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‘From forbidden love to coronavirus: My experiences with common sense and reasoning’

Jun 12, 2020

Emotions make us do funny things, like the nun who ran away with the married man in the '70s. Source: Getty Images

I reminisce on characters I knew once, when we were all ‘living in the ’70s’. They were all individual humans, not machines, just as we all are now. Our emotions can carry us away from all common sense and reasoning.

For example, when I was first teaching, my principal was a nun, Sister Y. She had been groomed from a very young age to be devoted the church. Sister Y had been educated in a convent, practically cloistered in her teenage years, while being educated to be a teacher and a nurse.

However, several years after the Second Vatican Council and its reforms, there developed an air of freedom for the clergy. Our good principal, Sister Y, went to a weekend principals’ conference, in her shortened frock and non-veil. An individual, not a machine.

There she fell in love with a happily (?) married man with six young children at home. Much angst later, we were short one principal, who left her convent far behind. She took off her non-veil and galloped over the fence. Sister Y, now an ex-nun, lived in loving contentment for many long years, until her beloved passed away.

Yes, a different kind of true love found her, even in a convent, and swept the couple off with emotions. All the naughty lay teachers, her ex-staff, would sit at morning tea sometimes, wondering aloud how her lucky beau ever seduced a nun. But that was their secret. Individuals, not machines.

Similarly, one of my late husband’s drinking buddies was also a teacher. Let’s call him Mr G. His teen daughter was attending a convent secondary college, taught by nuns. Mr G. was attracted irresistibly to his daughter’s home room teacher. She rapidly became an ex-nun. After the miserable divorce, Mr G. married her.

Mr G.’s daughter had to leave her school friends and attend a state high school. Mr G’s very resentful ex-wife sent their teenager to live with Mr G. and his new bride. Talk about fun all round! This reflective, resilient offspring of the ‘amicable’ divorce, never experienced harmonious co-parenting.

At the age of 16 she was able to control her life. Their daughter was ‘over’ the games her parents had played, so she left school, obtained a job, saved some cash, bought a car, leased her own flat, acquired a boyfriend, then got married and had her own family.

At that tender age of 16 years old, she divorced her father and his bridal nun, her stepmother. She divorced her mother and stepfather, along with her Brady Bunch of step-siblings. She was duly wed in the Registry Office, and divorced the Catholic Church while she was on a roll.

As I reminisce, it all seems so melodramatic now. All those emotions and angst. They all recovered their lives in a different way, but never taught in a Catholic school again. The church survived, everyone got on with life in general. I guess we are like players on a stage, like these characters. True love found them anywhere, still can I suppose, even today. Our reactions vary.

It is all like what the human race is experiencing at this time in history, with an invisible virus. For the faithful, the church shall survive, as beliefs shall, while people worship at home. The human race shall recover, and get on with life, maybe in a different way.

“Thou shall not snog the bride.”

“No more group hugs!” It may be the end of touchy-feely cuddles.

This all reminds me a lot of when we were very young, generations born in the midst of a polio epidemic, with no vaccinations. Our parents were not that touchy-feely, as they were all scared we, or they, would develop polio and end up in an iron lung.

This is today, the present. Our time in history, our reactions are variable. We are all individuals humans, not machines.