Ah Memories…All Girl Passion Play…no not like that

Now I realize this is an odd time to be discussing “The Passion of Christ” but a few people I went to grade school with brought back a memory I thought I had successfully burned.

Those of you that have been reading my blog for awhile know that I am a recovering Catholic. What I am not sure you know is that for 8 yeas I attended an all girls, private Catholic school…wait for it…located in the ‘Motherhouse‘ of a certain type of nun. I am not kidding about the Motherhouse part. That is what it was called. It definitely contributed to my spiritual status as a ‘recovering’ Catholic. Anyway, we had one very crazy nun (most of them were a little off but this one was a piece of work). She decided that we should start doing a Passion Play every spring around Easter. This woman was really nuts, she was an ‘artist’ and OCD at the same time. She had such a problem with clutter that when the kids made her birthday and feastday cards she literally looked at them and then tore them in half to throw them away, many times in front of said kids. If a child gave her a gift she would have that child give it to another person.

So, think about it, all girls ages 10-12 in a play that called for 90% adult male parts. It was like the opposite of a drag show. All the male parts had to wear fake beards. They stuck the life-like beards on with this nasty glue that smelled like bad fish. So you have about 80 girls, all struggling with preteen-ness and bad skin and you make them dress up like men and wear BEARDS! Nice. I think that this might be the one case where my parents don’t have pics because I would not have been caught dead with proof later in life that I had to dress up like an apostle…with a flippin beard.

The only part that made is somewhat bearable was that since many us were wearing bathrobes with pockets, we could slip our walkmans into them, cover the headphones with the head coverings and listen to music when we wanted. My friend Rachel and I did just that and listened to WHAM! while we were waiting to start the play. For some reason, the nuns never picked up on what we were doing.

The play was just insane. The crazy nun took the script directly from one of the gospels (it was like 2-3 hours long) and we actually had the whole Crucifixion played out. The actual nailing took place behind the curtains but we actually had 3 girls on crosses. Seriously. Think on that for a sec.

I try not to.

And people wonder why when I was in 8th grade I told people I would never send my child to that school.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/16056327117924455147 Mama Dawg

    I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I would have LOVED to have seen that play.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/15634829064005032831 Kat

    I think of myself as a recovering Catholic, too. It’s funny…we are Lutherans now…and there are A LOT of recovering Catholics in our congregation :-) I went to Catholic school. Complete with nuns. But…I am happy to report that I did not have to experience any of that. Which is all rather ironic in that I went to St. Thomas More school. And he’s known for burning those Lutheran heretics :-)

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/03593468374316318014 Kimberly

    I had no idea that you are part of the same 12 step program that I am!Did you have a Sister Margaret who made the entire 8th grade cut little square out of magazines all day so she could make a mosaic of Jesus?All of these things seemed normal at the time, until the flashbacks now when I say to myself “hey! wait a minute, what the hell was that?!”.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/18341753113164178323 Lula!

    I would pay BIG MONEY to see you dressed as a wise man. With a beard. And I’m sorry, but the title of this post is the best title of a post ever. In the history of blogging. Yep.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/16794387734217000502 Los

    Oooh, that’s not good at all. I can’t even imagine what that was like.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/06338958736798944383 Margo

    LOL wow. That is a great story, and I sympathize. In my Ulta-Orthodox Jewish school, we also had to do all-girls plays, so some girls had to be guys…but pants are “immodest” so even though every single actress was female and only women and girls were permitted to be in the audience, the girls playing male parts had to wear huge billowy bloomers, not pants. And that was considered a concession. And they couldn’t touch the girls playing female parts onstage, in most cases, because to imply that a male touched a female would be immodest…even though every single actress was a preteen/teenage girl! Wow. At the time, it was weird and confusing, but now when I look back, I’m just in shock. Definitely need to recover from that garbage.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/16047430228350114744 Sue

    Oh Heavens! It’s no wonder you are as normal as you are! That must have been horrible!!!

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/07562634403635180290 Superwoman

    And here Boyfriend is trying to talk me into partial Catholic-ism. Ick! Not with stories like that!Missed you. And thank you. =)

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/05205278384614133047 McBöbø

    So we have girl-on-girl bearded passion and a teacher who enjoyed crucifying a few kids, with a dose of Catholicism. That sounds like a couple of Internet perversions waiting to be born. And makes the priests and nuns at my Catholic school rather liberal and tame.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/04359245078617786198 Laura Ingalls Gunn

    Thank goodness for walkman’s! :)

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/11027061380778030388 Rhea

    Good lord. All girls in a practically all boy play. sheesh.I love the hidden walkmans though.I grew up going to Episcopalian schools and we just weren’t that devoted. lol

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/03517190745892738872 honkeie2

    I am a recovering Cath-oholic myself. We called it the Nun-ery. It was where evil sexless women were hatched to become nuns. I was in for 5 years and will never send my kids to a skool like that!