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Introduction
Hello!
Before I say anything else, I need to tell you that today’s story deals so so much with religion. Specifically, it deals with Catholicism.
I found this story mostly by accident. I didn’t realize the writer was actually living in a convent when she started this journal until I had already read the first translated entry. I could see that it was a very religious person and was already writing it off as something I didn’t even need to finish.
Then it got Queer.
So I’m sharing this story with the major asterisk that this character is Catholic and talks A LOT about Catholicism. This includes many direct bible quotes.
(See endnotes for information about King James, of the King James Bible)
(And a link to information about lesbian nuns and gay priests)
My publishing of this story is not an endorsement of the Catholic Church. It is meant to show another way a queer person has existed in history. This person’s religious journey is entangled with their queer journey.
If reading something with multiple bible quotes by a person who belongs to the Catholic church is not for you, then please take care of yourself and skip this one. No judgment from me.
That being said, if you do choose to read this, I hope you find something meaningful in these journals.
(Oh, also, this journal is from sometime in the mid 1400s and was translated from Italian. The bible verses were in Latin. They used the New International Version translation of the bible. And because the numbers on the psalms didn’t match up and I got confused, It turns out psalm numbers shifted by one at one point. So the translated psalms use modern numbers, but the original text does not.)
Content Warnings:
- Catholicism
- Direct Bible Quotes
- Authors Note link
Journal
Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Oh gracious and everloving God
My every thought is subject to your knowledge
You know the struggles which I hold my heart
You hear the prayers I say in privacy
Desires which pass from my lips
are known by you before I take breath
What I know of my heart, you must also know.
I pray for respite from this powerful wisdom
I long to unknow my soul
For it is not that of a brother, but a sister
I have said my prayers
Yet, my knowledge remains steadfast and firm
Are my prayers to be unanswered?
The Son says what we ask shall be received?
I ask for this knowledge to be taken from me
I pray my soul becomes as my brothers
Again and again
I lift my voice in words you hear.
I hurt, and you know my pain.
As the persistent widow of the Gospel of Luke, I shall persist
I pray again for relief from pain or clarity of your path and your divine design
Amen
Psalm 139
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
In a new day, I feel your love
Your answer to my prayers and my turmoil
Oh Lord, you who made me as I am
You knew me before my first breath
As I was created in her womb
Crafted carefully by your hands
My mother knew not if I was son or daughter
But you knew even then
Oh all knowing and ever loving God,
If my self was not hidden from your sight as my mother carried me
Then you, who made my body and knew my soul,
Made me as I am.
The poor match of body and soul
May therefore be by your design.
For I am made in your image
I am made by your hands
You formed this path before me
You are the God of Hope
If my path is that of a Brother
I feel no hope
I recall Psalm 16
11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
If my path is that of a brother
There is no fullness of Joy
I trust your word, Oh Lord
Through prayer and meditation
I begin to see my path
A Sister in Christ.
A life devoted to God the Father.
My prayers from the lips of a woman.
I shall be myself to others
As you have always known me.
Oh gracious, all-knowing God
Who formed me and knows me
I ask of you the fortitude to see myself fully
You are the way and the truth, oh God
I pray that you might guide me along this path
I have been lost in myself
Let this new sight not blind me to your will
In Jesus name, I pray
Amen
Psalm 28: 6-7
6 “Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy.
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy and with my song I praise him.”
My Lord, I pray I understand the way you’ve set before me.
It is by your will and in accordance with my prayers that I shall move to the Monastery of Saint Marinos.
You have opened a path for a brother of my monastery to join their religious community.
Though it is expected that a brother lost will be a brother gained,
I know the rumors
The records there are not well kept.
I now see it may have been your plan that I should hear stories
of Brothers who ran unnoticed
of Sisters who appeared unannounced.
Surely this is the path I must take if I want to serve my Lord as a woman.
Surely this is the path I must take if I want to serve my Lord as myself.
I now see it may have been your plan that I should hear stories
of Brothers who ran unnoticed
of Sisters who appeared unannounced.
Surely this is the path I must take if I want to serve my Lord as a woman.
Surely this is the path I must take if I want to serve my Lord as myself.
If it is not the way you’d have me take, please guide Brother Edwy to choose another for this movement.
I have pledged you my obedience.
No matter the personal cost or reward, I shall obey thy will.
As your one and only Son said on the eve of his death,
“Let not my will, but Yours be done”
In his name I pray,
Amen
Psalm 66
1 Shout for joy to God, all the earth!
2 Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious.
19 But surely God has listened to and has heard my prayer.
20 Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!
My Lord, I praise you and thank you.
My mind is filled with the bountiful answer to my prayers
I have found it a spiritual challenge to kneel in prayer for anything but gratitude to you my Lord
I sing Thanks Be To God!
For I was welcomed into this new convent with grace and kindness.
There is no doubt in who I am.
I give you thanks that those who believe in your truth believe in mine as well.
My truth, as Sister Agnus, is now aligned with your path – your truth for me
I exalt your guidance, which brought me here.
It is through trust in you that I complete my days.
I was not trained in a convent – but a monastery.
There are rituals which overlap, but there are differences as well.
In these moments, I turn to you, and you answer me.
You guide me through the dark and into the brilliant sunlight.
I thank you, Lord, with all that I am,
I thank You
Amen
I have begun to study the stories of your daughters Oh Lord
In my research, I find sisterhood
I see beyond my desire to be as they are –
A want which I only now know how to name –
I see myself and my story in these women
1 Samuel 1
26 and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord.
27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.
28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.”
As Hannah before me, I prayed
We prayed to you through doubt
A private mantra – a conversation between ourselves and our God
Hannah Prayed for a child
In her dedicated piety she promised the bounty of her prayer to you
I, too, offer what I received from prayer
Myself – as I am – has been dedicated to you
As your ancestor Ruth I left my home
With uncertain future I set my sights on a relationship with god
Ruth received in you a family,
I received the same: a Sisterhood
As the women of the bible,
I give you my all
In your name I pray
Amen
God bless me with strength and peace
Brother Edwy shall visit tomorrow
I pray for your grace and guidance if he should recognize me.
Please grant my brother in Christ your sight and your wisdom.
If it happens that he sees me
Let him see my faith and joy as Sister Agnus
Let him have the wisdom to recognize Sister Agnus as the servant of God he has known before.
Let him see me and know me as you do
In Jesus name, I pray
Amen
My memory of the blessing said over me by Brother Edwy
I bless you in the name of
The Father
The Son
The Holy Ghost
The Blessed Trinity of Identity
God in Three Persons
Lord I did not know the plans you held for Brother Linus when he left the monastery
Nor do I know now what the future holds for Sister Aguns
I put my faith in you to guide her forward
Our shared vocation is built upon a shared personal relationship with the Lord
And supported by a community of God’s children united in one faith, one purpose
I shall neither question the strength of my sisters devotion
nor the community she has made her home
For she is your child and is made righteous in her service unto you
Sister Agnus is a vessel for your good works, Oh God.
Bring her your peace as she walks the path you have laid before her
In your name, I bless her,
May your peace and love be with her always,
Amen
Psalm 62
1 Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.
2 Truly he is my rock and my salvation’ he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
My soul is filled with the peace and love of God
Outroduction
As promised, here are some tangents about the queer history of Catholicism.
Podcast episode about Lesbian Nuns and Gay Priests
To those who skipped to the end notes, your choices are valid, and so are you. I hope to see you next time. I promise it won’t be more religion.
To those who didn’t skip, thank you for reading this story. Despite its messy context, I think it’s still valuable that this story is shared. I hope you agree.
Queer people are everywhere, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
