NEWS FEATURE: A Book of Nun Fun: Sisters Share Tales of What School Kids Say

c. 2003 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ The sermon went on and on, and a little boy in the front row started talking during Mass. Sister Adelle told the child sitting next to her to go up and tell him to keep quiet. The boy dutifully walked up to the front, then past the boy […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The sermon went on and on, and a little boy in the front row started talking during Mass.

Sister Adelle told the child sitting next to her to go up and tell him to keep quiet. The boy dutifully walked up to the front, then past the boy in the first row and up to the lectern. There he told the priest, “Sister said you should stop talking.”


The tale from the Catholic school front is one of 150 told by Cleveland Sister Mary Kathleen Glavich in her new book from Paulist Press titled “Catholic School Kids Say the Funniest Things.”

In recent years, Catholic nuns have been the target of humor on shows like “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You” and movies in which sisters are portrayed as ruler-wielding battle-axes. But they have a few humorous tales of their own to share. And in this gentle new book, Glavich gathered nearly 140 pages of stories taken from the experiences of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

The idea for the book came from stories sisters shared about their exploits in the classroom around dining-room tables and in Christmas letters the sisters from different residences mailed to one another.

Most of the stories are from sisters in the 420-member Christ the King Province headquartered in Chardon, Ohio, but Notre Dame nuns from around the country also responded to Glavich’s e-mail for anecdotes.

Glavich said a little laughter is welcome in this time of the church’s life, when a sex abuse scandal has captured a great deal of attention.

“As every child learns in religion class, joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit,” Glavich said in the introduction to her new book. “Joy is a hallmark of holiness.”

A lot of the humor comes from different expectations children and adults often have of one another, and the literal way young people sometimes take instructions.


Sister Mary Adelle intended to speak to just one boy who was fooling around during Mass when she leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, “Neil!”

Immediately, the whole class knelt, she reported.

In another story, when the principal of one school overheard a small girl telling her classmates she was born on the Fourth of July, the nun walked up to the child and whispered that she, too, was born on July 4.

The child looked up at her wide-eyed and asked, “How did you get to be so big so fast?”

Glavich, 55, who has taught every grade except fourth, said children love God with open and trusting hearts.

“The innocence of the children, the simplicity of the children, shine through the stories,” said Glavich, who is leaving her position as co-director of vocations for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese to become a free-lance writer and director of religious education at St. Dominic parish in Shaker Heights.

In fact, if there is a lesson to come out of the book for parents, she said, it is that children learn from what they see and hear outside school.


“What they say and do at home definitely forms the children more than any teacher,” Glavich said.

In the little pitchers have big ears category, there is the story of the first-grader in Sister Caron’s class. The child, used to the half-days of kindergarten, wanted to go home at lunchtime on the first day of school.

When the nun told him he had to stay the whole day, he responded, “Who the hell signed me up for this?”

Even the all-knowing sisters are sometimes humbled.

Sister Julie Rose told of being playground supervisor during recess when she noticed the kids making a game out of falling into the snow. To try to keep their clothes dry, the sister gathered them around and decreed that the next person who fell into the snow would have to go inside.

With that, the nun took one step backward, slipped and fell into the snow. She went inside.

In another story from the book, Sister Konrad thought she finally was getting through to an incorrigible eighth-grader when he stood still as she scolded him. As she continued to lecture, pleased that her words seemed to be having an effect, the boy didn’t move, seeming transfixed.


Finally, when she took a breath, the boy spoke up:

“Sister, there’s a bug crawling in and out of your veil.”

DEA END BRIGGS

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