DON’T CHEW JESUS!
A Collection of Memorable Nun Stories

Reviewed by Elizabeth Graham

If you’re a baby-boomer or older Generation-X Catholic, chances are your education brought you into contact with nuns. If you’re younger your parents might have reminisced about old Sister Mary Margaret and her strict line on catechism or Sister Bridget who could pitch a mean ball.

Redoubtable women like these represent the church’s “foot soldiers” according to Danielle Schaaf and Michael Prendergast, writers of a new book about the glory days of Catholic teaching orders, DON’T CHEW JESUS! which includes the anecdotes and recollections of hundreds of contributors. Part valediction, part humorous collective memoir, DON’T CHEW JESUS! examines the post-war period ending in the eighties, the golden age of Catholic schooling as far as the teaching orders were concerned. Given that there are nearly 65 million Catholics in America it’s hard not to think that this book is going to be a popular read this winter.

When we were kids, nuns were everywhere. Schools, playgrounds,
churches, in our minds . . . they were always with us. We
never thought about them not being around but that’s exactly
what happened. Somehow, they slipped away without our noticing.
All that’s left are memories, and those of us who share those
memories.

And what nuns they were. Schaaf and Prendergast and their contributors describe them teaching football, tobogganing at night, roller-skating and explaining the finer points of baseball. They also explain doctrinal points that have foxed the best of the Church Fathers. “Everyone knew Sister had the final say [as to who could enter heaven], even if it didn’t mesh with official dogma.”

DON’T CHEW JESUS! also paints a picture of the “teachers, nurses, confidantes, spiritual mothers, and defenders of the faith”, good women who cared deeply for the children they tended.

“My young life changed when I entered the eighth grade and encountered Sr. Serphine. She showered me with special interest and worked hard to help me keep on going in my studies.”

At times they could deal out relationship advice with the best of the agony aunts. “Remember, girls, no one will want to buy the cow if the milk is given away for free,” Sister Bon Bon advises teenage girls in a session dealing with dating and pre-marital sex.

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, not all nuns viewed this life as a vale of tears: many of the reminiscences show nuns positively brimming over with fun:

Sister faced her students each morning with a huge smile and twinkling
eyes, and began class by proclaiming, “Laughter is the foretaste of
heaven.”

And while passing on doctrine may have ranked highly as a teaching nun’s raison d’être, many of their pupils also thank them for passing on a passion for correct grammar or attention to neat personal habits. Others attribute their taste for learning to the sisters:

What pleased [sister] was obtaining subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for the eight of us in her class. Using those newspapers in lieu of textbooks, Sr. Mary Ambrose created the most intellectually exciting experience of my young life. Sister brought the world to our classroom.

It’s hard not to feel nostalgic for the days when certainty was possible. Don’t chew Jesus in the form of the consecrated host the priest places on your tongue, you’ll pay for it. Don’t wear shiny shoes in case they reflect what’s up girls’ skirts. Don’t wear short skirts. Don’t kneel like a Protestant (resting your behind on the pew). Make sure you confess to all your sins. Do all this and you’ll make heaven, the nuns urge their charges. And it felt definite, at a time when the world felt less than safe as presidents were assassinated and the Cold War rumbled on.

Fun and insightful, DON’T CHEW JESUS will fit perfectly into the Christmas stockings of anyone taught by these colourful teachers. One thing’s for sure, God didn’t stint on personality genes when He made nuns.