That's my mom. I found this video on youtubeAwesome.

I'm done with the semester.  Completely done with everything.  I think I'm happy about it but I most certainly will miss this semester and all of the changes and new things it entailed.  Summer summer summer summer summer summer time.

On December 8, the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican otherwise known as Vatican II formally ended marking one of the largest changes in the Catholic Church to date.  These changes caused confusion among lay and religious persons alike but for the first time in history, the Catholic Mass was said in vernacular languages.  The Catholic Church was bending and reforming its rules in order to better accommodate their believers and to pull people back into the beauty and richness of the Church.  Many people did not completely understand the limits or the basis of these changes including religious sisters better known as nuns.  The chaos proceeding Vatican II changed the idea of how religious communities conducted their everyday activities; their physical appearance, their spirituality, and oftentimes their charisms.  These women have been broken down in five categories, most intermingling with each other, living lives in communities together, and some rejected, completely denying the validity of the others’ vocations. 

The Trendy

            The trendy nuns—or shall I say religious sisters—are often the young, vibrant sisters found on the streets of the South Bronx intermingling with homeless people, playing hacky sack with the youth, and sporting the big beat up grey van with the bumper sticker on the back saying “We Love Our Priests.”  They don’t have many material goods; often wearing the same habit (dress with veil) for an entire week, wear sandals, sleep on the floor, and eat moldy cheese with stale bread for breakfast, but their simplicity attracts young women who really have a passion for serving the people of God.  These women are involved in new movements in youth ministry, have a firm grasp on Church doctrine and theology, and fervently support the Holy Father.

The Lifer

            These women have been discerning religious life since the 3^rd grade when Sister Mary John told her she had a calling.  These sisters often choose their communities during high school and enter shortly after graduation.  They can be complacent in their daily lives, but have an overall joy about their lives and the decisions they’ve made.  They accept the paths their lives have taken, embrace where religious life may lead them, but never really encourage other young discerning women to follow too closely in their footsteps.  These women are found mainly in diocesan offices as vocation directors and administrators.

2^nd Vocation

            Second vocation sisters are an interesting lot.  Their choice for religious life comes after several other important life decisions like marriage, career, the purchase of a house, and many times kids.  These women are a new breed only cropping up in the past 40 years when the mass exodus of religious women occurred after experiencing new-found freedoms of the Second Vatican Council.  Along with experiencing a severe shortage in their communities and the desperate need to replace the women who left, they also recognized these women, indeed, may have a calling to consecrated religious life despite their previous vocations.  These women enter communities under very specific terms: they must not have any financial dependants, their previous marriage annulled (if they are not widowed), and a willingness to detach themselves from previous lives and attachments.  Many have difficulty in finding the line between the roles of “Mom” and “Sister.”  Their adjustment to religious life is challenging; finding difficulty with the vows of obedience to the superior and poverty of their worldly possessions which in many cases are the last connection to their previous life.

The Running

            The running sister is a tragedy.  They entered a religious community when their fears and deficiencies were still under the radar.  They have a bad self-image, mental disabilities that went unnoticed until it was too late, fear of independence, fear of family, fear of rejection from the opposite sex, and even fear of their own sexuality.  The lives of these women are painful and a constant struggle as they have to face themselves.  Often small discrepancies in a community of women get magnified and blown out of proportion because they live in such small and confined quarters; it is difficult to find proper help for these women.  The problem not only lies within the running sister but with the entire community who accepted her without noticing the issue or even worse, ignoring it upon her entrance into the community.  A healthy community will weed these women out during their discernment process as aspirants or postulants but an unhealthy community who is desperate for new vocations will overlook the red flags the entering sister displays.

New-Aged

            The conflict with the new-age sister and the traditional sisters has been ongoing for the past 40 years.  These sisters rarely don habits and have conformed so societal norms by incorporating the want or “need” for material goods like modern clothes, new cars, and living in three bedroom houses by themselves.  Their philosophy in life and argument is “if I only had a penis!” and are often found picketing St Peter’s Square in the Vatican to ordain women into the priesthood.  These sisters neutralize or reverse the gender of God, focus on becoming spiritually connected with the earth, and teach against the judgment of God.  They are the sisters whose communities dramatically changed after Vatican II and clung on desperately to the life they had hoped the Council would bring them.  These women are aging and dying along with their communities.  Their anger is unattractive to younger discerning women and eventually these communities will no longer exist.  New-age sisters can be found teaching in seminaries, directors of religious education in parishes, chaplains in hospitals, and in the mission fields.

            Consecrated religious life is continually changing; assimilating to society’s spiritual needs and demands.  As long as there are women open to the idea of religious life, there will always be the various types of sisters to fill the roles.  Each vocation is as unique and varied as the individual seeking it.   

This is a paper I wrote for my English final.  

I'm so incredibly tired.  I wasn't until I chugged a ton of coffee and ate lunch.  All of a sudden my eyes started burning and I'm having a hard time staying awake.  I still have two papers to write, but I think I'll hash one out tomorrow and the other one either tonight or Wednesday. 

So stinking tired.

I ordered two books from Amazon.  I'm expecting great things from them.  They're both by Oliver Sacks and I'm going to read them this summer I think.  I'm getting my summer reading list ready so I can be happy and smart for the three months I'm not in school.  It's going to be fantastic.  I'll show you the list I have so far:

1.  Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
They made a movie about this book.  It's about a doctor (Oliver Sacks) who discovers a temporary cure for a  sleeping sickness by giving the patients L-Dopa, a drug to control Parkinson's Disease.  It's pretty fantastic. 

2.  The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
Another book of analysis.  I don't really know much about this one, but I'm looking forward to reading it nonetheless.

3.  Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem by David Blakenhorn
I read a chapter of this book for my Sociology class and really enjoyed it so I'm going to read the rest of it this summer.  Its about the various types of fathers our society has created and the positive and negative aspects of each type of father. 

That's it.  Just those three but I'm keeping my eye out for other books.  Probably something I've never read before. 

Welp, I think that's about it.  I have a in-class essay I have to write in about 15 minutes so I better go look at my notes for that bad boy. 

Have a good day.

I'm pretty sure I just hung myself on my A&P Lab exam.  I DIDN'T KNOW HALF THE SHIT ON THAT TEST.  I always feel that way though, so maybe I'll prove myself wrong.  I have a ton of stuff due this week and I don't quite see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm hoping it's there and it makes its appearance sometime soon. 
Please let it come some time soon.