Lynn’s Closet Catholicism

Posted on August 14, 2002 in Spirituality and Being

Lynn submitted a correction of my anecdote about her involvement with Dykes on Bykes (OK, you just didn’t wear a bra) and launched herself into a long discussion of how she yearned to be a Jew. What she doesn’t talk about is her recent yen to be a liberal Catholic. I’ve taught her how to pray the rosary (at her request) and introduced her to the lives of the saints. (Hagiography can be every bit as fun as mythology!) She collects images of St. Martin de Porres, patron saint of race relations, and acquired a pewter statue of St. Lucy serving her eyeballs on a plate, albeit for its kitsch value. We share a collection of icons from Eastern Europe and the United States. These line the wall of our hall. A prized mutual possession is the retabla showing the Virgin of Guadalupe revealing herself to Juan Diego. It is Lynn who shuffles down the hill to participate in the Hours at our local monastery, who logs time at the Catholic Worker House in Santa Ana, and, when we pay overnight visits to my mother in San Bernardino, walks over to St. Anne’s to participate in Sunday morning services. Jew? Hardly! If the Pope ever underwent a true Christian conversion and ordained women priests, you can rest assured that my Quaker wife would be up front and center at the baptismal fount, signing up.

Her probable confirmation name: Teresa of Avila or maybe Christina the Astonishing.