by B. A. Berube
A neat feature of the Catholic prayer world was that there was actually only one prayer
that would cure all tribulations, all crises and fault-ridden tragedies, right to the moment of
one’s demise. This facet of guaranteed indemnity, one’s ultimate judgment, came with the
“Act of Contrition.” All the other Catholic prayers, paeans, invocations ejaculations,
sacrifices, novenas, sacraments, and services to petition the Lord for a personal cause could
never combine to match the power of that single most contrite act. It was a straightforward
short prayer beseeching the Lord for forgiveness of all one’s wrongdoings. The only hitch
was that it be sincere; remember, God knows if you’re faking it. This was the prayer to recite
at every confession and at night before bedtime. I often wondered if the Protestants had this
pious perk.
While growing up in a Catholic environment, I found religion all over the place: the
history, math, and grammar books required a bishop’s imprimatur and nihil obstat [nothing
objectionable]. Consider these examples of sentences from our English studies:
Find the subject and verb from the following sentences: • Jesus loves you and me.
• God is our savior.
• I hope to become a priest some day.
• A problem posed from our arithmetic studies might read:
If Mother Superior gave away six rosaries among the ten Father Jalbert had today, how many more could she give away to sinners tomorrow?
• Good deeds good bring good material rewards. Remember that there is God in good and that
there is evil in the devil. Catholic icons served this purpose nicely. One could receive holy
pictures, rosaries, a cross or a green cloth scapular medal that if worn at the time of
Few if any of us Catholics went anywhere without the Cruciform, better known as the Maltese cross medal. The Sacred Heart appears at the top, St. Christopher on the right, the miraculous Virgin Mother at the bottom, and St. Joseph with Baby Jesus on the left.
The reverse of the medal is the essential Catholic’s call for
the Extreme Unction sacrament at the time of
your death, you get a free ticket to heaven. Most of us received at one time or another adeath.
cruciform or more commonly called a Maltese cross medal. This four-way cross provided a
chance for multiple blessings through miracles in our lives as four medals in one: Sacred
Heart at the top, the once sainted Christopher at the right, St Joseph with the child Jesus on the
left, and the miraculous virgin at the bottom. On the flip side of the medal, there was the
inscription: “I am a Catholic. Please call a priest.” We Catholics never took chances. The
Maltese cross medal was our insurance.
I dotingly recall that Mom gave me a handcrafted picture of the Virgin Mary. It was a
little oval-shaped picture of the Virgin Mary’s likeness. It came complete with an
embroidered blue fringe that held together two pieces of mica protecting its front and back. I
retrieved it after Mom’s death, still retaining it as a keepsake. Silence may be the universal golden rule. Yet, with the grey nuns, that proverb was
hyperbolized out of context. They would not, of course, order us to “be silent.” Instead they
likely would command us to “shut up” as in the polite form, “Taisez-vous” or more likely,
“Ferme ta gueule” (“Shut your filthy hole.”). It seemed to us far easier to describe
constructive opportunities for conversation and dialogue than for silence, since the former
occurred less frequently. Nonetheless, silence was the unchallenged rule of behavior during
Church services, classes, mealtime, toilet duties, and line-ups. We could speak aloud only
when: • Recreation time was declared (Recall Deo gratias.) for about twenty minutes after each meal. Note that rosary time occurred following lunch each day. More prayers followed snack time.
• Responding to a nun’s question or comment
• Group prayer
• Gaining permission from a nun to pose a question
Violating the sacred rite of silence would result in an early-to-bed consequence.
Although the indisputable character of the nuns was a ghastly ability to invoke fear toward
any of us who may have doubted they had ears in the back of their heads, they did have
additional backup support. Us! We are the enemy! This was a universal sisterly practice—
both at the Marcotte Home and at St. Louis. Someone among us on any given occasion was a
spy. One of us was given the power to checkmark the identification numbers of those among
us who dared to speak, even whisper during designated silence. The ID numbers of the
malfeasants were rattled off at the end of each day. Up to two checkmarks meant early to bed.
For repeat offenders, those accumulating a day’s collection of seven checkmarks would suffer a nun’s famous rubber strap thrice struck to each hand.
Believe it or not, there were some fun aspects of merging with the Catholic experience.
There was satisfaction realized each time we did anything that revered Jesus, the Church, or
anything religious. Since there were virtually no organized activities to entertain us, we
entertained ourselves as well as we could. For example, a wanna-be postulant that I was, I
occasionally pretended to be a priest. I knew the Mass quite well; so, I would do that for a bit;
ditto for benediction. At one point Father Jalbert gave me some old brass altar icons like a
chalice, communion paten, monstrance, and candleholders. This was authentic play at its
best! That lasted for a while until Madame, the mean old widow they hired took offense and
filched these hallowed items away from me. I’ll bet she sold them for a handsome price; they
were genuine, unadulterated, the real thing.
Playing priest in his role of celebrating the Mass was fun, since in real life I could only
be an altar server. Playing priest to hear sins must undoubtedly be a blossoming paparazzo’s
fantasy as a youngster. Yet, playing at confession didn’t seem to work well. Not unlike a
paparazzo’s efforts to expose the inner celebrity’s untold story, none of my peers wanted to
tell his sins—not even for make-believe. It was bad enough that we had to face Father Jalbert
directly to recount our transgressions against God. I often wondered what Madame confessed
to? Expressing kindness to one of us? What sins might the nuns come clean to? Eating meat
on Good Friday when it technically changed to Saturday over the International Date Line?
With so much pious devotion to God and a profusion of prayer throughout our co
existence with His clerics at our respective orphanages, we rarely read or heard much about the Bible. The Bible was taught in petite installments when we were in Grade 6. Mind
you,that was the Catholic Bible—the one with the Bishop’s imprimatur on the first page. One
segment from the Bible that Florence reminded me of was the parable of the mustard seed and
its relation to the three wise men described in the Bible. There seems to be some editorial
license about those three guys: there may have been many more of them than three; they were
not at the manger at the time of Jesus’s birth; they were astrologers, late to celebrate
Christmas. But there were three gifts for sure, and they three were wise folk indeed. As the
nuns explained it, with their unflagging conviction, these wise men followed whatever light
they had until they found baby Jesus. Similarly, a tiny mustard seed of faith could open one�
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mind to finding Christ, since a small mustard seed, one of the greatest of herbs, can grow
several feet tall. Carrying the legend to greater length, my sisters and their fellow damsels at
the Marcotte Home were treated to vanilla cake at Christmas, where one mustard seed would
appear in someone’s slice of cake. That lucky recipient would be assured of acquiring a
strong faith characteristic of the wise men. Or so they envisaged.
There was not much on television to inspire us about the Catholic faith. Well, there
was one program aired every Tuesday evening back then: Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s sermon. It
was, quite frankly, an incomprehensible bore. And to think “Uncle Milty” Berle, the leading
comedian of the day, was featured on another channel that the nuns would never permit us to
watch. Why? In addition to the conflicting television clock times for Berle and Bishop
Sheen, the bishop did not prance about in drag as Uncle Milty did for laughs. We could
sometimes view movies selected, of course, by our chaplain or by the nuns. These were movies endorsed by the Catholic Church that were for the nuns as a clever way to inspire us
about our creator. One such film was The Robe, released in 1953 to recount the story of the
Lord’s crucifixion. A couple of years after that, the nuns secured a print of the film in 16 mm,
and they showed it to us—many times. Each time I saw The Robe, I liked it very much. I
was, after all, a devout young Catholic. The nuns had successfully conditioned me to be an
upright, faithful follower.
The Robe was Hollywood’s commendable introduction to the Jesus phenomenon; a
greater film would arrive in 1956. Cecil B. DeMille’s celebrated epic film, The Ten
Commandments opened across America to a rousing reception. We’re talking “two thumbs
up” from Pope John XXIII! This motion picture delivered cutting edge special effects.
Probably every Catholic in North America if not around the world saw it. Maybe everyone
else did, too. The nuns wanted us to see this larger-than-life blockbuster film, starring
Charlton Heston as Moses. They secured for us a bus, and off we were to the State Theatre in
Portland, Maine for this rare treat. Wow! It was a very long movie, and it was deeply
inspiring. What an epiphany! I was born to be a Catholic. The nuns had delivered the
evidence on what Catholicism was genuinely all about. To this day the television networks
continue to feature TheTen Commandmentseach Easter weekend.
A slow emergence into becoming a Catholic Franco-American (or a Franco-American
Catholic) was not as easy as it might have appeared from the experiences at St. Louis Home.
Although I was doggedly certain about my Catholic faith, I really didn’t know that I was of
Franco-American origin. Was I bilingual? Bicultural? By myself? Only the latter was certain. Connecting my Catholicism to my Franco ethnic heritage made sense to me far later
in life. In reality, the concept of a Catholic plus a Franco-American is, I think, a redundancy.
I say this because I’ve never met a person, born to Franco parents who weren’t de facto
Catholic. Sure, I was born with the distinction of being the offspring of two parents of Franco
national origin, and I was baptized into the Catholic faith, though no one sought my
willingness to become a member of that omnipotent power. Besides, I didn’t know I was
Catholic until I was at least seven years old. And about being Franco? That would happen
long after puberty, nay—well after I bought my first razor—no, later than that, probably well
after college, when I bought my first condom. Yet, for all that, there were petals, that I would
later characterize as fleurs-de-lis, spread along the path to my long-delayed cultural
discoveries.
There are indicators about Catholicism that my parents as well as Soeur Boulé, my
orphanage warden, sought to relay to me from age five: a faith in God accompanied by an
abundance of prayer, a practice of do-goodism, obedience to the higher power (parents, nuns,
priests), indisputably abiding by the rules imposed by the higher authorities, and recognizing
your place in the social class pecking order (knowing you’re born to remain poor, less
fortunate). Being Franco-American was all of this and having some appreciation of if not
having a command of French as it is spoken in North America. Oh, yes, special occasions and
holidays tied to the Church would be the fun part of being a Franco-Catholic as described
previously.
Lord knows that a Franco-Catholic respects authority. I learned that, of course, from the nuns as well as from my father. While the first authority was clearly the deity, “Le Bon
Dieu,”(God) which we Francos called “El Bon Dieu,” my father extended that authority to
include Him as passed down from the holy apostles. He would ask, “What is the opening line
to the Catholic sign of the cross?” Answer: “In the name of the Father…” The follow-up
question was, “What are the first two words of the most important prayer, ‘The Lord’s
Prayer’?” Answer: “Our Father (who art in heaven.).” By extension, the logic was that my
father commanded the same respect as the guy who capitalizes His title as Father. I call it
smugness. And there was hypocrisy. Though all of us attended Church regularly growing up,
Dad did not. But with one exception: He attended Midnight Mass almost annually. This was
his manner of demonstrating, by example, his understanding of the true meaning of
Christmas. Problem was—he showed up drunk every time, every year, embarrassing us all
with his heckling during the service and difficulty in trying not to fall down.
A child’s unflagging respect for authority with people of the cloth was quite different
from that of adults. The administration of justice by religious authorities seemed ambivalent.
All the same, I practiced what I was taught and what I understood to be righteous. To doubt
the will and judgment of authority was, not only to defy the will of authority but also to defy
the Church, God Himself—and the risk of committing a mortal sin was not a thing negotiable.
To be skeptical of the will and authority of our superiors was supposed to be an obligation that
befell the founder of the Grey Nuns and patron saint of the very concept of questioning
authority, the sainted Sister Marguerite D’Youville. Not even brother Lionel among us
fawning Catholics ever turned to that pious lady’s sagacious inspiration. Lionel, the perpetual doubting Thomas and family iconoclast struggled with the Catholic doctrine of
respecting authority without question. He reviled the nuns. Unlike me, he wouldn’t speak
French. He read solely English language books. Paradoxically the Catholic church taught
him that the rites of matrimony and requiem masses could only be bought—or so that lesson
was the opening salvo he learned from the celebrants at Mom’s funeral where aunts and
uncles were solicited to pay the clergy’s fee. His perception of the Church’s avarice was
similarly reinforced on his wedding day. That was also the death knell for Lionel’s practice of
Catholicism. Brother Bobby, by contrast, loved being a devotee of Jesus Christ; he wanted
everyone to know of his consummate faith. He stops short, however, of suggesting that
Catholicism was any kind of catalyst as he matured toward genuine experiences with
spirituality.
As for
me, I retained my practice of Catholicism through adulthood. Hell, who would
dare risk purgatory on Judgment Day? Not me. Not now. I flaunted my veneration of Jesus,
especially in the eighth grade Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes. Catechism class in
Grade Eight was a time for fooling around. I could justify my serving as the class clown
because I believed that I knew a great deal about the teachings of the Catholic Church and was
uninterested in sitting through more of the same old stuff as I had endured at the convent.
Unlike my public school classmates who had minimal grounding in a Catholic education, the
nuns at St. Louis Home taught me about the Church; I was, after all, primed for the seminary.
grey nuns
Seven Canadian nuns, themselves a species within an institution at St. Louis Home,
sought to initiate us throwaways toward the good path. These were: Soeur St. Croix, Soeur
Therèse,SoeurCantin,SoeurBaillergeon,SoeurSt.Patrique,SoeurRita,andSoeurBoulé.
Each fancied for us vulnerable and venerable cherubs the virtuous life, love of God, self
discipline, inquiry-free learning, and of course, obedience. Certain ones among these seven
ladies of the holy cloth had different emphases. In keeping with their beatific founder, Soeur
MargueriteD’Youville’smission, these sisters had emigrated from Québec to help the pitiable
poor, the ailing, dregs like us, and other fragile children of a lesser God. My brother Bobby
and I at ages 5-12 belonged to these Sisters of charity bent on rescuing decaying refuse like us.
Under these circumstances, we had no influence or circumstances about which we might
challenge these ladies abundantly adorned with sacred garb and rimless glasses.! Something
about those scarey spectacles had me sometimes wondering if they were in fact visually
impaired. More likely, methinks the eyeglasses served to obstruct their withering attractivenes.
I introduce each of the players here, save for the bête noir, SoeurBouléwho has indisputably
earned a chapter of her own in this volume.
Soeur St. Croix was our prelude to meeting the fiery dragon, Soeur Boulé. The
difference between the two was that Soeur St. Croix was firm but fair, and mostly a kind lady.
SoeurBouléwas mostly fair, unfair, and ruthless as the reader will learn anon. Soeur
