke out an existence and hammer the True Faith into the heads of a lot of reluctant children.

Sister Mary Mercy was my teacher for both 5th and 6th grades. The classes were combined, and so I sat in the same classroom, with a lot of the same kids, and the same nun for two years. Theoretically, I was not required to attend catechism, being a "non-Catholic." But, the only alternative was to sit in the hall with a library book, and the only books they had in the school library were the biographies of saints and martyrs, I usually chose to sit in the class. Over time, as it was new information for me, I started to have the correct answers more often than the Catholic kids. Neither the kids nor the priest found this particularly endearing.

Sister Mary Mercy could peg a kid with a blackboard eraser, chalk, or a missal, down the length of the classroom. And did, frequently. Once a year, she would come unglued (with a little help from the cadre of boys at the back of the room), and rush out of the class in tears. Eventually, Sister Superior would find her in the chapel and descend upon us like an avenging angel, and we would spend the rest of the day on our knees, praying for our reprobate souls.

She broke a yardstick across my shoulders once, right before she ran out to the chapel. I got along better with my classmates after that!