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next Sister Wendy, the art nun, on the TV. I've never seen her before; Duff's never even heard of her. I am interested, but walk away. He is transfixed. Afterward, he says she was talking about St. Thomas Aquinas. "Thomas Aquinas?" I say. "The philosopher?" He says yeah. I'm stuck, trying to figure out how Aquinas popped up in her discussion. I am dredging my memory for clues. The last time I listened, she was talking about St. George and the dragon. Now that I can see. Then he tells me about how King George murdered Thomas Aquinas in the cathedral at Canterbury. I stare at him, dredging. "That was Thomas à Becket, not Thomas Aquinas," I say. "Thomas à Becket, Thomas Aquinas, whatever---what I can't believe is that I've never heard of it before!" He is right to feel cheated. He reads history, he ought to know. Meanwhile, I am only interested in the mundane. How did Sister Wendy get to be called that? I wonder. I thought nuns took a different name when they became nuns. You know, holy names. Do you suppose her name was Benedicta or Mary Frances before? prev archive next 0 comments random |