Mother Holy Agony and Sainthood
Mother Holy Agony and Sainthood
by Robert Fontana
My children cannot comprehend the world in which I was raised – Latin prayed at Mass, rosary and Eucharistic processions, making the sign of the cross every time I passed a Catholic Church (but not a Protestant one), and Catholic school sisters dressed liked penguins.
My fourth-grade teacher, who was one of these sisters, was named Mother Holy Agony. Truly! Well, maybe not truly, but by the time I had her she had taught my five older brothers, and somehow she became associated with that name. I’m sure that she may have had an opinion on who inflicted the most agony on whom, but the Fontana brothers passed on to me the horror stories of:
- her icy cold stare when you stepped out-of-line;
- her powerful smack with a ruler on your bare hand;
- her tying students in their desks with string to keep them from squirming;
- and her insistence that you offer up the pain and suffering of being in her class like the great martyrs and saints.
Mother Holy Agony identified with the suffering of the martyrs and saints and thought that she would inspire us to become saints (and sisters and priests) by telling us the stories of their heroic deaths!
MHA – Think of dear young and beautiful Perpetua. (We had never heard of her). A young mother with a child at her breast.(It was the first time I had ever heard that word “breast.”)
She refused to offer sacrifice to the pagan emperor who claimed to be a god. She gladly suffered for her sweet Jesus. Her child was taken from her and she, with other Catholics, was set in the midst of wild animals who tore them to pieces. And when a Roman gladiator came to her mauled body and discovered she was still alive he thrust his sword into her heart.
Mother Holy Agony said all this with great feeling, pride, and… with a curious look in her eyes as if she was asking each one of us ten year olds if we could do the same.
My friend Greg whispered to me, I’d rather be the Roman gladiator.
We heard the stories of St. Peter who was crucified upside down; St. Ignatius who was fed to the lions; St. Paul who had his head chopped off; and St. Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake. And then Mother Holy Agony would ask us, Don’t you want to be a saint?
Mother was not very good at reading her audience. She seemed proud of her presentation and felt like she had us in the palm of her hands. Certainly we were staring at her wide-eyed and in rapt attention. But it was fear and disbelief grabbing our souls and not inspiration. She continued.
Of course, most of you need not suffer real martyrdom to become a saint; you can suffer a spiritual martyrdom by offering your life completely to God by becoming a priest or sister.
She then launched into her vocation talk. Whew, we were off the hook; we could become saints without literally burning to death or being dinner for lions.
However, she had little clue that her talk was backfiring.
Greg raised his hand.
Mother, do I need to become a saint to get to heaven?
No, Greg, but if you become a saint you spend less time in purgatory, and if you are martyred you skip purgatory and go right to heaven.
Will my mom and dad go to heaven? (Greg’s parents had only birthed six children, worked at a family business, and sent all the kids to Catholic schools.)
Well, of course they will.
There was a long silence. Finally another kid, Eileen, who always had interesting things to say even in fourth grade, spoke up.
I want to get to heaven like Greg’s parents!
And the class erupted in a loud “Me too!” and “I do too!”
All of my classmates chose the path of Greg’s parents as their path to heaven, including me. Of course, none of us had any idea of the suffering that marriage and parenting would take us through as we matured into loving spouses and sacrificed, as our parents did, so that our children would succeed in life.
Greg’s parents were an example of saintliness that was not offered to us as fourth-graders, but it is the example of saintliness that most inspires me today. May you love God and the people in your life, with the help of God, as best as you can; isn’t that what a saint does?
And please send us your prayer intentions.
