Episode 5: A Sense of Humor // Transcript

John Masko:

Sr. Andre is 75 years old and grew up in Minnesota. She considers herself wealthy. Sr. Andre?

Sr. Andre:

Because I had a happy family, I always wanted to get married and have a big family too. And I didn't. Still, I have the feeling that I should be a Sister. But I didn't want to, until I was very, very sure that I experienced what it was, to know somebody who loved me and whom I loved. And I could say, "No." I could make a choice.

John Masko:

So you had fallen in love at that point?

Sr. Andre:

Yes.

Sr. Andre:

Yes. Someone was absolutely perfect for the dream, you know? And yet I remember lying on the dock, down at the lake and there was beautiful music coming from the place up above and everything was beautiful. The sky was. The stars were bright and the music was so glorious. And I just looked up at the sky and I said, "If love is as beautiful as it is, and yet what must God be who created all this?" And I just thought the love of God is so much more. This is just a reflection of God's love and God himself is beauty. And right then, that was the decisive moment. I'd say.

John Masko:

You were with a fellow?

Sr. Andre:

No, I was alone. It was the decisive moment though just to see the beauty of God and say, "No, He's what I want. God, not the...

John Masko:

So it was that thought. If love is this beautiful, the love of God must be the more beautiful?

Sr. Andre:

Because, He created it. If He created love and it's in the beauty of nature, of everything, and that's all just a reflection of His love, then what must His love be?

John Masko:

And you felt that you would approach His love more closely in the Sisters.

Sr. Andre:

By complete dedication, yes. I felt that I just had to spend my life just that way.

John Masko:

If you were going to advance some criteria after being at this for many years, the sorts of things that would tend to make a successful vocation and those that might indicate that someone might be unsuccessful, what would you say? What would those criteria be?

Sr. Andre:

One, sense of humor.

John Masko:

Number one?

Sr. Andre:

Yeah, I think, good balance. Balance is very important.

John Masko:

Emotional balance.

Sr. Andre:

Emotional balance. And if they have psychological problems, there's no chance. Because our life is rather intense and humility is a terribly important thing in our life. To be able to look at yourself, to look deeply at yourself and come to know yourself and to accept yourself with all your foibles, with your weaknesses, and laugh at yourself, and love yourself in the right way.

John Masko:

Why is sense of humor so important?

Sr. Andre:

Because you have to laugh at yourself often enough. You're going to have lots, you're going to make lots of mistakes. And if you're hypersensitive and you can't see the humor in the situation, you're a dead duck. At least you're not the... There's not much chance that you'd be able to weather the difficulties in the humiliations, because you humiliate yourself very often.

John Masko:

What do you mean?

Sr. Andre:

By bloopers.

John Masko:

Can you give me an example or two?

Sr. Andre:

Well, I don't know. You're breaking things and you're bumping into people and you're forgetting things. Just the normal things that you do wrong. Anybody does wrong. But when you're in this life, every little thing becomes terribly important and you think, "Oh, they're going to send me home" or something. You get hypersensitive of things of that sort. And...

John Masko:

You're very... You're living in such close quarters-

Sr. Andre:

That's it.

John Masko:

... with the same people-

Sr. Andre:

That's it.

John Masko:

... each day.

Sr. Andre:

That's it. If you're working with a bunch of people in the world, in an office, you go to a movie at night and you forget all about it. You can just turn on the TV or something and or you can go and hash it off with somebody. Have a talk with somebody, your friends, and just get it all on your system. But here we... The idea is not to do that because you won't grow if you do that. The way that you want to grow-

John Masko:

If you try to escape.

Sr. Andre:

That's it.

John Masko:

You won't grow.

Sr. Andre:

That's it. You can't escape. You want to look at the situation and see, is it something I can laugh at? Is it a humorous situation that I just have to let fall? Or is it... Is it something that I have to correct? Is it something in me that I have to face up to? Am I being an egg? Am I being cross with people? Maybe it's me. And if it is me, then Lord help me. But if it isn't, maybe it's just something I have to laugh at. Maybe I have to learn to love the other person because we're all different.

It's a girl's process. And it's when you're so close together, as you said, we're together 24 hours a day. A day. And there's no going someplace off to, except we do have our hermit day, once a week.

John Masko:

Hermit day?

Sr. Andre:

Hermit day.

John Masko:

And when is that?

Sr. Andre:

We are free. We have mass in the morning and then we're free to go out in the woods if you want and take your lunch out in the woods and eat it. You don't come back until Vespers, which is the evening prayer.

John Masko:

So you might have six or eight hours.

Sr. Andre:

That's it.

John Masko:

Once a week, did you say?

Sr. Andre:

Yes. Well, not now we're in the Christmas rush. But after-

John Masko:

Christmas rush of work.

Sr. Andre:

Candy. 

John Masko:

Candy.

Sr. Andre:

Yeah we’re making candy. So, I should really put a commercial in here.

John Masko:

Go ahead.

Sr. Andre:

For our Trappistine Quality Candy. But anyway, that's what we're doing right now. We're so busy with that, that we don't have the hermit day.

John Masko:

But can you do it together with the other Sisters?

Sr. Andre:

No.

John Masko:

The hermit day?

Sr. Andre:

No. We make hermit day a very much alone day. That's your day to be — to go out and you could snooze, or you can go out in the woods and just be alone. And I spent it in the chapel and choir or just go into the chapel and spend it with the Lord. I spend it reading or whatever you like to do.

John Masko:

You have to stay on the property?

Sr. Andre:

Yes. That's one thing. And we've got a big property. We've got not enormous, but we've got a nice woods where you have real privacy and you can... Except in the hunting season.

John Masko:

Can people traipse through your property?

Sr. Andre:

They do.

John Masko:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Sr. Andre:

They do. They do.

John Masko:

They trespass.

Sr. Andre:

When I hear shots, I don't go out there. That's the deer season.

John Masko:

What's your favorite hermit day activity?

Sr. Andre:

Well, I've changed. I've changed in the last few years. I used to go out, sprint and go out right after mass, take my lunch, and I found there was this nice place out there, kind of a creek. And I'd sit. I had a little kind of an island prepared and I'd sit there and-

John Masko:

Little island?

Sr. Andre:

Yeah, just about this big, behind a tree. I could lean against a tree and read. 

John Masko:

Like your childhood.

Sr. Andre:

And it's not, we wouldn't call it. It's the island, is about this big, just enough to fit me. And that nice water around. Nice and calm and nice. And I sat there one day and five deer came down to wash themselves in the water and I was sitting there so quietly they didn't notice me. And then all of a sudden they noticed, and one looked at me and then he got up and walked away. And one by one, they walked gently away. They're just suspicious. But anyway, it was beautiful to see. But that's what I like to do. I just spend the day, I'd read or I just sit in and appreciate creation. God...

John Masko:

You said that your hermit day had changed.

Sr. Andre:

Yes.

John Masko:

Is that your new form of hermit day?

Sr. Andre:

No, no. That's what I used to do. But I guess maybe I'm getting old. I don't go out in the woods so much anymore. Maybe I'll sit out in the garden or nearby. Oh, and then last year, I've been doing some work at that time. I take charge of the grapes and I worked at the grapes half a day. That's...

John Masko:

I don't know what you mean.

Sr. Andre:

We have a few grapevines.

John Masko:

Oh, do you?

Sr. Andre:

Yes.

John Masko:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Sr. Andre:

But probably about 24. Nobody was taking care of them. And so I volunteered. And so I've been... It's a lot of work to keep them trimmed and to keep the weeds down and everything like that. So I've...

John Masko:

Is this for wine, Sister?

Sr. Andre:

No. It's for eating.

John Masko:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Sr. Andre:

I got about 17 cases of them this year. It's a first time. So, I was very happy about that.

John Masko:

Sister, do you miss the things of the world?

Sr. Andre:

No. No. Somebody asked me once, a little girl was here visiting and she said, "Don't you have TV?" I said, "No." I have too much to fill my life. There's nothing that I could want. People ask me, "What can I send you?" I'm rich. I keep telling that I am the richest person in the world. There's a St. Paul saying: “is having nothing is having everything,” cause everything is mine.

I always have great, great sorrow for the people. Great sympathy for people who have to live in the world today. That have to be, that can never be happy. I think that there's so much against them. I mentioned before brainwashing, I just feel that they're being peppered. Peppered from all science, by TV and news media generally, too evil, too self-seeking, too satisfying needs that they don't really have. Like the advertisements, you've got to have this. You've got to have that. You've got to have the other thing. You don't. You don't need those things. But you, in...

John Masko:

I've got to have the stereo. You've got to have the car. You've got to have the house.

Sr. Andre:

You've got to have this kind of soap. You've got to have this kind of breakfast, food, you've got to everything. And you got to have — the kids, you've got to have this kind of a doll. This is the new, this is the rage and you have to have it. And you have to look — you have to have the kind of clothes that are going to be flashy. I just feel sorry for... I shouldn't say, I don't think of it. I don't really think of it in there. I just, I do. Maybe I do. When I look at the... I'd say, "Oh gee, how can you possibly live in the world today?" I mean, I would find it very hard. It's funny. I can't put it into words. But it's somewhat very, very marvelous and very wonderful feeling too, to know that God can use us. That He can use our voice to reach the whole world. He can use our sufferings to reach the whole world.

And I have to say something very, very deep because it goes very deep in this. The Holy Spirit is one. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is one. The same Holy Spirit in you. The same Holy Spirit in me. The same Holy Spirit in every person on earth. Not a bunch of different spirits. It's one Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit is, by being in that Holy Spirit, I am in you. I am in every person on earth. I am all over the world. I'm not just here. And so when I suffer, if I have any suffering, I am making that suffering in the redemption of Christ. Christ is doing it through me. Also, I feel that the sin in the suffering of the whole world is... The sin of the whole world is mine.

The man who set the bomb in Kansas City a few years ago, and all those crimes that you see, that you hear of, are mine. Because, well, I just... This is one thing that has hit me very strongly lately, is that, I did things when I was out there, cheating, lying. Things that should never have been done. That was-

John Masko:

When you were a child?

Sr. Andre:

... when I was a child. Even when I was working.

John Masko:

A young adult.

Sr. Andre:

As an adult, yeah. I'm working for the telephone company. I did. I worked for AT&T and teletype. And we used to teletype to friends. That was cheating and it could have been very serious because we were doing government work. The government lines were going through our teletype and interrupting serious things by my carelessness. That could have been life and death to somebody. Now, I think with my background, the teaching that I've had in my family, that was serious for me to do that.

These guys, the fellow that went into the McDonald's down in Texas and bumped off a whole bunch of people. He didn't have that background. He didn't. If he had had my training at home, he wouldn't have done that. And look at what the suffering that he had in his family. And he had a background of pain and suffering. And he did that. Mine for me, was just as serious as his was for that. And so I feel that your unmeasured according to what — to my gifts. Not that God is sitting up there measuring me, I don't mean it that way. But this is in my own conscience.

I know that I have been blessed. I have been blessed abundantly. I have been given the greatest gift on earth and being given this life, and I could be off there. I could've done that myself if I had stayed in the world. Because the things that I was doing were serious considering my background. And if I had had a background like others, I would have done things just as serious as they've done. And so I consider that my sins are theirs. Their sins are mine, just as much. 

John Masko:

Just as serious, you mean in the eyes of God.

Sr. Andre:

In the eyes of God. In the eyes and my own conscience, because I have been totally blessed. Blessed by my family, blessed by everything. Blessed by this vocation and everything. I just feel so compassionate towards people who do what is wrong. Compassion towards those people who have done terrible things, because I could have done it myself. But just by His goodness to me and giving me this vocation and giving me the family that He did, I didn't. I just, as I say, I've been so wonderfully blessed. And so I feel a very great compassion for those people. And I also feel that I am with Him. And that I want to bear the suffering of all in the world. Because as I say, there's one spirit, the spirit in somebody in China — the Holy Spirit in somebody in China — is the same Holy Spirit that's in me.

So I'm in Him, I'm over there, and they're in my prayers, my life, when I pray in the chapel, when I sing in the divine office, my voice is there because it's not really the voice that you hear. It's what's being said in your interior. And that's the Holy Spirit speaking. What you hear, one person can hear what you're hearing and he won't hear it at all. You'll hear something entirely different message because the Holy Spirit is saying something to you. Does that make sense? You don't know the Holy Spirit?

John Masko:

Well. It is very deep. These are profound ideas. Poetic ideas to me. To you...

Sr. Andre:

They're real.

John Masko:

... they're real.

Sr. Andre:

They're real.

John Masko:

Yeah. Good humor and emotional balance as leading criteria for a successful monastic life. Most folks, including myself in prior times would have said that emotional imbalance was called for here. After all, how else could you survive in the same place with the same people for 40 years? And as if that's not trial enough, you have to endure it without liberty to watch the Super Bowl on big-screen TV or sip the latest, greatest cabernet from Napa.