Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Catholic New Times

The church beneath the church: one heart is healed--not by rules, but by love steeped in imitation of Christ.

Article Excerpt
I would like to tell you about the church beneath the church.

The ones who told me about the church beneath the church are my grandmothers. I came to know my grandmothers when I was an older adopted child. I was called into the priesthood as a child. I healed broken plants, and children and dogs, and I pounded out hosts from Wonder Bread. The birds took one host a piece, but the dogs were greedy. They ate 40 or 50 hosts at a time! Some of my familiares, my relatives, would say, "Oh, isn't that sweet. She's playing priest." And my grandmother Viktoria would flash a milky eye and say, "She is not playing."

One day I would understand that genealogy is significant, and that apostolic succession is important. But we Catholics have a third tradition by which a woman becomes priest, and that is via parthenogenesis. This means to be conceived by a massive infusion Of grace from One greater than myself, and I must answer the call. Parthenogenesis: developing into a new individual without being formed by merely human means.

My life deepened further when my grandmothers and my aunts, and nuns, consecrated me to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to Santo Nino, literally, "Saint Little Boy" the Baby Jesus. I was consecrated at age six. I took the vow of fidelity, meaning that I would do whatever Virgin Mother and Cristocito asked of me, when and if I could hear them via the Holy Spirit, and when they could give me a sign. I promised that I would try to follow their wishes in all prayerful grace. All of us little girls who were consecrated at that time also promised our eternal virginity to Blessed Mother. As I used to whisper later as a girl-gang leader, "Two out of three ain't bad, baby."

Time went on. When I came home from my high school theology classes, I'd say something to my grandmother like, "I want to tell you what Ignatius of Antioch said about martyrdom. My grandmother would say, "I want to tell you what Viktoria of Dombovar says about living life without being a martyr." Whenever I brought home academic material, including much later during my psychoanalytic training, all my grandmothers and my aunts would correct it. (I know you have relatives...