Me, As A Nun, And New Cecilias! UPDATED

I have one of those very ordinary faces that are a dime-a-dozen in a crowd. People are always telling me, “I work with someone who looks exactly like you,” or “I grew up with someone who could be your double; I hated her, come to think of it.” Or, “we had a maid, looked like you.”

But this time, I think I may have found a genuine doppelganger, or one who, at least in 1948, looked like me in my own younger years.

She was a religious, a novice with the Sisters of St. Francis, of Perpetual Adoration. The one second-from-left!

Right?

No, that’s no good — too small — go check it out over here.

Right? No, seriously, she looks exactly like me, like my Auntie Lillie and like Great-grandmother Emilia, and of course, like my mother. We’re all spookily similar in cheeks, chin and jowls.

It’s kind of cool to think that for generations upon generations — perhaps as far back as in Jesus’ time, there were peasant women who looked like us, wandering around, and being told that they looked exactly like someone else!

But of course, I could never have worn such cumbersome headgear. I’d be fingering that thing and wrenching my neck like Rodney Dangerfield — Sr. Maria Incarnata of the Disrespected — and they’d eventually throw me out.

Anyway, that’s what I would have looked like, younger, and nunnier.

These sisters are a great group, by the way, and they have managed to sustain their numbers, even through the lean times. You can read their latest newsletter here (pdf).

Also, since November 22 remembers the beloved martyr St. Cecilia, here are three new-Cecilia’s recently given the habit:

Sister Marie Cecile was recently clothed as a novice with the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration More pictures here (dropbox to Investitures 2011)

Sister Cecilia Maria received the sacramental habit of the Passionist nuns last February. Additional slideshow here

Sister Mary Cecilia was invested in the habit of a Dominican Nun in May of 2010, and is now a second-year novice. I am told is it mostly her hauntingly lovely soprano chanting in the background in the nun’s rosary video. She does her patron proud.