by Marina Gross-Hoy

Marina Gross-Hoy, *Église Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes*, digital photograph, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.

Sister

Marina Gross-Hoy | AUG 2023 | Issue 26

Mother Mary is my sister.

Shocking to say, but she’s the one who said it.

She looked down at me from the stained glass window during a mass at Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes, her lap full of a baby boy the same size as mine, and she called me sister.

I had not intended to go to a service. The church had been empty when I came in, its calcified quiet magnified by the contrast with the city outside. I had sat completely still on a hard wooden chair, my palms up on my knees, breathing one word in and out, help, help, help.

Just as I had been wondering if I should stay or get up to keep walking down rue de Vaugirard, an elderly woman wrapped in a smart down jacket came over to me and asked if I could do one of the readings in the mass.

Oui, mais… je suis anglophone et j’ai un accent. Yes, but…

I knew an American accent was a poor excuse for not speaking, but it was the easiest way to explain my otherness. What I had meant to say was that lately my worship had been taking place in the church of the forest, where I whispered psalms of lament into the wind and took communion by touching the trunks of oak trees. Blaming my accent felt more socially acceptable.

Ah mais j’adore les accents. Ce n’est pas un problème.

This woman adored accents, I was not a problem. She showed me the passage I would read, then receded into the group of parishioners who had surreptitiously emerged.

I settled back on my chair for the mass, an unexpected Saturday evening ritual that had invited me to itself. That was when I looked up at that window, at Mother Mary holding her child, and she spoke to me.

Look at us, sister. Look at us pouring care into these beautiful little babies. Look at us opening ourselves up to the aliveness who crashes in and tells us not to be afraid. I see you, sister; your body holds holiness, too.

And then the warmth of sister sat down beside me, inviting me to lean my weight against her softness. I tilted my body over towards the chair next to me that looked empty but felt like release. I let myself be held, even though belonging was still a mystery I was only on the edge of exploring.

The mass ended, and the elderly parishioners evaporated into the night as quickly as they’d come in, as if it had all been a play and the curtain was down. I stepped out of the church through big wooden doors, the priest closing them behind me.

I stood on the dark sidewalk, unsure of what had just happened, only knowing that when I had wondered if I should stay or if I should go, a voice had answered, inviting me to participate.

Marina Gross-Hoy is a Museum Studies PhD candidate and writer based in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. She holds degrees from the École du Louvre in Paris and the University of Michigan. She writes about playing with new ways of paying attention to lived experience. Her newsletter "The Museum Gaze" explores how observing our lives with the same careful gaze we use in museums can open us up to wonder, compassion, and empowerment.