Saint Training (12 page)

W
hen summer vacation started Mary Clare could think of nothing she wanted to do more than spend a day at Rock Lake. Even if the temperature was only 74 degrees. Even if the water was still too cold to swim in. Even if her older brothers were all busy and she’d end up watching the little kids most of the day. As far as Mary Clare was concerned, when her family made their first trek to the beach with a picnic lunch and swimsuits it really and truly felt like summer.

Mary Clare loved the easy attitude everybody seemed to have at the beach. Especially her parents. All the tension and worry seemed to melt away out in the open air. Her father might even join them since he was working out of his home office today.

“Can we please go?” Mary Clare begged.

“I guess so,” Mom said when Mary Clare made her case. “We may not be able to go very often this summer.”

Mary Clare was already halfway out of the room to get ready, but she stopped.

“Why not?”

“Never mind. I’m going to talk to your father, then I’m off to the grocery store. You organize the kids and start packing the beach stuff. I’ll see if Dad can come too.”

Mary Clare loved that her mother was finally in a good mood. She hoped that her actions were contributing to that mood. Since summer began, Mary Clare had poured her heart and soul into cleaning and baking and taking care of the little kids.

While Mom was at the grocery store shopping for picnic food and charcoal, Mary Clare corralled the kids and told them about the beach. Anne and Gabby agreed to dress the little kids while Mary Clare gathered all the beach things that hadn’t been used since last summer.

By the time Mom got home with the food, Mary Clare had organized the beach towels, swimsuits, and sweaters for everyone in case it got colder, and she had rinsed out the big metal ice chest Dad retrieved from the garage. She even remembered the director’s chairs Mom and Dad liked to sit in at the lake.

By 11:00 the family was ready to go. The kids piled into the car, so grateful for the trip that no one complained about where they were sitting or how squished they were.

“Roll call,” Dad announced as he backed out of the driveway. Roll call was a trip ritual they had started when Margaret was accidentally left behind at the Gallagher farm the year before last.

“Matthew,” Dad called, even though he knew Matthew was working. The ritual required that he name each of the kids in order of age.

“Absent,” the kids all yelled.

“Mark,” Dad called.

“Absent,” the kids yelled.

“Luke,” Dad called.

“Absent,” the kids yelled again. By the time Mary Clare, Anne, Gabby, Margaret, Martha, and Johnny piped in with “Here!” in response to their names, Dad was on the highway.

“Let’s say a prayer for a safe trip,” Dad said. He began the
Memorare. Everyone except Johnny recited the prayer from memory.

Dad always led the prayer and today was no exception. “Remember, oh most Gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, oh Virgin of virgins my Mother. To thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. Oh Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petition, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.”

Margaret was sitting on Mary Clare’s lap, making it easy for Mary Clare to hear her sister’s mistakes. “Margaret,” Mary Clare said, “it’s not
‘Almost
gracious Virgin Mary,’ it’s ‘Oh most gracious Virgin Mary.’”

“Ohhhhhh,” Margaret said. The other kids giggled.

“And it’s not ‘that never wasn’t known,’” Mary Clare said. “The words are ‘that never was
it
known that anyone who fled to thy protection…’”

Margaret pouted. “It still doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “It’s a dumb prayer.”

Mary Clare was so shocked that she jerked straight up in her seat, making Margaret tumble from her lap into Gabby, who was sitting on the floor beneath them.

“Ow!” Gabby said.

Margaret started crying.

“What’s going on back there?” both parents yelled.

“I didn’t mean to drop her,” Mary Clare protested. “But did you hear her? She committed a sacrilege! She called the Memorare dumb, and that’s a sin.”

Now Margaret started crying harder.

“It’s okay, Margaret,” Mom said softly.

Dad took it from there. “The Memorare is an old traditional
prayer that you grow into as you get older. I didn’t understand it when I was a boy—in fact, I thought it was a foreign language.” He gave Mary Clare a hard, warning look in the rearview mirror. “All you need to know right now, Margaret, is that we’re asking the Virgin Mary to protect us.”

Mary Clare nodded. She held Margaret as gently as she could and looked out the window at the green, rolling hills, the cornfields with newly formed stalks, the red barns and fenced-in areas holding all sorts of farm animals—cows and sheep, horses, chickens, pigs. Everyone was quiet as they drove the last ten minutes of the twenty-minute drive. But the minute they pulled into Rock Park and could see the lake, everyone came alive again.

There were only a dozen or so people at the lake, and Mary Clare could only make out three who were swimming. The reason was immediately apparent. The breeze that had been gentle in Littleburg was downright chilly coming off the lake.

“Find a nice place to set up in the sun,” Dad said. “And forget about putting on your suits. There’ll be no swimming today.”

Mary Clare wanted to cry. This was not at all what she had pictured. She had put on her two-piece swimsuit under her clothes, so she could rip her clothes off and jump into the water first thing. Swimming was her favorite thing in the world. She loved opening her eyes under water and exploring all the mysteries it held. This year she was determined to swim all the way out to the raft where the teenagers played. It would make her feel cool, like she was one of them. The little kids loved the water too. Now they’d probably be whiney and difficult all day.

As soon as everything was unloaded Dad excused himself to go to the men’s room, which was way on the other side of the grounds. Mary Clare started toward the water with all the kids in tow behind her.

“Wait, Mary Clare,” Mom said. “You stay here. I want to talk to you.” She cupped her hands over her mouth to be heard. “Anne, you’re in charge of the little kids!” Anne turned and nodded.

Mary Clare looked out at the water wistfully. She rubbed her arms against the goose bumps that rose from the cold air.

“Sit down,” Mom said, motioning to the two director’s chairs. “I’ve got to talk to you before your father gets back.”

Mom leaned forward, her eyes intent on Mary Clare. “I’ve made a big decision. And before I talk to your father about it, I wanted to tell you because—well, because how you feel about this will make a big difference in whether or not your father will accept it.”

Mary Clare couldn’t imagine how her opinion could be so important. She turned to see where her father was. He was walking casually toward the bathroom and was only about halfway across the park. They had a little bit of time. “What?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine where this was leading.

“You know that I’ve been really depressed lately.”

Mary Clare nodded. “Yeah, but you seem better today.”

“I
am
better today.” She reached over and took both of Mary Clare’s hands in her own. “The reason I’m better is because I figured out how I can solve some of our money problems.”

Mary Clare made a little gasp of surprise. Her prayers, her sacrifices, they were working!

“I got a job! Oh, Mary Clare, it’s going to make such a difference for our family. It’s not just any job either, it’s a teaching position!”

“Oh,” Mary Clare said. That was all she could think of to say.

She tried to imagine her mother with a job, but she couldn’t. Nobody’s mother had jobs. She remembered last week when her mother had raged at the television during a commercial for toilet
bowl cleaner. The prissy lady in the commercial was wearing a dress and high heels and a pearl necklace as she cleaned the toilet. “Don’t you think for one minute,” Mom had yelled, “that that lady is smiling because she’s cleaning out a toilet bowl. She’s smiling because she’s making a commercial and getting paid good money for it.” Mary Clare and her sisters had looked at each other in amazement. Gabby had made the crazy sign with her finger circling her ear. Mary Clare had wondered, for the first time, if her mother resented not making money.

Mom pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it. The smoke curled in little rings as she exhaled. “I asked Father Dwyer if there would be a teaching position at Maria Goretti School, and he said he’d just learned they would need a lay teacher.”

“My
school?
You can’t—wait, which teacher’s leaving?”

“I honestly don’t know. Father Dwyer wasn’t at liberty to tell me. I only know that I’d be teaching one of the upper grades. Mary Clare, with the salary I’d be making we would have enough money for the first time in years. At first Father had reservations about me because I don’t have a degree and because he’d heard I was expecting. But since I lost the baby…”

Mary Clare nodded, staring at her feet.

“I know it’s going to be difficult with me gone all day. I’m going to have to depend on you to help even more around the house—starting dinner and that kind of thing.”

“But Dad’s gonna…”

“You’re right,” Mom blurted. “Your father is going to have a tough time with this. I’m going to have to prove to him that the family will be better off with me working and showing him that you’re behind me. Mary Clare, if you have a good attitude about me working and show your father that you’re confident everything will be okay at home, I’ll have an easier time convincing him about the job.”

“Help out more?” Mary Clare couldn’t imagine what more she could be expected to do. She couldn’t imagine her mother teaching at her school. She looked out over the water and at her sisters playing in the sand at the shore, and for a moment she stopped trying to think at all.

“Your father’s coming. And there’s more I have to tell you.”

Mary Clare looked into her mother’s eyes. They sparkled in a way she hadn’t seen for a long time.

“I have to go to summer school too.”

“What?” Mary Clare gripped the arms of the director’s chair. This was ridiculous. Who ever heard of a forty-year-old woman going to school! She glanced in the direction of her father and saw that he was halfway back from the bathroom.

“Yes, even parochial school teachers will have to have a degree in three years. So I promised Father Dwyer that I could squeeze a year of college into three summers.”

“What about the boys?” Even as she said it, Mary Clare knew this was a ridiculous option. They were guys. They had never been expected to do much around the house, and they would balk at housework.

“They all have jobs this summer, Mary Clare. They have to save for college.” She laughed. “And can you imagine what the house would be like…”

Mary Clare locked her hands over her forehead and closed her eyes. She couldn’t begin to sort out all the pieces—Mom back in school, Mom teaching at her school, even more responsibility.

Leaning forward again, Mom and Mary Clare locked eyes. “Please, Mary Clare, help me help our family.”

“Sure,” Mary Clare heard herself say. It wasn’t that she had thought her mother’s request through. She would have said “sure” to anything Mom asked right then. “Sure” meant her mother’s
eyes would continue to sparkle. “Sure” meant she would continue to hear excitement in her mother’s voice, and laughter and enthusiasm too. “Sure” meant the promise—or at least the hope of the promise—that her mother would be a happy person. And if Mom was happy, the whole family would be okay.

Saint Mary Magdalene Convent and School

1123 Good Shepherd Road

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55199

Mary Clare O’Brian

188 Jackson St,

Littleburg, Wisconsin 53538

June, 1967

Dear Mary Clare,

I was so very sad to hear about your mother in your last letters. First you wrote about her crisis of faith. Then you wrote about her losing the baby and the difficult emotions, I imagine, that your whole family faced. I’m sorry that things have been so hard.

People struggle their whole lives trying to understand God’s will. Some people think that God plans every little thing that happens to us. Those people think that if someone snubs us, or offers us a piece of cake, it happened because God willed it to happen. I don’t see it that way. I think that many things happen because God gave us free will, and with all that freedom, we created an imperfect world where things happen sometimes because of mean-spiritedness, sometimes because of kindness, and sometimes by accident.

I don’t know what went wrong with the baby that made your mother lose it, but I have many unwed mothers at our Good Shepherd home that never wanted to have a baby
—
and if wishing the baby away had worked, they wouldn’t be here.

As for your mother losing her faith, I am praying for her but I’m not terribly worried. Mary Clare, part of free will is that we choose God. To really choose God we have to question our own beliefs from time to time. And sometimes life crises lead to a crisis in faith. Your
mother has followed Catholic teachings her whole life. When she finds God again, she may change some of the particulars of her faith, but her faith will be deeper. That’s just the way it works.

I think that your Spiritual Bouquet for your mother is wonderful, but don’t forget to hold simple conversations with God as well.

My love and prayers,

Mother Monica

P.S. About converting your neighbors
—
for heaven sakes! You’re going to start a Holy War. Remember that Pope John XXIII wanted us to be more accepting of others.