Speaking of Novenas...

Friday night a friend asked me to step in and play for a novena I had not known before last year, when she asked me to do the same.
In fact, before we moved here, I didn't really know what a novena was (other than the obvious, which someone with an 800 in Latin ought to be able to figure out...)
This one is nine successive weeks.
I am just barely of an age when I should have known about these things and I do not.
My father, who is as fine a Catholic as I shall ever know, died when I was young, but my Mom was and is to this day a daily communicant, a devout, down-to-earth-nuts-and-bolts knowledgeable Catholic.
We said the Rosary as a family every night during Lent when I was small, and had an Advent wreath (these were never "in church!", which we lit with prayers and Veni, Veni, Emanuel and a scripture reading chosen by the child who did it, (in 1st or 2nd grade I very proudly took one from the days reading and exhorted the rest of the pajama-clad tow heads not to engage in debauchery and fornication, leading Mom to say that maybe she would pick the readings when it was the smaller kids' turns.)
But as an adult I shocked her by not know what the Angelus was. Since most of us, (her brood, "we happy many,") are practicing. and some devout, (and some relapsed, or at least in the process of falling back, even the Buddhist/Theosophist,) and went' all through all required "Faith Formation" (many of us, "star" pupils,) she was truly amazed to discover how much we didn't know. (I never added to her pain by letting her know how much of what we knew was wrong...)
So, she explained.
But I think she had thought the combination of her (non-verbal) witness and formal diocese mandated and implemented "education" would have taken care of all that.
WRONG.
Raising and supporting 11 children one her own (and virtually no pension,) didn't leave her a lot of time for all the "extras," the devotions, the missions, the customs, the novenas, the Expositions, the pilgrimages, the retreats.
Oh, we did some, (May and October processions at the Rosary Shrine! that monastery may have saved some of our souls, but that's another story....,) but I imagine our collective ignorance, for what are supposedly a bunch of "intellectually gifted" people is pretty darn impressive.
It was the era when our religious ed was entrusted to a well meaning young lay woman whose qualification was that she could play the guitar. (I'm not making this up.)
We learned that "God is orange." (ditto)
We painted sea-shells and talked about the meaning of rock lyrics.
Now, our Mass going experiences remained awfully good, on the whole, but I see now that that was sheer providence.
I honestly thought, for instance, when we joined forces with other parishes and we were treated to processions featuring chubby adolescents in lavender leotards and flowing chiffon lunging and swooping up and down the aisles; or when we went to Mass while on vacation and heard tapes of Simon and Garfunkel; or when a visiting priest seemed to be making up an entirely new ceremony; that all that was a matter of taste, and we were just lucky because TPTB where we usually participated had "good taste."
After all, the Byzantine Rite was entirely different, and tat was as Catholic as what we did, right?
I even remember there was a group of young adults, very vocal in lobbying for Gregorian chant, and I thought that was just there personal preference, and a valid one, aesthetically speaking.
As was the (very fine, I hasten to assure you,) performance of the Ave Maria from Verdi's Otello at Mass one Sunday. Perfectly valid.
Or so I thought.

I do remember, when confirmation time rolled around, an interesting thing happened in Religious Ed. Someone, I now realize, was fearful that whichever Bishop we drew, (there were a number of auxiliaries,) might be one who actually did something to determine if we had had enough "faith formation" to receive the sacrament with understanding. So they started to form us.
All the sweet, vague lay people disappeared, and a very different sort of Teacher arrived. I think they had kept Sr Cornelius in a high security cell or a sub-terrenean stronghold somewhere since VCII, and only wheeled her out like Hannibal Lector when they need the insight and acumen that only she could bring.
I think I remember a hockey mask. I'm sure I remember a hair-sprouting mole. She wore a habit (a habit! how quaint!) had a gravely voice, and a laser-like gaze. She was the oldest person I'd ever seen in a classroom, and was popularly known to be terrifying even to adults, even to other teachers.
And using, I kid you not, a little grey catechism as her guide, (a catechism! how quaint!) she began to teach us.
And damned if we didn't begin to learn. About doctrine. About our, specifically Catholic faith. (Specifically Catholic! How quaint!)
And she wasn't terrifying, or mean at all.
God bless you, Sr Cornelius, and put in a good word for me with the Big Guy, in whose immediate environs I have no doubt you are.
If I had been privileged to have her for other years, the years when we could have been learning about Church history, or the Liturgy, or Catholic practice... well, it would have been good.

(Well, this is becoming a habit, isn't it? I think I intend to 'blog about one thing and I end up droning on about something else.)

Himself and I are doing PLS, such a show, such resonance for both of us!
And there are the usual needs to teach Protestants in the cast how to bless themselves, what intercessory prayer is, etc....

But yesterday a young woman, a bright young woman was listening as the director explained something to another group of actors, and said to me, "gee, I'm Catholic and I don't know what a 'venal sin' is."
So I explained about sin and mortal sin and venial sin, and how some things were objectively wrong whether or not you knew they were wrong (and I'm sorry but Sunday afternoons this time of year, I am not at my best, and I hope I didn't say anything too off base...) and she and another Catholic who listened in go the light-bulb-going-on-over-head expression, and said, Yeah, of course, that make sense!
But I wished Sr Cornelius had been there.
We could use here.
We could use a few thousand of her.