The Ghosts of St. Thecla's

Well, in my earlier post I mentioned strange legends surrounding our place. We had been having so many experiences of prowlers. The most serious was a case of arson in which the small guest house on the property was torched. All that remains is a bit of foundation. Thankfully, no one was staying there at the time. Most of the escapades involve high-schoolers daring each other to run up to touch the front door or egg the windows, kids coming onto the front lawn and knocking over the lovely statue of Our Lady that had literally graced the place since this location was the Maryknoll novitiate (we finally removed the statue to spare it further desecration), and once two of the sisters even caught some young adults who had clambered over a small roof into our courtyard! Turns out they were all motivated by St. Thecla's reputation as...a haunted house. Yep. It is even listed in New England guidebooks to haunted houses. The haunted retreat house. Creepy.

Not that we haven't taken advantage of that when under attack! One sister on retreat "spooked" a group of teens whom she spied tip-toeing to the front door in the middle of the night by quietly opening her window and giving a rough, indeterminate yell. The kids high-tailed it back to their waiting cars. The next morning, their abandoned beer cans (the brew of choice over here is Bud) were the only sign that our privacy had been invaded.

Anyway, as far as we've been able to determine, the legend is that our retreat house is haunted by nuns who were either murdered or committed suicide by hanging from the trees. As a sign of the nefarious doings, the cross in the bell tower was crooked, so maybe one of the suicides was from the bell tower. Just to dispel all that in one fell swoop, none of our sisters has ever died here, and the bell tower dates only to 1979. However, the Italian sisters were accustomed to hang their habits from the trees to dry them in the old days--meaning in the 60's when we first got the property and most of our sisters were Italian missionaries who had grown up on the farms. So there were habits dangling lifelessly from the trees, yes, but nobody in them. And if the cross was crooked (it has been fixed--and gilded), that can be attributed to... the contractor.

Anyway, the legends presume that this monastic-style building is of ancient vintage, but the fact is that when the Italian sisters were there washing their habits in outdoor metal tubs, we didn't even have this building, but used a Colonial-era farmhouse, of which one part still remains on the property. Our retreat "cells" were really the stalls of the large Colonial barn! (Yes, I remember it well.) The old place was torn down the year I made first vows, so even my family remembers it. Shortly before that auspicious event, our novitiate group made our solemn eight-day retreat there. The last day we had a cookout, and I offered a song I had made, to the tune of our "Hymn to St. Thecla" (more about her some other day). Among the verses: We have a re-treat house, in Bill-er-i-i-ca. It's called St. Thecla's. We love it so-o-o-o-o. We've had it for many years. It's about---to---go!" and then the refrain, "Good old St. Thecla's. Bugs and dead trees. We'll be glad -- when you get rid -- of some of these."  In other words, any ghosts around the place are the shades of a thousand spiders, and maybe a few ghostly pigeons and chipmunks who got into the plumbing. (I had a special refrain for the plumbing: "Good old St. Thecla's. Broken plumbing. We'll be glad -- when you get new -- facilities.")

Well, now it's time to put away the ghost stories and prepare for the HOLY Ghost in retreat! We just finished a three day workshop on Ignatian discernment of spirits as an extra help for attention to the Lord during the next eight days, beginning tomorrow at 5:00. One more short workshop tomorrow morning and then it's Jesus time. Please keep me in prayer!