Here is a good article on Sister Mary of the Holy Spirit who is celebrating her 86th birthday and 60th year o religious life as a Dominican contemplative nun.
In a lilting soprano voice, Sister of the Holy Spirit begins singing one of the secular songs:
“With a song in my heart, I behold your adorable face. Just a song at the start, but it soon is a hymn to your grace.”
She marvels at how “the words fit so beautifully, can you believe it? Who else has such an adorable face?”
She is speaking of God, for whom she’s carried a song in her heart ever since her Catholic girlhood in Mount Vernon, N.Y. — especially since 1944, after she wrote to her fianc�, Joe, overseas in the Navy, that she was leaving him “not for another Joe — but for God.”
Aida Rita Martignetti, who had dreamed of being a singer, became Sister Mary of the Holy Spirit in the order and entered into silence.
“I, with my great love for gorgeous clothes — to cut off my beautiful hair,” she writes in her self-published autobiography “Memoirs of a Nutty Nun.”
“Jesus was really serious about wanting to know if I loved Him more than my singing. . . . But the joy He gave me was a song beyond the melodies of the Earth,” she writes.
Amid this devotional silence, her creativity found voice in painting, writing and photography. “I hold the camera,” she says, “and God snaps the picture.”
…This devotion to doing God’s work, she says, is the true song in her heart.
She has a web site where she sells an album she recorded in 2002 and will display some award winning photos she’s taken. There is a link to artist direct which has two of her songs. One of them being an unintentional recording of her singing Ave Maria with Canary. The canary does a pretty good job of singing along.
The article also mentions that she had written a biography called “Memoirs of a Nutty Nun.” She also mentions on her site that when she went to her priest to get instructions on preparing for marriage, that the priest asked her if she had ever considered being a nun. Wow, some priests will do anything to get out of doing a wedding. But seriously that is a question that the majority of Catholics are just never asked.
3 comments
The ‘question never asked’ comment was quite timely for me. I had a request for a confirmation certificate while at my (rectory) job today. I gave my usual little schtick about needing proof of ID etc. to release these documents to a private individual but that we can send certificates directly to priests and/or parishes for wedding files. The caller said he needed it sent to a diocesan vocational office. Ooops. (I did congratulate him heartily and wished him all the best.) I think I’ll change my usual patter to something along the lines of, “Would this be for vocation or matrimonial paperwork?”
I have a great respect for good nuns, but it would drive me insane to live in a building full of women. I suppose it’s a matter of temperament. Men aren’t more admirable or less complicated than women, but they don’t want to delve into each other’s feelings and problems the way women love to do. Now I come to think of it, that might be one of the reasons for the conventual prohibition against particular friendships: a convent full of women all deeply involved in one another’s lives and all taking sides would rapidly descend into chaos. I daresay an experienced Mother Superior knows her work better than I do.
Elynn,
That would help. The parish secretary asked me, “So you’re getting married, huh?” “No.” “Oh. Yes, you are a little young for that.” I guess giving the address of the vocation office probably gave away why I needed the document. It is understandable that people would expect marriage.