I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [25]
“It takes nine weeks to do a full Novena,” Sister Carmelita continued, “and there are three tasks to complete. First, you must go to confession and confess your sins, receive absolution, and do the penance imposed by the priest. Only then, when your soul is clean, will you be worthy to receive Jesus into your body.” She paused, then printed in chalk on the chalkboard, “CLEAN YOUR SOUL!” “Second,” she continued, “Mass and Communion once a week. For nine weeks, the Body and Blood of Jesus enters you, and transforms and fills you with goodness.” “NINE WEEKS” joined “CLEAN YOUR SOUL!” “Third, at the beginning of each day, you must kneel down and say five decades of the Rosary. Then, at night, before you go to sleep, on your knees, recite it again, three times in a row. Do not skip. Do not cut any of the prayers short. You cannot cheat. God will know!”
A knowing smirk spread across her face as she made eye contact with all of us at once. Not a sound. Every one of us stared back at Sister Carmelita.
“GOD WILL KNOW.” I imagined His Presence, the All-Seeing Eye, probing my throat, stomach, heart, brain, and spreading and displaying the viscera of my very thoughts across a big white table. The light so bright. Everything exposed. No shadows possible.
“GOD WILL KNOW” joined “CLEAN YOUR SOUL!” and “NINE WEEKS” on the blackboard. Her chalk screeched bitterly as she wrote the words.
Sister Carmelita wandered among us, and as her voice continued its hypnotic cadence, her white robes swished in rhythm.
“If you have any idle time during the weeks, send your thoughts heavenward to Little Jesus and His Mother. That way, you will keep your mind pure. You will transform yourself into a vessel of God, and His grace will fill you. At the end of the nine weeks, the Novena will be complete, and you can make your request to Jesus.”
Arriving back at the chalkboard, she clutched the crucifix hanging from the beads of her rosary, and, standing under “GOD WILL KNOW,” imparted in a hushed voice, “You can be sure His Mother will be whispering in His ear, telling Him to give you what you want.”
I was so excited. Repetition enthralled, rules to follow, the challenge thrilled me. My imagination leapfrogged, kneeling, praying the Rosary, taking Communion, as my delighted mind envisioned my soul gleaming with cleanliness, eliciting smiles from the All-Seeing Eye. And a luminous, foglike essence of grace perfumed, filling my heart, lungs, and stomach.
I was impetuous, already on my feet. One half of me was looking at my hand in the air, the other half hearing my voice stammer the question. “Sister, can you ask for anything? Sister Carmelita. Anything? I mean … no matter what?”
“Of course, anything,” she nodded to me in approval. (She had caught a fish.) “Remember, this is a promise from the Blessed Virgin Mary. You will receive your wish … provided it is good for you.”
I sat down, my mind reeling with the possibilities of Anything. Much later, I came to realize that she had cleverly slipped in an escape clause at the end of that sentence, the “ … provided it is good for you.”
Sister Carmelita tilted her head slightly to the right. “Remember, children, when you formulate your request, be careful of Pride,” her finger waggled, a gentle coach warning us of pitfalls. “It’s the most dangerous of sins, thinking you’re special, better than the others, the sin of Pride. Lucifer was guilty of it. Swollen and puffed up with his own importance, he envied the goodness and power of God. This sin caused his downfall. God threw him out of Heaven, and he tumbled down to Hell. Into the Great Emptiness he fell, screaming all the way, but no one heard him.”
I didn’t start the Novena right away, because I hadn’t zeroed in on what was the Anything I wanted from Jesus. So I hurried home to question the Boss. “Do you know about the Novena?”
“Of course, the Novena. I know all about it. You must go to Mass and receive Communion every day for nine weeks, and then you must say the Rosary nine times in a row, morning, noon, and night.”
She always exaggerated.