Despite having never used drugs in my life I have a penchant for breaking into incontrollable laughter if I find something funny. It’s happened a few times at inconvenient movements in my life and last Friday I just ducked the situation at the daily mass at the convent.
On Friday’s I take a former co-worker Claire to morning mass at St. Leo’s in Leominster. During the wintertime the mass is moved to the convent so the elderly sisters don’t have to go out in the cold., I had been running late and we got there just as the sermon was starting.
I have a pet peeve about nuns who don’t wear the habit and none of the nuns there do (which is why I suspect it is populated only by elderly nuns with no new vocations mixed in but I digress.) I never forgot when I was a 9 year old kid and my mother came to pick me up at St. Anthony’s just as the the whole “not dressing like a nun” movement got started there was a young pretty sister who was leaving the school and a guy in a coverable saw her and tried to pick her up. She shot him down in a hurry and then made the mistake in the heat of the moment saying something to my mother about it who had pulled up behind the guy who hit on her.
My mother wasn’t one to volunteer her thoughts but when the sister expressed her outrage she replied in the most blunt terms I had ever heard; “If you want to be treated with the respect of a nun then maybe you had better dress like one!” I had never seen anyone tell off a nun before and the shock was still on the sisters face as we drove off but I never forgot it.
So when Claire, and her sister who had the day off & I entered the convent chapel we had to split up due to seating and I found myself with a group of old women, in theory all of them might have been nuns but as not one of them were dressed as one, not even a wimple, to mind mind I had no idea who was a nun and who was not.
That was until communion.
At communion one of the older ladies went to the alter to get the consecrated hosts out of the tabernacle for the priest. After giving her communion the priest was about to leave the alter when suddenly the lady abruptly stopped him pointing to his shoes and noting that his shoelaces were untied not moving out of his way until he tied his shoes and then proceeding to the back of the chapel where she would give communion.
It was the only time I’ve been glad that I was wearing a mask because all I could think of was this scene from the Classic Three Stooges Short Three Little Pirates:
The stooges are shipwrecked off deadman’s Island a place that has not changed since the 1600’s they are brought before the governor [Vernon Dent] who looks at their sailor’s outfits and says:
Governor: I never saw sea faring men dressed like that, I don’t believe they’re sailors!
[His betrothed [Christine Mcintyre] walks in and the stooges all immediately turn and wolf whistle at her together.]
Governor: They’re sailors all right!
That lady wasn’t in a habit so I didn’t believe she was a nun, but once she stopped the priest and made him tie his shoes I thought: That’s a nun all right.
Struggling to keep from laughing out loud is likely not the best disposition to be in when receiving the Body of Christ but it was the best I could do and I was very happy to get out of there quickly before my inappropriately timed mirth became too apparent.
I still can’t vouch for the other ladies there but from this point on I’ll know that at least one of them is a nun.
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