Saving Mom from God’s Waiting Room
Mom better be in heaven, or there’ll be hell to pay.
Religion class as a kid was a snooze until a Catholic nun taught us about Purgatory.
The lesson that black day in grammar school in the mid 1950s was this: my beloved, caring, but unfortunately Protestant mother couldn’t go to heaven.
The word cut like a knife:
“Purgatory.”
According to then-Roman Catholic doctrine, those unbaptized into the True Church were banished from the Pearly Gates by Original Sin.
But it wasn’t a direct trap door from St. Peter to the Devil for billions of non-Catholics who led otherwise worthy lives.
There was Purgatory to endure the time until my mother’s blessed soul would be cleansed enough for Heaven. So the nun said.
She left off the part about my mother, because she had no clue. But I filled it in.
That’s what my teacher told us kids. Every Catholic (in the State of Grace…….way too complicated -like NFL rules for overtime scoring) goes to Heaven.
But Protestants, Jews, Lutherans, Baptists, Muslims, Buddhists, Hinduists, Zoroastrians, Rastafari —sorry, fresh outta luck.
Given the history of European Colonialism — diseases, persecutions and outright slaughter awaited native people in the Americas. In the Church’s name.
In hindsight I have considered that maybe Purgatory wasn’t so bad for Mom?
Considering the Church sanctioned tortures imposed by Spanish Conquistadors on Aztec “savages” who dismissed Catholic doctrine, maybe she would get off easy.
And then there’s the Spanish Inquisition of Jews and Muslims. I imagined my under 5 foot tall Mom facing off in her house dress, apron and rolling pin against Torquemada.
A Question Unasked
Dressed in long black robes, starched headpiece and bib, the nun responded somberly to my classmates’ questions about historic and venerated non-Catholic US leaders.
“Abraham Lincoln?” asked a classmate. Then another: “George Washington?”
“Purgatory” answered the nun each time.
In the cinder block whitewall classroom at Saint John the Evangelist School, the words reverberated in my mind.
It was one thing to adopt survival drills, hiding under desks in the ridiculous belief it would deter a nuclear warhead.
It was quite another to be told the woman who gave birth to me, prayed the Our Father (no King James version) nightly with me — was destined to a twilight between Fiery Hell and Heavenly Glory.
As classmates shouted out “Doctor Schweitzer?” my own question was unasked, out of fear of hearing the truth.
Schweitzer, awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, was a Lutheran minister and physician married to a Jewish woman. They ran a medical mission to provide health care to the poverty stricken families in Africa.
Uh oh. Purgatory it was for the Schweitzers.
My mom? I asked myself, but no words left my lips. Knowing the answer:
My mother could not go to Heaven.
Unlike parents of most of my classmates, my mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic.
I pictured my sainted Mom huddled in an overcrowded waiting room filled with unbaptized babies.
Martin Luther. Buddha.
And Jewish Old Testament prophets with long beards.
Founding Fathers? Native Americans? and…..whoa…Billy Graham too?
Purgatory.
I couldn’t have this. My mother tended to me, a sickly child. She washed clothes, wiped noses, bandaged cuts and was a calming influence in our family to my Dad, my sister and me.
Mom was a Swamp Yankee of moderate means, no bible thumping zealot. She was as likely to attend the towering Congregational Church, as to venture a block over to the low, modernist Episcopal church with her sister.
Or not. She was pan Christian, with no evangelical leanings.
My Plan to Save My Mom from Purgatory
I used my earthly goods to bring Mom into the fold.
My weekly allowance was 15 cents, enough to buy jujubes at Pelley’s Market.
Every day, students passed a spare room filled with religious statues, prayer books, rosary beads and other Catholic articles.
They exhorted me in a devotional whisper: “Save your Mom” said the words in my head.
I saved the money, a nickel here, a dime there. One day I saw the perfect gift for Mom.
It was a ceramic statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one hand held in blessing, the other holding Baby Jesus.
I paid for it, brought it home and waited for the right moment.
“Here, Mom. I got this for you today in school.”
My mother looked it over and thanked me profusely. She must have been fascinated, maybe amused — and then possibly concerned.
Was I trying to Convert her? Should she do it? Was she a Good Mother to her Catholic kids?
I would bring home spiritual cards from mass.
Rosary beads, crucifixes, prayer cards, St. Christopher medals.
Mom’s low bureau dresser resembled a goyish tchotchke menagerie.
(I sometimes brought home Yiddish expressions my Jewish friends used.)
Whenever I passed her bedroom I knew Mom would be Converted soon — if I could surround her with enough blessed objects.
The Plan Bears Fruit
One glorious day my Mom came home with a Catechism, the sacred book of questions and answers that was a study guide during early grades in Catholic grammar school.
I was amazed, then happy.
Mom read it, answered the questions during her conversion, and I witnessed her Baptism in the basement of the Catholic Church. She was blissfully happy. So were all of us.
How Mom Evolved
In later years, Mom and Dad watched the televised mass in the living room.
They beamed in services with an antenna in their tiny New Hampshire cabin.
Mom drew comfort from the trappings of the Church. Palms on Palm Sunday, the smell of incense and the call and response of prayers in the daily mass.
Mom was the one who rallied us to go to the 8:05 mass on Sunday. She watched as my sister and I grew through the Sacraments, getting us dressed to attend the mass.
This all happened before I drew ever further from the Catholic Church, questioning the relevance of Catholic teachings in college as racial issues and the Vietnam War dominated discussions.
Mom paid my straying no mind. She and Dad were at peace with their traditional Catholic mass attendance at the Logan Airport chapel, where the mass sped by in 20 minutes.
Their pastor baptized our child in a church in East Boston that ministered to the growing immigrant population.
Several decades later, now married and a father, I would sit in the living room visiting my parents’ retirement home in Florida, listening to them say “Good night. I love you” to each other.
Mom and Dad have died — both in their 90's, buried in a Military Cemetery. I fervently hope that she was comforted as death approached, with the thought of eternal life in Heaven.
If there’s no Heaven someone in authority needs to create it, just for her.
Mom deserves no less.