"My Body Is Pain Wracked From Stone Floors!!!"

                                     "What do you know of suffering?  In all our sacred history,
                                         the chosen ones have always been those who've suffered.
                                        Why, then, should God choose you?  Why not me?  I know
                                           what it is to suffer!  Look at my eyes!  They burn like the
                                          very fires of Hell.  Why?  Because they need sleep, they
                                             need rest, which I will not give them.  My throat is parched
                                           from constant prayer.  My hands are gnarled from serving
                                              God in humiliation.  My body is pain wracked from stone
                                            floors!  Yes, I have suffered, because I know it is the only
                                                true road to Heaven.  And if I, who have tortured myself,
                                              cannot glimpse the Blessed Virgin, how can you, who have
                                                  never felt pain, dare to say you've seen her?"
                                                      ----Gladys Cooper as Sister Marie Therese Vazous
                                                               in "The Song Of Bernadette" (1943)


                   Can you believe, it girls,  we have made it to another Good Friday?  On this day of
penitence, sorrow and, yes, suffering, I can think of no better citation than the above.  I mean, talk
about suffering!  Think of being poor Bernadette, and having to listen to this self-righteous, posturing
nonsense?   But no one delivered it better than Gladys Cooper in her Oscar nominated performance
in "The Song Of Bernadette."

                      Darlings, that Sister Vazous was a piece of work.  Encased in that habit and wimple
covering every inch of her, with a face so patrician and ugly (not to mention chin hairs) she was a
true Bride Of Christ--because who the Hell else would marry her????   You may wonder why I
have never named her Bitch Of The Week; she certainly earns it for this film, but she goes beyond
that to win the coveted title of Archetypal Catholic Nun Of All Time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                        Back in the days when nuns were nuns--before they went habit-less, or dared
to don habits that showed they had hair, or raise their skirts to demonstrate they had--gasp!-legs--
this was how nuns operated.  Scary, huh???????   Yet, it is interesting, because, for all that "The
Song Of Bernadette" crams Catholicism 101 into every second of its 156 minutes, Cooper's
performance reveals something about the fallacies of righteous Catholics--like some relatives I
could name--who think that all the breast beating and pounding their heads against brick walls
in the world is going to net them Greater Glory Afterward, despite vices of racism, homophobia,
jealousy (as in the case of Vazous) and other human failings.  Hell, girls, we all have vices of some
kind, and I for one have never claimed Sainthood like Bernadette.  I mean, just look at poor Janice
Gonnella, who went about for years, acting so Holier Than Thou, till Mamma found a diaphragm
in her dresser drawer.   Things were never the same for Janice, or the Gonnellas, after that!!!!!!!!

                       So, at this Holy Time of Good Friday, let us embrace the Holiness that is in each
and every one of us.  And don't let yourselves be governed by overt righteousness of the Sister
Vazous types. For, let me tell you, once Bernadette hiked up that skirt, and Vazous saw what was
really going on, she changed her tune fast; you better believe it, honey!!!!!! She saw the Light!!!!!!!
And just think if the film had gone to the extremes of the Franz Werfel book. In that volume, there is
an allusion to Vazous' self-imposed suffering by forcing herself to sleep with one eye open, head
turned toward a night table, on which she has placed a most succulent peach, daring to resist
Temptation as it stares her in the face!!!!!!!!!!!!

                         Even Jesus himself would not put up with this crap!!!!!!!!!!  So on Easter, when
you watch it, or the next time you do watch "The Song Of Bernadette"--remember the message
to really take away from it--belief in God, which comes from a belief in yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                           Let us all try (which is all we can do) and follow Bernadette's example!!!!!!!
Even if we cannot all look as stunning as Jennifer Jones!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                              And, girls, MY night table only contains moisturizing cream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!