#benedictine nuns

[quordleona03]

Francis Mulcahy's Sister the Sister

Okay, I was vaguely headcanoning that Francis has TWO sisters who are nuns, because I remembered him referring to his sister Theresa who's a Benedictine - and I thought this must be a different sister from his sister Kathy, in religion Maria Angelica, who went to the party in New York with her saxophone and plays basketball and whom he always refers to as his "sister the sister".

The reason I thought this is: Benedictine nuns are enclosed. They can leave the cloister for essentials - medical/dental work (and unless they're a big enough community to have extern sisters, shopping for essentials, though Benedictine communities are meant to be self-supporting as far as possible).

There is no way a Benedictine nun would be released from her cloister to get to go to a party in New York. Nor is it likely that she'd play on a basketball team. So it seemed possible to me that Francis has a much older sister called Teresa who's a Benedictine nun and with whom he never was that close, and the sister with whom he's always been close, Kathy, who's a Dominican nun.

Dominican nuns can be cloistered, but they also include active sisters - Dominican orders of active sisters often work as teachers or nurses. A Dominican active sister might well ask permission of her Chapter (the group of senior sisters elected to run her convent) to attend an occasion like the family reunion. She could coach girls in basketball at the school she taught at. So I was cheerfully headcanoning a Benedictine nun Theresa, cloistered, and a Dominican sister, Kathy, in an order based in California (since all locale-references to Kathy are in California).

And then I found where I got the Benedictine Theresa from - mentioned in passing in S05E14, The Most Unforgettable Characters, as: "Well, without a doubt, I'd have to name my sister, Sister Theresa. She's a Benedictine in San Diego. She teaches in the seminary there. She also plays guard on their basketball team. You know, she can slam dunk while wearing a heavy crucifix."

It seems unlikely that Francis has two basketball-playing sisters in convents, so I have to read this as "Theresa" is one of those MASH continuity errors - since Kathy is far more consistent as her name - but "Benedictine" is annoying because everything else mentioned about Kathy makes her sound like a Dominican.

Of course this is probably a level of detail where literally no one except me is ever going to care.

[uclamikefranks]

Fascinating example of good citizenship.

[perpetualspiritualconfusion]

St. Benedict, St. Scholastica, and two companions. Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, attributed. 1650

Not much is known about Scholastica, whose feast day it is today. She lived in the 5th century and is considered to be the sister of St. Benedict of Nursia. We're not completely sure if that meant his biological sister or a spiritual one as we see with Francis and Claire. By the 9th century, Scholastica is believed to be Benedict's twin. In any case, they shared a strong bond. One story tells that when Benedict tried to leave to go home to his own monastery when a storm prevented him. He turned to his sister and asked, "What have you done?" as if he had a feeling or suspected she had something to do with it. Scholastica replied, "Well, I asked my God, and He listened when you would not." Three days later, Benedict saw in a vision or dream Scholastica's spirit rising from the earth in the form of a dove. He took her remains back to his monastery where he laid her in a tomb he prepared himself.

Scholastica is the patron saint of Benedictine nuns, education, against convulsions, and is invoked against storms. She's honored in the Catholic, Anglican Communion, and in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

[love-pinups]

Dolores Heart. This beauty gave up Hollywood at the height of her youthful success to become a nun.

[jameslmartello]

St. Scholastica and St. Benedict, pray for us. +

[duckdotimg]

Madre Illuminata, priora di Santa Margherita a Genova

[debreuil]

my feelings towards the bbc series are a mixed bag overall but i do love milady’s scene in the confessional where the writers dared to have her utter the words “why did god abandon me? why didn’t he answer my prayers?”

[paulpingminho]

[apenitentialprayer]

detail of Morning Mass, by Maurice Denis, 1890.

A Collect for Nuns Interceding for a Living Founder

both variations below were written by Peter Abelard, and translated by Betty Radice. The first is for when the founder is staying with the convent:

Let Us Pray: O God, who through Thy servant hast been pleased to gather together Thy handmaidens in Thy Name, we beseech Thee to grant both to him and to us that we preserve in Thy will. Through Christ our Lord, [Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen].

Oratio: Deus qui per servulum tuum ancillulas tuas in nomine tuo dignatus es aggregare, te quaesumus ut tam ipsi quam nobis in tua tribuas perseverantiam voluntate. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum [Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen].

The second is for when the founder is absent from the convent:

Let Us Pray: O God, who through Thy servant hast been pleased to gather together Thy handmaidens in Thy Name, we beseech Thee to protect him in all adversity and restore him in safety to Thy handmaidens. Through Christ our Lord, [Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen].

Oratio: Deus qui per servum tuum ancillulas tuas in nomine tuo dignatus es aggregare, te quaesumus ut eum ab omni adversitate protegas et ancillis tuis incolumem reddas. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum [Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen].

[percki]

you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me (catholic school)

[61below]

Sometimes this post-modern world feels insurmountable, but then I remember that when Mr.61below’s grandpa came back from WWII, he stole a house. Full on dragged it over the snow and added it onto his existing house, doubling their home overnight.

Let’s just say there’s a reason the wood splitter we inherited from him is welded onto a set of railroad rails ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[unproduciblesmackdown]

oh yeah also have to shout out the young queer theatre-enjoyer (as doer or audience) with christian parent experience of "at least i can be in the choir & be one of like 2-4 tenors & enjoy singing harmonies & most of practice is just chilling b/c it's 95% playing the melody 50x for the twenty sopranos who still don't have it down" while also not having to deal with sitting in the midst of the pews or whatever

[lesser-known-composers]

Caterina Assandra ( c. 1590 – c.1618) - Salve Regina

Conductor: Candace Smith Ensemble: Cappella Artemisia

[jo526]

Saint Mark por █ Slices of Light ✴ █▀ ▀ ▀ Via Flickr: Saint Mark on the ceiling fresco in the Hall of Nuns at San Maurizio. Milan; March 2017 Olympus E-M1

[stjohncapistrano67]

A modern Traditional Catholic image of St. Scholastica of Nursia, sister of St. Benedict. Founder of the Benedictine religious sisters.

[best-nun-tournament]

Round 2, Match 1

The Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb) vs Sister Margarete of Krimml (Pentiment)

Harrow is a nun of the Ninth House. She's been described as a space goth necromancer fantasy sci-fi bone nun.

Sister Margarete is a Benedictine nun at Kiersau Abbey, and works as an assistant herbalist.

The Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus

She’s great. She has so many fucking problems. She’s been running the goth space convent since she was 10. She’s puppeting her dead parents around. She doesn’t like tastes. She is extremely passionate about bones. She’s locked in a twisted bond of love and violence and devotion and sacrifice with her childhood best enemy. She lobotomized herself to preserve the best enemy’s soul. She’s been in love with the corpse of the Devil all her life. She goes around in bone jewelry and skull face paint. She’s a sad wet cat who was born in a cardboard box all alone, etc. She chopped another woman’s arm off and regrew a skeleton arm, in a sexual way. She has awkward little fireside chats with God where he makes millennia-old meme references at her and she does not drink the proffered tea. She saw God make a your mom joke and it “destroyed some cavern of her reverence”. She’s even gay. She’s everything.

Sister Margarete of Krimml

No propaganda submitted.

Poll Runner's Note: While Sister Margarete lost her eyesight after a failed cataract surgery, she's quite perceptive. She's able to recognise Andreas purely from the smell of paint and linseed oil.