thoughts on the news of the day: clerics

hmmm…..

            Today a reader of my blog asked me to write more about how my brother and I became clerics.  I am not sure about the idea that we would be clerics …..  I have been called many things before but not a “cleric”.  Technically, the reader is correct, though because a cleric is a member of the clergy and we both have been ordained.  My brother is a Catholic priest living in France and I am a Presbyterian minister living in Arkansas.

            I am convinced that my grandmother is to blame for our professions.  When we were growing up, the pope told her to pray for vocations and being a good Catholic, no doubt she prayed that my brothers and sisters and I would become priests and nuns.  Every night as she lay down to go to sleep, her rosary beads joined her, and the mantra of the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be gave her a restful sleep.  She probably would have been surprised to find out that I had not stayed Catholic – but I am sure she would understand. 

            When I became an ordained Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, my mother, also a devout Roman Catholic, was continually asked how and why I became a Presbyterian minister and not a Catholic one.  And she would reply, “Well… they don’t ordain women in the Catholic church!”   I think it was her way of saying that she was proud of her daughter, even though I had chosen another faith.

            Becoming a cleric is truly a calling.  God has called my brother and I to completely different forms of service and I believe that my grandma and my mom smile down from heaven on both of us.  After all, they know that their prayer was answered.

            hmmm…..