Growing up, I lived next door to a nunnery. I guess my parents thought that it would be peaceful, living next to a bunch of elderly nuns on the verge of death. It was anything but. One nun, Sister Katarzyna, made our lives hell on a daily basis. From her third-floor window in the crumbling Victorian house, she screamed at my mom as she was tending to her garden, telling her that she was going to hell for she was a divorcee. In her thick Slavic accent, she would yell at my friends and me when we were playing basketball in my driveway, calling us vile homophobic slurs, claiming that the noise was disrupting her Lectio Divina. She cursed at my sister when she was sunbathing, telling her that she was a dirty whore for wearing a two-piece bathing suit.
My mom contacted the diocese, wrote letters to the bishop and the Superior General. She even called the cops dozens of times. Nothing, of course, was done. In a heavily Catholic town in New Jersey, the police would not do anything that would upset the Church. As for the Church, they simply did not care.
We prayed that she would soon die. Whenever an ambulance pulled up the house, we hoped that Sister Katarzyna would be taken out in a body bag. One by one, all the nuns died. Except her. When it was just her, we thought that she would be relocated to another convent, but I guess no one wanted to have her around. She lived, and yelled, in that big house all alone for over 8 years.
Finally, when I was 14, she died at the age of 97. Her obituary said that she fell down the stairs. It also said that she was noted for her kindness and generosity, so who knows what really happened. What we did know is that we finally had peace.
The house was boarded up. A sign was placed outside, announcing that it was scheduled for demolition. I decided to go exploring while I still had the chance. The front door was locked, but I was able to shoulder my way in easily.
It had a musty, mildewy smell like old houses often do. Nothing interesting on the first floor, just lots of crucifixes on the walls, cheap prints of Jesus holding his glowing heart, kitschy stuff like that. I made my way up the creaky stairs to the second floor. All the rooms were empty. The third floor was nearly empty, except for a single bedroom. Very spartan, just a small cot, a bedside table, and dresser with a basin of what I presumed to be holy water on it.
I rifled through her dresser. Wasn’t planning on stealing anything, was just curious. Nothing but clothes in the first two. In the third, I found a seven-corded whip. I took it out and held it up in front of me. It looked like there were pieces of glass embedded in it.
“What are you doing in here, little boy,” a voice asked in a strong Eastern European accent. Startled, I dropped the whip, and turned around. By the doorway was a nun, wearing a black habit. She looked to be about 20.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll be leaving.”
“You will do no such thing,” she bellowed as she started advancing towards me. I tried to duck by her, but she grabbed me by my hair and threw me on the floor.
“Please, I’m sorry, don’t call the police.”
She laughed. “The police? Do you not recognize me, little boy? I am Sister Katarzyna.”
“No, no you’re not, She’s dead, and you’re just trying to scare me.”
“There are no holes of mine you can place your fingers in, but I will prove it to you nonetheless.” She vanished into thin air and reappeared less than a second later. “Now do you believe, or will you say it a trick of the light?”
I did not respond. The nun picked up the whip from the ground. “This is called a discipline. The seven cords represent the seven deadly sins, as well as the seven virtues. The three knots are for the the three days Jesus spent in the tomb. Mostly used for self-flagellation, but that is not its only use. Let me tell you a story.
“In Poland, after the war, I worked at an orphanage run by my order. There were lots of wicked children in that place, truly a den of iniquity. Children who would deny the Trinity, deny Jesus, deny God. We taught about Him, but many refused to learn, refused to accept him, refused to get baptized and get washed in His blood. Of course, that is their choice, just as it was Eve’s choice to take the apple. But the price of that choice is eternity in Hell. And, as agents of the Lord, it was our duty to bring salvation, no matter the cost.
“There was one older nun, Sister Ewelina, who was an educated women, who had studied the history of the Church, the old handwritten vellum manuscripts. One volume told of the devices used in the inquisition, devices used on the ancestors of some of the children in our care. The scourge you see was one of them, one of the milder ones. Some might call it torture, but no amount of earthly pain can compare to the eternity of torture that awaits the unbelievers, the sinners, the wicked.
“So we began the new course. Not out of hate, for if we hated the foundlings, we would let them die unsaved. It was out of love, a love for their souls. They were reminded of their wickedness every day, of what vile creatures they were, walking in sin and depravity. Through their pain, they were able to share in the Passion, and to understand the love that Jesus had for them. I remember their screams to this day. Nothing has ever given me so much pleasure as their cries do, and as a young woman I sinned, I confess. The ecstasy from their cries is what St. Teresa must have experienced. Do not think of me a cruel woman. It was out of love.
“Many died, but many more were saved. Whenever a single soul is saved, the angels in heaven rejoice. And we saved hundreds! Imagine the paeans from the heavenly chorus…”
I made a dash for the door, Again, with surprising speed, she grabbed me, holding my wrists with an iron grip. I thrashed and kicked to no avail.
“You are a wicked child from a wicked family. If you do not repent your fate will be in the lake that burns of fire and sulfur,” She threw me against the boarded-up window. I crumpled to the ground.
“Now take off your shirt,” she said. “Proverbs says that if you beat your child he will not die, but his soul will be saved. And I am going to save your soul. I lived to be 97. And that will be your number of lashes.”
I watched, too dazed to move, as she recited a Latin incantation over the basin of holy water. She dipped the fingers of her right hand in the water and touched them to her forehead.
“In nomine Patris..” Before she could touch her chest, she started screaming. She turned towards me. In the center of her forehead was a black spot. As she screamed, it spread down her face and to her neck. Her skin seemed to be melting, like she was made of black wax. She screamed for over ten minutes until she finally collapsed on the ground. Sister Katarzyna was no more.