Fixing Our Gaze on The Immaculate Conception

A most blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception to you!

In this clip from The Song of Bernadette we see Bernadette fixing her gaze on the beautiful lady who has been appearing to her at Lourdes.  In answer to Bernadette's request to learn her identity, the lady responds, "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Watching Bernadette in the opening scene as she knelt there on the ground, I was impressed by the purity of her expression as she looked upon the most pure Virgin.  How rare it is to see that kind of innocence today!  And I thought about the Catholic concept of custody of the eyes and what a daily battle we must fight to practice it.

It's frightening, but much of what we should guard against today, we may not even be aware that we see.

Let me explain.

I just finished reading a transcript of a Solari Report podcast on entrainment technology, a form of mind control.  In it, Catherine Austin Fitts interviews Adam Trombly, a scientist/physicist, about how this technology is used and what you can do to minimize its influence on your life.

Basically, the entrainment relaxes/pleasures you and puts you in a state of openness to suggestibility.  The suggestibility part is where they implant the subliminal message they want you to act upon.  Entrainment is used surreptitiously in all kinds of media--dvd's, cd's, radio, movies in the theaters, etc., but it seems television paved the way for the others starting way back in the 1950s.

Maybe I've finally discovered why Catholics accepted the New Mass in 1969.  They had been lulled to sleep by gathering in front of the TV at home instead of kneeling in front of the Immaculate Conception and the Crucifix.

John Senior was so right when he admonished Catholics to "smash the television," in his classic book, The Restoration of Christian Culture.

Of course now the television has morphed into all kinds of different screens that we must guard ourselves and our children against.  We haven't done such a good job.  Just look at how we fell for the notion that public school children needed computers in the classroom to be able to keep up with technology and compete in the modern world.

After reading about entrainment techniques, I firmly believe that the so-called "snowflakes" are a product of it.  Previously I had thought it odd that Hillary Clinton had called on pop singers to boost her campaign.  But now I understand that their music and videos are powerful vehicles for entraining listeners.  The raw emotion from the melting snowflakes finally makes sense.  At first I thought it was all the coddling they received in school and a lack of critical thinking skills.  And, of course, a lack of the True Faith.

As I thought more about the idea of how we, like Bernadette, should "fix our gaze" on the Immaculate Conception, I became aware of the double meaning, as "fix" also means to repair.  We do need to constantly fix our gaze by avoiding as much as possible the things the world wants us to see.  And we must pray the Rosary, which Our Lady gave us as the most efficacious weapon for our battles against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The Rosary, with its beautiful mysteries, gives us lovely pictures to contemplate and incites the imagination to holy thoughts, which makes us more human, more alive, more able to create.  All this is in direct opposition to the sounds and images that the world wants us to consume.  Look around, and you will see the results--zombie-like people who are consumers, not creators.

Interestingly, entrainment technology takes advantage of God's design for our brains.  As  Mr. Trombly explained it, "Entrainment technology basically is the technology that exploits a neurological function called frequency following response. And, frequency following response was discovered in the earlier part of the 20th century and in terms of this type of entrainment was a matter of when the brain hears a repetitive pattern.

"It can be a repetitive pattern of words, it can be a repetitive cadence of rhythm, or in modern times it can be a repetitive acoustic sound coming across the loud speaker. It can be in a certain wave form, a certain frequency, the brain will follow that sound. The brain will follow that sound whether it’s monaural or binaural or surround sound; the brain will fall into rhythm with that sound." 

My conclusion from that explanation?  

God hard-wired our brains for the recitation of the Rosary with its repetitive pattern of words and repetitive cadence or rhythm!  Without fixing our gaze on the Immaculate Conception and praying the Rosary, we leave ourselves open to conquest by the Powers of Darkness, the enemies of Christ.

Three Steps to Follow

Fix your gaze  
Pray the Rosary and
Entrain your brain to follow that sound to Heaven.

Pushing the Spiritual Reset Button & Paying Attention to Promptings

I struggle mightily with getting caught up in the daily affairs of living in the world.  In caring for my dear ones I get emotionally tired and give in to my weaknesses, like spending too much time researching things on the internet or texting a friend, when my poor mother is sitting there lonely and dying to engage me in conversation.

Life seems to swirl by in this confusing tornado of appointments, bill-paying, shopping, and cooking.  But not nearly enough cleaning.  Disorder.  And then I take up blogging again.

I really should be cooking breakfast right now.  So I will get to the point.

Recognizing that I need to get back on track, this morning I went to traditionalcatholicsermons.org to listen to some sermons.  There I found information on a new English edition of the book, The Mystical City of God by Venerable Mary Agreda.  This has got to be the third or fourth time in the last week that this book, with which I was previously unfamiliar, has been brought pointedly to my attention.  I determined that I will order it today and begin reading it.  Here's the link:  http://www.neemcog.com.  Then I skimmed through the list of sermons and found this one on spiritual reading by Fr. McGuire, "How to Read Spiritual Books Profitably."  At one point he talks about pushing the reset button on the GPS of our spiritual lives and "re-calculating" our direction.  Perfect.  Maybe you need this too.

May God bless you.

And God Laughed at My Plan

As a follow-up to Yes, Dad, I am Guilty, I thought you might enjoy this post I contributed to another blog a year ago, before I started taking care of  my parents full time.


I started off Monday with a great and holy plan.

I would give myself a one-day silent retreat using the book, The School of Jesus Crucified.   Well, at least until it was time to take my dad to his cardiologist appointment at 5 pm.   It had been a busy and emotionally draining couple of weeks with family and other out-of-town guests visiting, and I thought this little retreat was just what I needed to restore my peace of heart.   I said my morning prayers then launched right in on the book.   It was fabulous, and I got pretty excited about the spiritual progress I was sure to make.

I had read and meditated for about a half an hour when the phone rang.  It was my mom letting me know that her home health aide did not come to work.  My mom has been confined to a wheel chair ever since she had a stroke two years ago.  I called the aide, but she didn't answer.  I left a message.   Then I cooked bacon and eggs for Mom and took it down to her house.  Dad had eaten cereal.   I greeted him on the front porch.

I *think* he greeted me as well, but frankly, I can't remember for sure because the next words out of his mouth changed the whole focus of my day.

"Wendy, I'm out of cigarettes, and I've been out since yesterday at noon," he said, getting directly to the point as he handed me an empty L&M 100s package.  I figured the information about how long he had been out was to help me understand the urgency of the situation.  "And look at this," he added with deep concern, holding up his beloved little dog to me.  "Cherokee's got a giant tick on his leg.  He needs to go to the vet."

I looked at the tick.

"Dad,"  I said,  "That is not a tick.  It's some kind of tumor."

"It is so a tick!  Look.  Feel it."

I pressed the soft, black sphere and looked at how it was attached.  "It's not a tick, Dad," I contradicted.  "A tick's body gets big, but only its head burrows in.  This thing is connected to the skin all the way around."

"Will you make him an appointment and take him to the vet?" my dad persisted.  "Today?" he added.  Dad can still drive, but if he does he is not eligible for home health services, which he needs.  So no more driving.

"Yes," I sighed as I felt a dark cloud gather over my head.  I imagined the Vet's office with the walls papered in annoying posters about vaccinations and neutering.  Big Pharma rules there too.  Ugh!    Clearly, God had a different plan for my day!

I went inside and gave Mom her breakfast, got her dressed, washed the dishes, and started a load of laundry.

Then I went home and got my purse and headed to the Tobacco Shack.  I had really been primed for silence and prayer.  I felt the resentment monster crashing through my soul.  A knot tightened in my chest.   And then the guilt.  I pulled into the drive-through of the cigarette place and saw a sign that said that it didn't open until 9.  I had ten minutes to wait.  I decided to fill up the car with gas.

I left the driver's door open as I pumped the gas.  When I finished and went to get in the car, I noticed a bright green praying mantis on the roof.  I thought bitterly, "Oh, funny.  I wanted to pray and now here's this praying mantis.  Too weird."  I shooed him back so he wouldn't get squished when I closed the door.  I drove into the grocery store parking lot and parked, waiting for 9:00.  As I glanced out the driver's door window, the praying mantis leaped onto the driver's side mirror.  He turned his queer triangular head and peered at me.  I studied him and marveled at his construction--all the joints in his legs and the searching way he turned his head when he looked at me.  I recalled something that I had read that morning about how God gave us creation so we would know how much he loved us.  As I pondered this thought and gazed at him, time stood still.  Then the mantis raised up on his hindmost legs and then plunged forward, galloping along the top of the mirror.  The sheer beauty of it caused me to gasp, and tears trickled down my cheeks.

"Thank you, God, for the attitude adjustment," I whispered.

Back home with the precious cigarettes, I  called the vet to make an appointment.  I felt relieved when they said they couldn't take him until the next day.  Later, when I went back to my parents' to cook their midday meal, my mom said, "I gave your dad the tweezers to pull out that tick."

"What?" I asked in disbelief.

"But he couldn't get it," she finished.

"Mom!  No!  It's not a tick!" I had a mental image of me doing a face palm and thought, "Watch it, Wendy.  Remember your attitude adjustment.  But I could feel the frustration coming back.

Later, zooming down the highway to my dad's cardiologist appointment, he confided that he had painted the "tick" with fingernail polish.

"Okay, Dad," I sighed, totally defeated.  

And I reviewed my day and the retreat that God had planned for me and what a failure I was.

The next morning my parents' home health aide called and said, "You can cancel that appointment with the vet.  They already looked at that lump when Cherokee had his shots.  They said it was a fat deposit and not to worry about it."

That night, after I had put my mom to bed, my dad called me into his office where he was playing his millionth game of Solitaire on the computer.  He said, "Wendy, you were right about the tick.  I was wrong.  I'm sorry."

My heart melted, and I hugged him tight.

"I love you, Daddy.  It's ok."

Those Green Bean Times

I cringed when I looked at the date of my last post.  Sept. 24th!  Oh, my goodness!

September seems soooo long ago.  I remember vaguely that time as one of making a grand attempt at getting a lot of canning done.  Oh, and I had started an online canning course, which I have also, like blogging, let totally fall by the wayside.

The canning did not go well.  I blame it on my stove--my stupid, modern stove with the smooth ceramic top, which absolutely refuses to respond in a timely manner to my instructions.  This obstinance caused wild pressure swings in the canner, which in turn caused the dreaded "siphoning", a process by which some of the contents of the jars is sucked out into the canner.  I persisted anyway and canned a quantity of chili and green beans.  By some miracle, most of them sealed despite the siphoning problem.    The ones that didn't I just refrigerated.

I have an especially fond memory of getting the green beans ready to process.  I had about 15 pounds to snap.  Emma and I divided them up into our 13-quart stainless steel bowls.  It was a gorgeous fall day--cool and crisp.  We threw the windows and doors open, and as we sat on the couch with our green bean bounty, we chatted and snapped and listened to the chimes and the gentle burbling of chickens at work near the back door.  The breeze washed over us like baptismal water, renewing us.  It was an extremely satisfying interlude, one of those rare instances where you feel like everything is rightly ordered, almost like a prayer.

I wonder about those green bean times and how you go about getting more of them and less of the pressure canner ones?  How do you live your life as a prayer?  And is it possible *for me* while being a "friend" on Facebook?  Or using an iPhone?  I've been thinking a lot about that lately.  While I have been away from my cozy little blog living room, I have been camped out alongside the rushing torrent that is Facebook Falls, watching the good, the true, and the beautiful wash by, along with some raw sewage.  Blogging is certainly not ideal, but for now, I am going to spend a lot less time on Facebook and more time here.  Especially with Advent beginning in just a few days, my soul yearns for more quiet: less "likes" and more one-on-one, heart-to-heart communication.  Real friendship in Christ.  I am not expecting that I will get that by blogging, but writing here is a more contemplative activity than posting on Facebook.  I think I may grow to be a better friend here.

The Modest Motorcycle Mama

I just love the way my helmet squeezes my chipmunk cheeks.

Bet you didn't know I lead this secret life as the wife of a Harley man.  I quite like it, although after two hours my backside is numb.  Luckily, his is too, so we stop and take a break.

My favorite stop so far has been at a little cafe next door to an antique shop.  We ate lunch there and then spent 45 minutes perusing the antiques.  I think we were in Livingston, TX.  On Memorial Day we biked to Louisiana for a friend's birthday party.  En route, Herb took me through some little town where there was a church with a giant outdoor statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe that he wanted me to see.  He had been there one afternoon when the sun was shining through some stained glass onto the statue.  He thought it was really pretty and that I would like it.  I did.  Next time I'll get a picture.

When he first got the Harley, I thought that we would go off for the weekend and camp in a tent.  I thought he wanted adventure!  And I was ready to go, but it turns out, he mostly likes day trips.  He assures me that when we go overnight, he wants to stay in a hotel--a nice one, probably with a whirlpool for our numb backsides.  LOL!

I've found that I can pray like crazy about all sorts of things when we are on a bike trip.  The funny thing is, he wants to talk, and he wants me to talk too.  Somehow the motorcycle reverses our natural tendencies in this regard.

As for proper attire, I have just been wearing my long, full skirts, and they seem to do just fine.  I had a little trouble with this blue one (in the picture) wanting to blow up over my knees because it is so light.  But I just tucked it under Herb a little bit, and that solved the problem.  I wear my cowboy boots.  Otherwise my feet get too hot.

The Strange, Beautiful Texture of Silence

It's funny how you read about an idea that makes a huge impact on you and then that same idea pops up in everything else you are reading.  That's what has happened to me about the subject of silence/meditation.  It's not that I was unfamiliar with the concept, it's just that I have a new depth of understanding of it because it is being presented to me from several different sources.

For years now I have been upset by the intrusion of electronic media into my daily life.  My first memory of being disturbed by it was at an aquarium in New Orleans.  I'm guessing this was in the early 90s.  We had to wait in long lines, and I was dismayed to find television sets hanging above our heads.  I did not want my thoughts to be directed against my will.  Now this electronic intrusion has progressed to the point of being attacked by commercials via the gas pump.

Here is a marvelous quote from The Chosen by Chaim Potok.  Danny Saunders, a college-age Hasidic Jew,  explains silence to his friend Reuven:

"You can listen to silence, Reuven.  I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it.  It has a quality and a dimension all its own.  It talks to me sometimes.  I feel myself alive in it.  It talks.  And I can hear it. . .You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it.  It has a strange, beautiful texture.  It doesn't always talk.  Sometimes--sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it.  It hurts to listen to it then.  But you have to."

This idea is expanded in A Guide for the Perplexed by E. F. Schumacher.  I'll write about it next time.

A Christian Counselor's Imagined Conversation with St. Francis

You can eavesdrop on it here: St. Francis, Let Me Buy You a Drink.

Bearing Burdens

I caught a bit of Emma's online literature class discussion yesterday. Her teacher, Mr. Cothran, was talking about bearing one another's burdens and how, often, we can bear easily for someone else what we can not bear ourselves. I think it is true.

In a slightly different way, my sister Beverly is doing this. Before her son passed away, she had asked to be transferred to the psychiatric ward at the hospital where she is an LPN. They deal with addictions there as well as other mental illnesses. She thought it would be good experience in helping her deal with Corey's alcoholism. As it turned out, Corey died just before she was to start the new job.

After that, she didn't think that she could do it--work with people who were suffering like Corey did. But she tried it and has stayed. In the first week she was able to cheer and comfort a de-toxing alcoholic executive. Since then she has brought Corey's clothes and given them to a young man who had none. He was actually having to wear paper scrubs. Then she had to see him wearing Corey's clothes, which I can only imagine took her breath away. However, in helping to bear their burdens, she is finding hers more "bearable". Here is what she said in a Jan. 3rd blog post:

I've also been blessed to find myself working on a psychiatric unit, caring for patients who often have no family, no opportunities, no hope. Being immersed in their lives and finding connections between theirs and my own has been, well, painfully liberating? Is that possible? I am finding more and more "constants", truths at work, as I watch over them.

Pray and Quilt

Bluegrass musician Ricky Skaggs has made a complimentary mp3 download available of his recording of Somebody's Praying. Find it here on the National Day of Prayer website. I have been listening to it over and over this week.

I have also been reading about prayer quilts, and I was struck by how the message of the song and the quilting idea go hand-in-hand. Made by individuals or groups, the quilter prays as she sews for the person who will receive the quilt. When the person who receives the quilt wraps it around his shoulders, he is reminded that someone is praying for him. It is a beautiful idea.

As I grow older, I have become more and more aware of the bits of humor that surface in the midst of grieving. Because of this, I appreciated this note from the Prayers & Squares International newsletter, Aug. 2009:

Here is a fun note that Nancy Brado attaches to the quilts
her Georgia chapter sends out.

HOW TO USE YOUR PRAYER QUILT
(THESE QUILTS ARE QUITE VERSATILE)

1. Cover yourself and sigh and moan, as appropriate.
It is best to do this only when others are around,
however.

2. Pull over your head to signal that you are no longer
willing to answer questions. Turning over, when
combined with the over- the-head movement,
dismisses tiresome guests without saying anything.

3. The voices you hear when wrapped in your quilt are
not in your head. They are the prayers that have
been spoken over your quilt while the knots were
being tied. Those voices are meant to soothe you;
allow them to do their job.

4. When the pain is extreme, hold onto those knots with
both hands. Each lumpy knot represents prayers that
have been offered up to God on your behalf. You
don't need words, they have already been spoken.

5. This quilt is washable, so don't hesitate to rumple,
crumple, or in any other way use it as a source of
relief. It has a nice solid batting that holds an
abundance of tears, so don't hold back.

6. As far as laundry, wash it in warm water and dry in
the dryer on medium heat. We have included a
Shout “Color Catcher©” to throw into the wash
with it the first time. These fabrics were washed
before sewing, but just in case there's any surplus
dye, the “Catcher” will get it.

7. Recuperate and take the quilt on a picnic. You'll
both love it.

Houston Chant Course to Begin Sept. 12

St. Basil's School of Gregorian Chant is offering "an 8-week Saturday morning course in learning to sing the beautiful repertoire of Gregorian Chant". Tuition is $500. The classes will be held in St. Basil's Chapel at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. For complete information on curriculum and registration, visit GregorianChantSchool.org.

St. Basil's School is "dedicated to the preservation, enhancement, and singing of Gregorian Chant in the Novus Ordo of the Sacred Liturgy."

Sursum Corda: Praying, Celebrating, and Saying Goodbye

Queen of Angels parishioners exhausted themselves yesterday, celebrating the parish feast day with a special Mass, Rosary procession, barbecue cookoff, chess tournament, and going away party for Fr. Stanich. As if that were not enough, Fr. squeezed in a baptism between the end of the procession and lunch.

The choir presented him with a 1962 Liber Usualis in perfect unused condition, right down to the satin ribbons. They included a brand new decorative leather cover for it. Fr.'s old Liber was falling apart.

For Mass, we followed the propers for the Feast of Our Lady Queen of Angels from the Franciscan missal.

After Mass we prayed all fifteen decades of the Rosary as we processed about 1 1/2 miles around Dickinson. It was wonderful to see people in the neighborhood stop what they were doing to look and listen, but I'm sure we made even more of an impact as we walked along busy Hwy. 3. We sang Marian hymns as well, finishing with the "Salve Regina."

Herb and I couldn't stay to eat barbecue, but we came back near the end of the party so that we could say goodbye to Fr. Stanich. I told him that it was too bad I couldn't hug him, because that was what I really wanted to do.

He said, "Are you older than me?"

I said, "Yes, I'm 49,"

"It's OK, then."

Wasn't that sweet of him? I've never seen him get hugged by anyone else.

So I hugged him and patted him and thanked him and wished him well. He'll never know how much it meant to me.



Pictures: I was having one of my frequent "bad photography" days. Click to enlarge, it may help.

THE ROSARY PROCESSION













THE BARBECUE COOKOFF/GOING AWAY PARTY FOR FR. STANICH

The scene before Mass. See the camper in the background? The cooks stayed up all night.

Mrs. Beverly Mclawchlin surveys the damage after everyone has been through the line.

Fr. announces the winners of the different barbecue categories to enthusiastic applause.



If you click on this picture, you may be able to make out some of the photos highlighting Fr. Stanich's five years in Dickinson.

Angela and Michelle, Queen of Angels Academy students, visit with Fr. Stanich.

AND THE CHESS TOURNAMENT

We have a lot of handsome young men in our parish.

A Question for God

Do You want me to be fat?

I've come to that conclusion after carefully following a 30-day nutritional cleanse and exercise program and losing a whopping six pounds. Women friends who were not in the least overweight lost a minimum of 10.

Why would God want me to be fat? I've decided that it's because He supports my hugging apostolate, even though no spiritual reading I've done promotes any outward behaviors other than dignified reserve.

I've tried to act this way, truly. When I have failed repeatedly, I have begged God to make me Mary-like, but to no avail. My worst fault is that I'm a compulsive hugger. For some reason I get this overpowering urge to grab people and squeeze 'em against me. It is always precipitated by this feeling that my heart is fixing to burst with love and that I can mash it into folks with a good solid hug. I get the most relief if the hug is returned, but that rarely happens. Most of my hugees are frozen stiff with fear, or maybe it is good Catholic reserve.

I'm eagerly awaiting the return of one of Nathaniel's friends from school. He is coming home for Easter and is a magnificent hugger. I'm feeling a groundswell of affection for him right now. My big sister is an excellent hugger, too. Our hugs sometimes turn into a 5-minute slow dance. We mash so much love into each other it squishes out everywhere and makes a big, sticky love cloud all around us. It's very satisfactory. The problem is, I only get to see her about once a year.

What does this have to do with God wanting me to be fat? Well, I can tell you that if I were not fat, a lot of folks would get the wrong idea about my hugging apostolate. So until God decides to strike me with lightning and make me consistently serious, dignified, and resigned, He protects me with a thick layer of blubber.

Blessed be the will of God.

Sisters: They Came, They Saw, They Conquered Hearts

Three Sisters of the Society of St. Pius X, an order established for the purpose of supporting priests and their work, gave a slide presentation on their work after each Mass and a girls' conference in the afternoon. The sisters--two French, one German--explained at the slide show that their order does whatever is needed to support priests, be it tending to the laundry, cooking, housework, preparing children for the sacraments, teaching in the parish school, or visiting the poor, sick, elderly, or infirm. They met with parish girls at 4:00 p.m. in the parish hall to talk with them about the religious life. Beginning with questions from the catechism, Rev. Mother Superior Mere Marie Augustin helped the girls to think about the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. By the end of the conference, several hands shot up when Rev. Mother asked if any girls were interested in the religious life. According to the Sisters' brochure, "Any young woman, aged 18 to 30, guided by a right intention, and possessing a sound judgment and sufficient health to be able to do the different works of the community, may be accepted in the congregation." Afterward, everyone congregated on the steps outside for a group picture while a picnic was being prepared. Sisters from left to right: Sister Therese-Marie, Rev. Mother Superior Mere Marie Augustin, Sister Marie-Jeanne d'Ark. Traditional American fare, hamburgers, hot dogs with chili, and potato chips was served and enoyed under the crepe myrtles. The Sisters were particularly interested in learning about the parish life: the picnics, festivals, Laetare Sunday dinner theatre, etc. With energy renewed after the feast, the girls quickly divided up for a lively game of kickball. "What is kickball?" Mother Superior asked. The mothers took advantage of this relaxed setting to ask the sisters about the decision-making process they would use for choosing a parish for their new foundation, how long it would take, and what our parish could do to accommodate their needs better. Mother Superior said that the decision would be made by prayer; that it would be made in the next year or so, and that the best improvement we could make to the convent would be a walled garden. "It's noisy here," she said. The sisters asked about insects and snakes in Texas and were assured that there were none. No ants, no mosquitoes, no snakes. Too soon, the Sisters had to go into the church for Vespers, and the mothers and girls had to go home. The Sisters leave Dickinson today directly after the High Mass at 7:30 a.m.

The Nuns are Coming! The Nuns are Coming!

Three SSPX Sisters arrive in our parish tomorrow for a visit. They are planning to expand and are "shopping" for a parish. O, Lord, let them choose us!

I helped clean the convent chapel yesterday and got to admire the work the other ladies had already done in the rest of the convent. We haven't had any nuns in a long time--I'm guessing five years--and the ones we had were all older nuns from different orders, refugees from the storm that swept across religious life after Vatican II. I never met any of them, but I still hear the stories about them. They were well loved.

The SSPX Sisters will give a slide presentation after each Mass on Sunday and a girls' conference in the afternoon. I can't wait to hear what they have to say. When I look around and see girls modeling themselves after Hannah Montana, the new Britney Spears, I think. . .

What the world needs now is nuns, sweet nuns.