Trust
One night in the middle of reading Margot Douaihy’s mystery novel Scorched Grace I dreamed about going back to the Roman Catholic Church of my youth. When I woke up, I realized that Sister Holiday was getting into my head.
Sister Holiday Walsh is the main character and narrator of Douaihy’s novel. At thirty-something she only entered the convent about a year before. Though she may have taken vows, she still feels and acts like the topless, lesbian rocker that she was in her previous life. Her mother superior insists that she wear a scarf and gloves to hide her many tattoos, but she still smokes and swears like a sailor. I love her prayers. My favorite, as she heads out to a dangerous situation, “Hail Mary, Holy Ghost, give us a break, for fuck’s sake.”
It takes a long time for the story to come out as to why she entered the convent after such a wild life. No spoilers here. Needless to say, the four-member Sisters of Sublime Blood in New Orleans were the only religious group who would give her a chance. Again, the reason why they did only comes out as part of the solution to who is setting the fires that burn two wings of their school, killing a janitor and one of the nuns.
Sister Therese, the nun who died during the second fire, accepted Sister Holiday with lovingkindness. Sister Honor does not behave like a good Christian towards Sister Holiday, whom she thinks does not belong in the group. Sister Augustine, the mother superior, acts as a buffer between the nuns and the hierarchy, whom Sister Holiday describes as mafiosi. Sister Augustine also goes out of her way to help and protect a troubled teenager, who torments Sister Holiday, and whom many suspect of setting the fires. Sister Holiday has found her calling as a music teacher in St. Sebastian School. When the fires strike, she also sets out to investigate on her own because she doesn’t trust the police to do it right.
For a while I thought that the phrase “irreverent piety” captured Sister Holiday’s spirituality. Like the other sisters, Sister Holiday quotes the Bible chapter and verse, and not all her prayers use four letter words. As she carries a young man out of the burning building in the first fire, she prays “Hail Mary, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, our hope. My third eye.” Pious yes, but I realize now that what she holds on to, is seeking, and struggles with is trust.
Sister Holiday speaks to me as someone who left the Church more than 50 years ago, but who still misses the comfort of a community of trust. I didn’t leave the Church because I’d stopped believing in certain dogmas. That happened long before. Rather, I went looking elsewhere when the loving community didn’t seem to be there anymore. I always remember that when I first started my job as Township Manager in Franklin Township, years later, I did the obligatory appearance at the Sunday service at First Baptist, whose preacher was a leader in the community. The subject of his sermon really spoke to me: a church without Jesus.
In the end it turns out that the person Sister Holiday trusts the most is the one who has set the fires and killed two people. Yet, she closes the story with a beautiful statement of her trust in the power of love.
Unlike many plot-driven mysteries, there is a lot going on inside Scorched Grace. Like its main character, the book is not perfect. It’s been presented as the first of a series of Sister Holiday mysteries. I look forward to reading them.
