Two Simple Rules: How a Texas Nun Taught Me to Stay Calm in a Crisis
A lesson from years ago offers guidance in this troubled time of the Covid-19 virus pandemic.
“You’re stressed,” Andrea said, as we were closing up the house for the night. “No, no,” I replied, but then instantly I knew she was right.
Yes: I had been feeling tense, and uncomfortable earlier in the evening, but at the time I had dismissed it. The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has kept us home for a full four weeks, and while we have not been greatly inconvenienced — we are retired and at home most of the time anyway — it’s still been a powerful, darkening force in our lives, as I’m sure it is with almost everyone.
Just listening to the news, seeing the films out of the crowded hospitals, hearing testimonies about the shortage of supplies and suffering patients — it has to take a toll on our equilibrium and our sense of safety and resilience.
Somehow, this feeling triggered a memory of long ago, of a lesson I learned in just a brief moment that has stayed with me for decades. And in moments of crisis, this simple, elegant lesson has helped me realize how to proceed when everything seemed disrupted and everyone was confused. It’s a lesson I learned in a religious context, but I believe the message is for everyone regardless of faith or creed; it’s just human awareness and understanding.
It happened when I was in the sixth grade, living in Dallas, TX, where I attended Christ the King elementary school on Preston Road. It was a successful school in a nice part of Dallas, and we all attended class in our official school uniforms: girls wore blue skirts and white blouses with jackets, and boys wore tan slacks with brown and white checkered short-sleeved shirts. Classes were large, but well organized and we learned our lessons well.
We were taught by Ursuline Bernardine Sisters, nuns wearing long black habits and white veils, who devoted their lives to helping the poor and teaching children, including those from middle class families like ours.
I don’t remember a lot about those classes or the teachers, but this one incident which has remained in my memory because of the impact it had on my personal development, my outlook on life, and my approach to life’s challenges.
A Discussion on the Nature of Sin
It was in the Spring, a classroom discussion about the nature of *sin* — that Catholic notion of wrongs that have serious consequences for a person’s life, and even more importantly, for one’s soul after death. We were eleven or twelve years old, mature enough to understand notions of right and wrong, justice and mercy. But the Catholic church, at least in those days, had definitions for sin and directives for avoiding it that were complex and confusing, and even overwhelming.
First, there’s mortal sin, the most severe and which separates the sinner from God, which includes obvious crimes like murder and rape, but things like divorce, and issues of sexuality that are of vital interest to an adolescent. We weren’t even taught the terms related to sex, so our teacher struggled to explain what she was talking about without being able to properly describe it or even call it by name.
But this was important: the consequences of mortal sin are separation from God, condemnation to Hell for eternity — this was serious stuff! And a mortal sin can only be expiated by a priest in Confession.
Then there was “venal” sin, a lesser offense that does not separate the sinner from God, but still requires confession to remove the stain from your soul. Add to that the specific meaning of “contrition,” and original sin, and a twelve-year-old is likely to tune out in frustration. We bombarded her with questions, which she struggled to answer, and then tried to catch her in logical traps of which twelve-year-olds are masters.
Our teacher — I think her name was sister Mary Augusta — was trying to answer our questions, and teach us these concepts in ways that made sense and gave us guidance. But it wasn’t working: we were confused and resentful of things that seemed not to make sense.
Outside, the weather was warming, the flowers blooming, birds singing, and we students were quickly growing weary of medieval notions of morality that seemed disconnected from our lives. We wanted to be outside playing and enjoying the sunshine; this was not fun.
At some point, we began arguing that sins related to sex should not be mortal, but venal; again, it was difficult to comprehend things that we still didn’t understand even at the most basic level. But we persisted and kept getting frustrated.
I’ll never forget how Sister Mary Augusta finally paused, and then said, “Wait, I’m going to make this very simple. There are only two sins, and if you remember these, you won’t have to learn or remember anything else.”
We sat up and paid attention: Only two concepts to learn? We could do that!
The First Sin: Presumption
“The first sin,” she said, “is presumption.” OK, now we are again exposed to a long complex Latin-sounding term that we didn’t really understand. “I can explain it simply,” she said. “When you do something wrong — you know it’s wrong but know you God will forgive you, and you do it anyway — that is presumption.”
To be truly forgiven, you must feel contrition, regret, sorrow deep in your heart, knowing you have broken God’s law and endangered your soul. You must be truly sorry and feel the desire never to sin again. She added, “If you just assume God will forgive you, and so you can sin all you like, then ask for forgiveness on your death bed and be saved — that’s a sin.”
I wish I could see a picture of our 12-year-old faces as we stared at the nun, simplifying all this theological complexity into a couple of simple concepts. We didn’t quite get it yet, so like typical adolescents, we decided to move on to the next topic, hoping it would make more sense.
We asked, “What’s the second sin?”
The Second Sin: Despair
“The second sin,” said Sister Mary Augusta, “is despair.” We all pretty much knew what that meant, but she spelled it out for us in Catholic terms: “Despair is when you sin and believe God will never forgive you. God will always forgive you if you are truly sorry. So you must never despair of his forgiveness; to do so it the other sin; it’s despair.”
With that, we all sort of sat back and sighed. So, believing God would *not* forgive a sin is itself a sin! That was a bit tougher to grasp, but we all seemed to feel we could live with it.
Someone asked, “Is that really it — just two sins?” Sister Mary replied, “That’s it guys, two sins. Keep away from presumption and despair, and you will have nothing to worry about in the eyes of God.”
In essence, it’s about having the trust to believe that no matter what happens, how bad things may seem, there is still room for hope — a belief that we can rise about the crisis, find solutions, and restore some degree of normalcy after a period of disruption and crisis. And for faith: an acceptance of some greater power, some wisdom or divine force that moves unseen in our lives but guides us, but only if we let it.
How These Simple Concepts Can Help Us Today
Today, as we deal with an medical crisis unprecedented in over a century, we are constantly bombarded with news items, headlines, reports, updates, blogs, interviews, podcasts, twitter storms and more concerning the illness, its causes, symptoms, treatment, rate of increase, mortality rate, international distribution … and it’s overwhelming. Our minds and hearts were never designed for this kind of information overload, so charged with danger, threat, confusion and uncertainty.
Unlike people in emergencies like war, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or earthquakes, there are no external signs of the virus — everything is internalized and invisible. There are only outward signs of empty streets, stores and schools, crowded hospitals, frantic medical staff fighting desperately to save lives and avoid infection.
It seems to me that as this pandemic continues, it might be tempting to give up and surrender to the crisis. Either: quit trying to protect ourselves, quit shielding others, and let fate take its course, hoping we’ll escape unharmed if we just continue to live our normal lives. Or else abandon hope, like someone entering Dante’s Inferno and live in the loss of all hope, accepting a near certainty that we’ll fall ill and possibly die.
Both behaviors are tempting and are real; I can see the doubt and fear in the faces of friends and family, and I hear it and see it on the news each day as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc and take lives.
But we know both options are wrong, because they are those two essential sins: presumption and despair. No one can say for certain what will happen, regardless of the precautions we take. But taking *no* precautions means taking risks that could be far more damaging than we realize, not only for us, but for those around us. It’s a kind of presumption that we are not entitled to allow ourselves.
And surrendering all hope — from the hope that we’ll soon find a vaccine, or treatment, or even a cure — is equally wrong; it’s despair, a way of giving up instead of struggling for the best possible outcome. And abandoning faith leaves us with no one to trust but ourselves, and we are all too aware of our own limitations. I don’t know if this simple notion is of use to others in this day and at this time. But when I remember that black-clad nun simplifying the rules of faith in our classroom, it all seems so easy and achievable. We just have to do what we know is right.
Of course, we won’t all agree, on what to do or how to react, how to save lives and reduce the danger; but that’s probably not the biggest stumbling block that we face. We will make mistakes, we may even lose loved ones; but we must continue to work to advance our understanding and protect ourselves and others, in whatever form that takes for each of us.
In the early years of World War II, the poet T.S. Eliot wrote his magnificent Four Quartets, which address the issues of failed efforts, of loss, of questioning one’s achievements and one’s faith, all during a time of crisis. He speaks with the perspective of someone who has tried and failed and suffered despair, but then found the strength to continue. Eliot wrote:
“In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. …
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
— East Coker, V., the Four Quartets
What I believe Eliot is telling us is that we must carry on and do what we can, to keep our faith and our hope, help others and not fall victim to either presumption or despair. Surrender is simply not an option.
Like the poet, we must keep trying, knowing that the outcome — the “rest” — is not for us to determine. It is not our business. And for me, that’s a relief, for it lets us continue doing what we must without too much concern about the outcome.
Here’s wishing you all good health and a brighter tomorrow — in memory of Sister Mary Augusta.
