Auntie Vin

My visit with Auntie Vin on the occasion of her 75th Jubilee celebration

You might enjoy this. It’s an email I sent to my girlfriends — Beth was in my class for 12 years and her sister Mimi was a few years older and we are all very close. Their aunt is 92 and celebrated her 75th anniversary of being a nun and she invited me to her special day. She didn’t invite the family because they’d been at her other anniversaries. So I wanted to tell them about the day.

Thought you would get a kick out of it! Very Catholic, all girls’ school childhoods.
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June 2, 2013

Dearest Beth and Mimi,

It was a remarkable and emotional day. The night before, my family had thrown a party for 100 guests for my brother Stephen’s 50th birthday at the Casino in the Park. Being at the Casino —  site of many a birthday, first communion, confirmation, graduation, card party, wedding and funeral bash — comes with its own landmine of happy and and wistful memories. A stone’s throw from St. Aloysius and our schools, amidst hard-wired recall of 8 am climbs up those widely-spaced, scalloped shaped paving stones from West Side to the Boulevard — a party there is not for the mini-quiche, kale salad contingent. Among the hors d’oeuvres were mini-shish kabob sticks consisting of a meatball, hot sausage, sweet sausage and kielbasa!  People unselfconsciously lapped them up and had another! Among the guests were Peter, Paul, Pat, Moxie and Kate Donnelly and their families — talk about “old school!” — and they all have the best stories about Bentley Avenue, our fathers and the Medical Center and St. Francis, conventions at the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall in Atlantic City and pre-Medicare medicine and politics in Jersey City in a (somewhat) more innocent time — shades of Hague, Whelan, Gangemi, et al. notwithstanding! It was bedrock JC with the fiercest of Irish-American and Italian-American passions rising!

So — in that context, imagine the mind-shift to the drive down the Turnpike to the Blessed Trinity Motherhouse the next morning. I had no idea what to expect and the possibility of optioning out loomed (given that it was the morning after the night before!).

But — I was so honored to be invited to the Jubilee ceremonies honoring Auntie Vin — as one of her “personal friends” — a veritable “Like” that no face book vote could possibly match — I put on my good dress, panty hose (yes I did) and heels so I would reflect well on our shared style and fashionable thrift borne of many visits to the Five Corners and Danforth Outlet vintage.

I arrived a bit early — and so did everyone else. None of this scoot in late and leave early crowd. I parked and asked a rosy, scrubbed face girl — that would be Sister Marie Therese — where to go for the Mass. (She looked about 17 and in the heat was even more pink-cheeked I imagine). I told her I was there to see my friend and when she asked who that was, she blurted out that Sister Lucita had almost died twice this very week. But then she composed herself and very calmly told me that she had many more than nine lives. The other evening after she had received the last rites for the second time in a week, and everyone was feeling very sorrowful, all of a sudden Sister Lucita asked for pasta al’ l’oglio! So the young nun said they were all tripping over each other trying to find enough garlic to prepare it for her.

Auntie Vin

Apparently last night she had an incident and again they were fearful for her health — until she said, “Well, where’s my pizza??”

You get the picture!

The Mass

The procession to begin the Mass started and a sister wheeled your aunt first. It was truly noblesse oblige — Queen Elizabeth and the Royals have nothing on Auntie Vin — she has perfected the art of “the wave” as well as any regent, and she dispensed her charm throughout the processions to and from the alter before and after Mass.

Among the priests who said the mass was the Bishop of Philadelphia. In his homily, he said that the sisters being honored today have — among them — given 815 years of service to the Church!

Looking at these marvelous women, so chaste and so noble, then walking down the corridors of the Mother House, seeing the names of the sisters who live in each room, balloons on the doorknobs of a few Jubilarians. It’s a disappearing way of life — so astonishingly sad that this tradition should come to an end. And, it was not that long ago — in the light of eternity - that Mother Cabrini and Sister Elizabeth Seton founded their orders.

Luncheon

Three of the sisters including your aunt were a bit too fragile to go to the luncheon in the main building so they had a separate one in the Mother House. We walked from the chapel down the hallway to a big refectory room off a kitchen and the tables were set. No air conditioning, a few fans, but it was a warm humid day so the elderly sisters were flushed.

The meal was mushrooms, asparagus, filet, “loin,” little white rolls like Heidi took for Grandfather, red potatoes, salad (with many dressing choices), and marble cake with butter cream icing. We served ourselves from the heat table and were told we could come back for more!

On my right was a very  energetic woman, a sister, and she asked me how I knew “Lucy.” When I told her, she practically fell out of her chair: “Jersey City? We’re from Jersey City (Mount Carmel, St. John’s and OLV respectively)!” They didn’t know each other before joining the convent but they’ve been girlfriends for going on 50 years, just like us.

There were four Sisters of Charity at my table — now they live in Newark. One sister is retired, and she now volunteers. Among her activities, she works in the candy room (shades of Mrs. Reilly!) and so she gets to see all the kids every day.

There was Sister Bernadette, who had a knee operation in November and does her exercises religiously (natch), but is having  lot of difficulty regaining use (she also appears to be about 50 lbs overweight).

And Sister Teresa Marian Agnes who remembered our visit from years ago to 14th Street when we stayed overnight with your aunt!

Father Andrew Greeley had died the week before and they were excitedly chattering about his obit — “Did you love the mention of Dorothy Day in Andrew Greeley’s obit?”

Some people got up to say a few words about your aunt — every single person mentioned how much fun she was, how smart and quick witted and vivacious she was. A few of them recalled going to (32?) Kemp Place in Summit to play cards with Auntie Vin and her sisters!

They were teasing your aunt, asking if she were signing copies of her book. Sister Peggy said that your aunt gave such marvelous pre-Cana classes that a number of priests and nuns left their orders and got married!

There was a little shrine set up on a desk — with fresh flowers for the Blessed Mother, sepia pictures of sisters in a bygone age, with horses and buggies, in bonnets, with dozens of poorly dressed children surrounding them.

It was a poignant, beautiful day — so plain, but so joyful, so evocative, so familiar to me — I really was close to tears for the whole thing. Proust had madelines, I have those no nonsense, capable, non-lotioned hands hurrying us along those shined floors, through those wooden windowed classroom doors. I really will never forget it.

Here is an article about Auntie Vin (Sister Lucita): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/nyregion/27about.html?_r=0

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