The End of Rerun Week – My Favorite Nun

When I was in high school at Incarnate Word Academy, I had a favorite nun, Sr Philomena. She was all of 4’10” with the best Irish brogue I’ve ever heard. After more than 30 years in this country, she still had that lovely lilt and cadence to her voice. I loved her. She was wry and sarcastic and had a merry step and twinkling eyes. I could never figure out why she had never married, but had become a nun instead. One day I finally asked her, and here is her explanation (Please read with your best Irish accent, it would make me so happy. Thanks.):

“When I was about sixteen,” she said. “I liked to kiss the boys. That’s not true. When I was sixteen I liked to kiss the boy who lived next door. He was lovely to look at and heaven to kiss, as long as he didn’t talk too much. Anyway, one day my dad caught us necking in the haystacks and pulled us both up by our ears and said to me, ‘You have two choices right now, you can marry him or you can go to the convent.’ I looked long and hard at the neighbor boy’s pretty face and said, ‘Then take me to the convent. He’s a lot of fun for kissing, but he’s kind of an idiot.'”