I am indeed running out of time…but that means there’s still some time left. What was meant to be last will still be last, although now there is a Great Temporary Meandering. I thought it would be helpful, for me and Darla at least, to revisit some stories that are now lost in older parts of the Search for the Panther essays…I can’t remember which. Adrasta is working on it. Yet, some are new. Then it is on to the overdue conclusion about one conception of the Virgin Birth myth. However, Marybelle decided to make a Public Service Announcement…

There are other stories about miraculous births and virgin births, that make this overall subject even more fascinating and enthralling, if that were possible. In a previous essay, I discussed the strange story of the nun named Josephine Rosenthal, who was found to be pregnant, although she never had sex with a man…the only male she interacted with being the Abbot…oh my! After six months, she was brought before this Abbot, who convened the Council of Benedict to investigate the matter. And surprise, surprise! The Abbot made sure the council declared that Josephine would give birth to a child as a result of a virgin birth…

…which may have been a means to get out of a problem that might just overtake him. Sister Mary Rosenthal! Yes, daughter of Josephine…both gals became pregnant when they weren’t supposed to be. The story, of course, avails itself of an explanation…the Abbot got Josephine pregnant, and the virgin-birth part of the story was clearly intended to save the reputation of both Josephine, as well as the Abbot. Mary would herself give birth while yet a virgin. Like mother, like daughter. But what is particularly interesting is that some lunkheads in the 1950s did some “tests” on trace biological material held in Mary’s reliquary, and told the world that Mary was conceived by Josephine because both Josephine and Mary were actually self-generative hermaphrodites who could simply become pregnant out of the blue…which is a boring way indeed. Please, Josephine and Mary were naughty nuns…say ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers. Of course, we rightly think of nuns as followers of Christ who fulfill several key roles in the Christian Church, and I venture to say that things would be far more difficult if Christendom didn’t have nuns. Of course, western culture has been rather obsessed with these Holy Ladies, but the idea that they can be just like other women has existed for millennia…starting in the Medieval period…

I think that most people would agree that nuns shouldn’t be picking phalluses from phallus trees. They should also avoid the advances of a horny monk…

Don’t beg for it. In addition, they shouldn’t do this weird and creepy thing…

Producers of illuminated manuscripts would also have us believe that nuns…

…shied away from some bodily functions, and yet strangely accepted others…

A monkey with glasses? And before getting worked up about this, I would point out that I have discussed the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Breast Milk…there being a whole host of images, not originally frowned upon at all, although they are now, that fit the…

…Lactating Mary motif. And of course, Mary can…

…breast-feed the whole world. There is a disturbing flip-side to a breast-feeding nun…

…a breast-fed nun. I’ll quickly move past this bizarre motif. Nuns, when naughty, get a whacking too, although I suspect that they tend to be the ones doing the whacking…but not always…

…giving rise to my newly coined term…the Spanked Nun Motif. Darla, who does seem to get in trouble at school quite a bit, says that she prefers when nuns get the whacking. That would seem to be the implication in an otherwise disturbing image…

Someone’s about to learn a lesson. Of course, you could also end up in…

…in the stocks, which are currently in use in Darla’s school.

I would point out that nuns were fashionable, which some older images would prove indeed…

And of course…

…the Beautiful Nun in Blue. I suppose I cheated when it comes to the Beautiful Nun…she wasn’t a real nun. She was the famous…

…La Belle Otero, who gave…

…Mata Hari a run for her money. For some reason, someone decided that a futuristic version of the Beautiful Nun In Blue was necessary…

Personally, I prefer the one on the left. And oh my! How many bizarre looking nuns there were!

But something would catch on, and at a surprising time in Christian history, which perhaps begins with nuns harvesting a crop of Ye Olde Phalluses, as I showed earlier. What’s that?

Ok, several of these images are from the same hilarious illuminated manuscript. But the idea appeared in others as well…

So one might be inclined to see here a sexualization of nuns, something that modern western culture has been doing for a long time, being so obsessed with nuns that others make the motif more up-to-date…

In more modern times, nuns have apparently become a bit more edgy…

…such as enjoying a good drink. Ah! The Devil’s Brew!

But one must reckon with another vice…

Holy smokes! That’s right sisters! Smoke’em if you got’em. And we all know that smoking is a bad habit. A nun might just party a bit too hard…

…name your poison. Ah yes! The …

…Sisters of the Valley in Merced, California. And what a pot farm they have! I am planning a trip to see Sister Kate. So you think nuns running pot farms is objectionable? Wrong…so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

There is another bad habit that some nuns dabble in…

That’s right…gambling! And there appear to be nuns who are a bit more…

…gun ho. Nuns with Guns? A smack with rosary beads is surely preferable. If you really like the Beatles, you might say…Mother Superior jumped the gun. But don’t think that people’s more modern and bizarre imagination about armed nuns is the only source of this motif…

…these are, obviously, somewhat more vintage nuns. But not these…

But some nuns prefer less sophisticated weapons…

What do you call a super tough nun?

…one Nun of a gun. Still, why do something terrible like use a gun when you can…

…do it the old-fashioned way…a little hand-to-hand combat. And we all know that there is an excellent precedent for this…

…hail Mary full of grace or she’ll punch you in the face!

Some nuns are a little less friendly than one might expect…

Now this one bothered me. So I decided to go to Rome and tell the Pope about bird-flipping nuns. I disguised myself, and attempted to get his attention…

…ow! What a bunch of papal bull that was. I must have made a cardinal error. But I finally got to speak with him and he said…

The same to you! Deuces! You know that old saying…Like Holy Father like sister. I also told My Friend Francis about other nuns, which I doubt he likes, but Darla thinks are pretty cool…

And of course, I must not forget…

…the oldie but baddie…Marilyn Manson nun. Now I will cheat a bit…

…that’s terrible! How could I show such a grisly picture? Ghastly…ghoulish! What kind of reprobate would show nuns in this way? Wait a minute…

Gotcha! Yes, well, Francis said he’d have nun of that. However, despite the Holy Father’s objection, I would be amiss to miss something cool…

Yes! One of my favorite subjects…a Cephaphore! Thank you New Brunswick! Sister Marie Inconnue! Legend states that Sister Marie was attacked by two sailors who sought the treasure she supposedly possessed. But she resisted, so they cut off her head. That seems like a little overkill. But her head was never found, forcing her to wander around trying to find it. An alternative legend holds that after being beheaded, she picked up her head and ran into the woods with it. It took a lot of brains to come up with that one.

Other nuns have embraced the Rock ‘n Roll culture…

Ok, ok…no more Marilyn Manson…and that’s a blessing. Still, there are tons of nuns who prefer more traditional music…

…such as playing a harp or singing hymns.

All that said, many nuns prefer more traditional types of fun…

What could be funner than a Fun Nun? Dancing is also wholesome…

…well…

…most of the time. Darla! Adrasta! Stay off my computer! Keeping pets is wholesome…

Well…

…most of the time. Still, some nuns are quite…

…studious, and I must say, these are a few of my favorite nuns. Scripture leads us to God, and we all should emulate these bookish nuns. Finding the Will of God and the Word of God in Scripture is far better than…

…though Captain Howdy would disagree. What do you call a motorcycle gang made up of nuns?

…the Heavens Angels. Well,

…most of the time. And I had to explain to Darla that they didn’t have motorcycles in Olden Times which, or so I told her, does not include the year of my birth. But they did have other modes of travel for nuns…

Still, I am inclined to believe that the connection between nuns and sex may have been rooted in the fact that so many women were forced to enter convents against their will…with who knows how many not wanting to be there in the first place. In the Middles Ages, the daughters you couldn’t marry off, you put in a nunnery. Others realized that the lifestyle they chose wasn’t, ultimately, the right one. How badly do young nuns want out? Yes, to forego the celibate way of life? How far would a nun go to be free to live a normal life? The setting is St. Clement’s Priory. The star of the story is a nun named Joan of Leeds. Joan decided to fake a mortal illness. When her dead body was found, it wasn’t her dead body at all. No, she had made a dummy of herself, one that looked exactly like her, and so life-like it fooled the other nuns, who buried it. She was later found living with a man, and the Archbishop of York condemned her…of course…for pursuing carnal lust.

The sexual tension involving nuns goes back to the Middle Ages…

…the story of the nun from Watton…a rather disturbing account of a nun in the Gilbertine nunnery at Watton in York.  She was a girl who was given to the nunnery at the age of 4 years. So it wasn’t her decision to become a nun, and as she grew older, she showed an increasing dislike of the lifestyle. She then met a lay brother she found attractive, and she began a sexual affair with him. Eventually, the older nuns figured out what was happening, and they confronted her. The remainder of the story shows just how horrible religious figures in the 12th century viewed such a scenario. The older nuns could have simply realized the younger sister just wasn’t cut out for the lifestyle of a nun, and bid her good-bye. Instead, they decide to burn, flay, and brand the young woman. The leading nuns prevented this, and settled on putting her in prison instead. The lay brother fled, but was later captured and the poor nun was forced to castrate him and place his genitals in her mouth. Not surprisingly, the nun was pregnant. The birth was miraculous the Archbishop of York appeared and drew the baby from her womb. The next day, the other nuns found no evidence that a birth had taken place. The story is somewhat violent, and shows both that women who had no inclination to live the celibate life found it thrust upon them, as well as how brutally Christianity imagined the fall from grace should be punished. The tension appears in other sources as well. During the period 1221-1284, a series of poems that could be set to music appeared in a collection known as…Cantigas de Santa Maria, or…Canticles of Holy Mary. These were produced at the court of…

…Alfonso X of Castile, noted for his love of poetry and astrology. It is in these cantigas that one finds several poems about errant nuns, but they also include a sign of hope, or a good miracle from God to make things right. Such is the case in Cantiga 7…The Pregnant Abbess.

The abbess, who had been very strict on matters of chastity with the nuns under her authority, became pregnant by her Bolognese steward. The nuns in her charge were furious…

…and they told the bishop in Cologne. He, of course, was greatly concerned. So he…

…travelled from Cologne to investigate the charge. Upon arrival…

…the abbess was summoned to appear before the bishop. Later that evening…

…she prayed to the Virgin Mary, who appeared to her as if in a dream. So she had the baby, who was taken by an angel, and turned over to…

…to a pious man in Soisson to be raised. Then…

…the abbess was forced to undress before the bishop. She was declared innocent, and the nuns were scolded. It’s a great story, but it is hard to decide what is the most objectionable part of the tale…the abbess stripping before the bishop, or the fact that the abbess has six-pack abs. But there are other Cantigas that are meant to warn nuns of the temptations of the world. This includes Cantiga 94…The Nun and the Knight. There was a…

…nun who fell in love with a knight and left the convent. Before she left…

…she, being the treasurer, put her keys at the foot of the Virgin and left her nun clothes behind. After she left…

…others carried out her duties. She lived with the knight for several years, having many children. But eventually, the nun repented and returned…

…to the convent. Her key and habit were…

…returned to her by the Virgin Mary. When the nuns saw this…

…they accepted the nun’s children and sang praises to the Lord. And so it is that a nun who strays is not forever lost…God will always welcome her back. However, scruples do not appear to have applied to the makers of…

…Medieval pornography that was included in illuminated manuscripts.

However, the pressure placed upon nuns was something that became apparent in the account of…

…Sister Virginia Maria…the Nun of Monza, a story that launched numerous weird…

…sex stuff. The real story of Sister Virginia, whose father forced her to enter the Monastery of Saint Margaret at the age of thirteen, is no doubt a strange one. This Shouldn’t-Be-A Nun sister entered into a sexual relationship with Count Giobanni Paolo Osio, something the other nuns found out about. Her first baby was stillborn, but the second baby was a girl. She turned the baby over to Count Osio to be raised in his househould. The story then gets weird. One of the nuns threatened to expose this situation, and Osio, aided by Sister Virginia and other nuns, murdered her. Then Virginia told the other nuns that should they be so inclined to expose her situation, they too would be murdered. Nonetheless, the situation became known to the authorities, who put her on trial, made sure she was found guilty, and was given the penalty of immurement. What’s that? This usually involves walling someone into a small, or sometimes large, space that can result in death, usually by starvation, though not all immurements involve the death of the condemned. The idea of an order of virgins who were required to maintain strict celibacy as part of their religious functions was the…

…the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome, a group who served as the template for Christian orders of nuns. They were responsible for keeping the sacred hearth of Vesta burning. They were so important in Roman religion that the continued existence and well-being of ancient Rome was centered upon them. They are first known from about 509 B.C., and lasted until they were dissolved by the Christian emperor Gratian in 382 A.D. Apparently, surprise…surprise, he wanted their money. A vestal began her ministry at the age of 8 or 9 years, and served for 30 years, at which point she retired. After that point, a vestal could marry, but if a vestal broke her oath of celibacy while still a vestal, she was severely punished…

…she would be bricked up in a small chamber where she would eventually die. A particularly scandalous event took place during the reign of the Insane Emperor Elagabalus, who didn’t seem to know what he wanted to be…male, female, or both. To each her, or his, or their, own. He wanted a vagina without giving up his phallus. So who knows. If that was scandalous enough, he scandalously carried out an even more scandalous scandal. Meet…

…Julia Aquilia Severa. She was the chief vestal virgin, until Elagabalus…

…forced her to marry him, and although he divorced her, he later remarried her…so she doesn’t seem to have hit the wall…so to speak. On the lighter side, Julia Severa lost her…

…her nose, and then this happened…

Well…it sure beats being walled up in a little chamber and left to die. Nothing lasts forever, including statues and…

…certain reliquaries. Deuces!

As for immurement, this was also the punishment suffered by…

…the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was walled up in either a small room, or her entire castle, depending on what version of the story you read, at Csejte…

Ok, it’s seen better days, and needs a little maintenance work…maybe a little DYI... Destroy it Yourself. She lived this way from 1611-1614, and died of natural causes. But if you think that Elizabeth was somewhat unhinged, then you must meet her husband…

…Ferenc Nadasdy. He was part of the Christian crusade to drive the Turks out of Europe. In fact, he would cut off the heads of captured Turks and play soccer with them. Darla thinks that’s cool, so I once again had to tell the neighbors to be vigilant, lest I see their heads bouncing down the playing field. I will, and this is very difficult for me, not launch into a tangent in discussing Erzebet Bathory. Well, she has captured the imagination of modern western culture…

Sure, she’s great for horror movies, sexy or not so-sexy. Still, she was set up by the Hungarian government because she insisted that the king pay back the money that Ferenc lent him. Most of the testimony was based on hearsay, and several people were tortured to extract false stories. Much of the goings-on can be attributed to…

…Anna Darvulia, a practioner of the Old Religion, who made her way into Elizabeth’s inner circle. She was brutal and sadistic. Unfortuately, she never paid for her crimes…she had a massive stroke just before the judicial proceedings proceded. It is also the sad case that at this time of history, landed nobility legally had the right to punish servants, including killing them. So in a certain sense, Elizabeth didn’t, theoreitcally, violate any laws.

So Sister Virginia was sentenced to be immured for 13 years in the Home of Saint Valeria. After her sentence ended, she continued to live in the home until she died of natural causes.

There are, of course, more recent instances of pregnant nuns, and yet! Another virgin birth! This one involves a 29 year old nun in Spain who hails from the Monastery of Las Rosalinas in Valladolid This was more than akward. When it came time to explain her pregnancy, she said that the child had magically appeared in her womb. Then she fell back on a familiar story…

 “I don’t want to offend anybody, but it had to be the Holy Spirit, there is no other explanation because I’ve never had sex with a man. The holy spirit visited me in my dreams and fertilized me. I am not saying that I am the new Virgin Mary, that would be a sin of vanity.”

In the Gospel of the Young Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, it was Joseph who did the dreaming. And then there is the case of…

…33 year-old Sister Roxanna Rodriguez who hails from El Salvador and is from the order of the Little Disciples of Jesus.  She claimed  that she didn’t know that she was pregnant until going into labor, which she thought were stomach cramps. She stated…

“He is a gift from God. I am little worried about all the publicity, not only in Italy but in El Salvador and all over the world. Everyone is talking about this and I don't think I will be able to return to my home country, let alone Rieti.”

Francis, I’m sure, has something to say about this…

Well, we’ll get back to him after wind dies down. But! She did make a strange choice for the baby’s name…Emmanuel? Joshua? No. She named him…Francis…the name of the current Pope, perhaps hoping this might lessen the criticism headed her way. And while she would name the baby, she wasn’t willing to name the father, although he appears to be a man from El Salvador. To her credit, she did forego a divine explanation for a Nun-Bun-In-The-Oven.

But what a strange explanation mysterious explanation for a pregnant nun! Indeed! Sister Mary Gertrude…

…who was 61 years-old, and found herself pregnant. And I can just see the movie that will be coming! Well, or not. But how did she get pregnant? Ah, yes…it happened after dinner. Without knowing it…

It was called oysters and tasted like fried chicken but better! I chugged down six huge platefuls in a row and couldn’t stop.

 Oysters? A tried and true delicacy. The problem? The oysters in question were actually Rocky Mountain Oysters. Apparently, she consumed 12 pounds of bull testicles…

The doctor told me that I ate 12 lbs of bull testicles and that’s what made me pregnant, but I know it’s actually God punishing me for my gluttony.

Remind me not to take my ailments to Sister Mary Gertrude’s doctor. A virgin birth as a punishment? For gluttony? I see trouble on the horizon. The lesson? Watch out if you eat bull testicles! You might find yourself in a Family Way. But if you eat them nuntheless…

…bon appetite! Still if you’re a nun, you should stay away from genitals anyway…whether you eat them or not. But does this story mean that Mary Gertrude was impregnated by a bull? A papal bull? Or a lot of bulls? Will we have a new generation of…

…minotaurs? What does Pope Francis say?

Of course, one picture is worth a thousand words! But the Vicar of Christ found a way of explaining pregnant nuns…

Pope Francis’s public admission that priests have used nuns as “sexual slaves” — and may still be doing so — marks a new chapter in the abuse crisis rocking the Catholic church.

Sex slaves? Sex slaves have no choice and obviously don’t consent, and so a pregnant nun is a rape victim. This move was clever! Clever, but not original. It seems quite fitting that the mighty…

…Saint David of Wales was the…

Was the son of a nun named Non. Say that ten times fast! But there’s the old problem…a nun with a child. So how was this explained? Yes, Nun Non was raped. But if we follow the claim made by Pope Francis, nuns can be pregnant, but not because they broke their vows, or because of some magical event. So pregnant nuns can remain chaste nuns.  Are there a lot of nuns who suffer this fate?

Whatever. I suppose we could call him…Pope Nope. But if babies mysteriously appear in a nun’s womb…

…call upon Saint Brigid, who started out as…

…the Celtic goddess…Brigit, both of whom kept the Sacred Fire burning. But why should a pregnant nun call upon Brigid?

 A certain woman who had taken the vow of chastity fell, through youthful desire of pleasure, and her womb swelled with child. Brigid, exercising the most potent strength of her ineffable grace, blessed her, causing the child to disappear, without coming to birth, and without pain. She faithfully returned the woman to health and penance.

I asked Francis about this, and he said…

At the risk of being offensive, if I’m not already, I would like to point out that this has been more of a sociological study of western culture’s view of nuns…orthodox, and not so orthodox. And things have even gone so far off the rails that not only a monk, but also a…

…a nun could be the Devil in Disguise. But beware of hypocrisy! There are important nuns in the Catholic tradition that went a long way to sexualize themselves. We all know about…

…yes! The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila. This amazing scene is in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. The center piece is one famous statue indeed…

The scene features a swooning Saint Teresa about to be pieced by a spear thrust into her by an angel. That seems like a mean thing for an angel to do. But in this case, Saint Teresa really liked it…

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual, though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.

I don’t think that this piercing and thrusting and wonderful, sweet pain needs much commentary…

The church is very beautiful, but it would seem to draw a connection between sexual ecstasy and death…

…this is engraved into the floor of the Cornaro Chapel within the church. It also features…

…Saint Victoria who, along with her sister Anatolia…

…were First Century converts to Christianity. The story follows a well-worn motif. The Christian women were betrothed to local pagan dignitaries with Roman names, but decide not to go through with marriage, both having devoted themselves to God. The two were originally imprisoned in the hopes that they would renounce their faith. A series of magical, miraculous events then occurred, such as Anatolia living carefree alongside a poisonous snake that was tossed into her room. Anatolia was murdered first, at the hands of Titus Aurelius. Then Eugenius finally gave in and stabbed Victoria to death. Yes, this was a very different kind of stabbing than the one St. Teresa enjoyed so much. St Victoria did one better than her sister’s snake…she drove away a dragon that had been terrorizing the locals. Now for a close-up…

This is a wax mannequin of Saint Victoria, which supposedly contains part of her original skeleton. And you can see her very own bones if you look carefully…

And imagery associated with Victoria did indeed portray her as a pretty good-looking kid…

And she clearly was a pretty and fashionable lady, at least in death. The mannequin is meant to highlight her beauty. However, as strangely at odds it seems to be with the experience of Teresa, a rival claim is made as far as Victoria’s relics are concerned. In this case, Victoria loses a bit of her beauty…

…her head is supposedly being held in the Ittingen museum in Switzerland.  I will admit that I was thrilled to find another very creepy head reliquary for my collection! Still, the mix of ecstasy, death, and violence is inherit to the overall context…

…and is a heady mix indeed. It seems odd that some Christians denounce the sex and violence found in modern, western entertainment. In reality, one will find it embedded in elements of their own religion…and put prominently on display.

Indulge me for a while as I discuss a case that we all know so well…

…Yes, Saint Catherine of Siena. She claimed that she married Jesus Christ. Mystically? The lines may somewhat blur…

To blur the lines even more, the iconography depicts Catherine marrying Jesus when he, and sometimes herself, were… well…children…

And sometimes, the imagery is downright disturbing…

Perhaps Saint Teresa the Alchemist finally achieved what others hadn’t…making her own homunculus. In a previous essay I discussed weird relics…such as the Holy Prepuce…the foreskin of Jesus after he was circumcised. Of all the weird relics, this one is the most disturbing. But St. Catherine took it even further than this. Picking out a wedding ring can be a challenging task, and that was never more true than in Teresa’s marriage…her betrothed picked a strange wedding ring for her…a ring made out of his foreskin.

It is hard to reach any other conclusion that there are clear sexual undertones associated with St. Teresa and her marriage to Christ, complete with a penile-type wedding ring. She wasn’t cut out for celibacy, and her sexual impulses were channeled toward Jesus…making it ok? I beg to differ. And it’s strange that Jesus can’t marry Mary Magdalene because of the implications, but he can marry St. Teresa and give her his foreskin as a wedding ring?

As I’ve noted elsewhere, the sexual undertones become clear zenith-type overtones, when we get to…

…Agnes Blannbekin, popularly regarded as a saint, although Rome never canonized her, and here’s why…

Crying and with compassion, she began to think about the foreskin of Christ, where it may be located after the Resurrection. And behold, soon she felt with the greatest sweetness on her tongue a little piece of skin alike the skin in an egg, which she swallowed. After she had swallowed it, she again felt the little skin on her tongue with sweetness as before, and again she swallowed it. And this happened to her about a hundred times. And when she felt it so frequently, she was tempted to touch it with her finger. And when she wanted to do so, that little skin went down her throat on its own.

She swallowed Christ’s foreskin about a hundred times?

Agnes preceded Teresa of Avila, who, at least, toned this down to a lesser degree of creepiness.

And so I have run out of time…or pretty close to it, certainly as my Beyond-The-Pale-Essay goes. It was, indeed, more controversial than any I have published before. The purpose of this essay was to explore the sociology of the perception of nuns, modern and not so modern. But even those categories of nuns that one is inclined to look upon with horror, clearly show that nuns, of whatever kind, have a grasp on the modern, western world. Nuns serve in ways that Christendom simply can’t do without. They make a sacrifice to God that few of us could. And they stand closer to God than we ever will. Yet they are women just the same. I feel it necessary, in ending this essay, to show the kind of nuns that I like best…