a role for themselves in the church. I can see now why Shannon was attracted to them. Beyond their saintly virtues, these were smart, articulate, confident women, who suffered greatly yet drew upon superhuman strength. In 1970, when Shannon was twelve, they became the first two women to be named Doctors of the Church, so honored for their extraordinary writings. In the same way that a teenage boy might live vicariously through comic-book characters, Shannon drew inspiration from these female saints.
Saint Catherine was bold. She spoke her mind. She led a life filled with adventure. Her impassioned voice can still be heard in her published letters and the celebrated mystical work
The Dialogue of Saint Catherine,
a transcript of a five-day rapture. What intrigues me most about this writing, and what I imagine comforted my sister, was Catherine’s unflinching embrace of blood. It suffused her work. She saw blood as glorious, God’s great gift to humanity through the sacrifice of His only son. But more so, she saw the souls of the faithful as blessedly drenched in it—bathing in it, even drowning in blood: “A man can possess the whole world and not be satisfied . . . until blood satisfies him.” Her imagery could be sensuous and unabashed. In a vision Catherine later recounted to her confessor and biographer, Christ offered her the reward of drinking straight from the crucifixion wound at his side: She placed her lips “over the most holy wound, and long and eagerly and abundantly drank that indescribable and unfathomable liquid. Finally, at a sign from the Lord, she detached herself from the fountain, sated and yet at the same time still longing for more.”
DESPITE THE CATHOLICISM IN OUR HOME, MY PARENTS GAVE EACH of us the option of attending public or private high school. As had older sister Ellen, Shannon chose Marycliff Academy, a small, all-girls Catholic school. When it closed in 1975 for lack of students, she transferred as a junior to Gonzaga Prep, the big coed Catholic school I was just entering. Though housed in the same building, the freshman and junior classes seemed to exist in separate counties. I was excited to finally be in high school, eager for weekend keggers, dances, football games. Most Friday nights Shannon could be found at home in her room, playing the guitar or doing needlework. I remember seeing her drift through Gonzaga’s packed hallways. Her deep spirituality gave her an otherworldliness that made her seem woefully disconnected, like a girl suspended between heaven and earth.
A simple fact of human biology is that blood travels to the body’s farthest extremes but always returns to the heart. So, too, with kin. Shannon’s life and my life converged at the same spot in 1983, a pivotal year for both of us. I’d just moved to Seattle, having meandered through four years at Santa Clara University in California; she’d been living there since graduating from a small private college in Montana, where she had studied the one subject at which she’d always excelled, religion. We lived directly across the street from each other on Queen Anne Hill. Shannon and I saw each other often, sharing meals, going to movies, yet we could not possibly have been headed in more opposite directions. Unbeknownst to her or any other family member, I was coming out, dating men for the first time. At the same time, Shannon was following Saint Teresa’s example, taking the first steps in becoming a novitiate of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, the cloistered order Teresa had founded in the mid-1500s. (
Discalced
means “barefoot,” a defining aspect of their asceticism.) At age twenty-five Shannon was preparing to leave society, while, at twenty-three, I was finally emerging into it.
Our apartments reflected this divergence. Her studio was as Spartan as a monk’s cell, merely a bed and a table with a single place setting. As is the prerogative of little brothers, I poked fun: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
Saint Catherine was bold. She spoke her mind. She led a life filled with adventure. Her impassioned voice can still be heard in her published letters and the celebrated mystical work
The Dialogue of Saint Catherine,
a transcript of a five-day rapture. What intrigues me most about this writing, and what I imagine comforted my sister, was Catherine’s unflinching embrace of blood. It suffused her work. She saw blood as glorious, God’s great gift to humanity through the sacrifice of His only son. But more so, she saw the souls of the faithful as blessedly drenched in it—bathing in it, even drowning in blood: “A man can possess the whole world and not be satisfied . . . until blood satisfies him.” Her imagery could be sensuous and unabashed. In a vision Catherine later recounted to her confessor and biographer, Christ offered her the reward of drinking straight from the crucifixion wound at his side: She placed her lips “over the most holy wound, and long and eagerly and abundantly drank that indescribable and unfathomable liquid. Finally, at a sign from the Lord, she detached herself from the fountain, sated and yet at the same time still longing for more.”
DESPITE THE CATHOLICISM IN OUR HOME, MY PARENTS GAVE EACH of us the option of attending public or private high school. As had older sister Ellen, Shannon chose Marycliff Academy, a small, all-girls Catholic school. When it closed in 1975 for lack of students, she transferred as a junior to Gonzaga Prep, the big coed Catholic school I was just entering. Though housed in the same building, the freshman and junior classes seemed to exist in separate counties. I was excited to finally be in high school, eager for weekend keggers, dances, football games. Most Friday nights Shannon could be found at home in her room, playing the guitar or doing needlework. I remember seeing her drift through Gonzaga’s packed hallways. Her deep spirituality gave her an otherworldliness that made her seem woefully disconnected, like a girl suspended between heaven and earth.
A simple fact of human biology is that blood travels to the body’s farthest extremes but always returns to the heart. So, too, with kin. Shannon’s life and my life converged at the same spot in 1983, a pivotal year for both of us. I’d just moved to Seattle, having meandered through four years at Santa Clara University in California; she’d been living there since graduating from a small private college in Montana, where she had studied the one subject at which she’d always excelled, religion. We lived directly across the street from each other on Queen Anne Hill. Shannon and I saw each other often, sharing meals, going to movies, yet we could not possibly have been headed in more opposite directions. Unbeknownst to her or any other family member, I was coming out, dating men for the first time. At the same time, Shannon was following Saint Teresa’s example, taking the first steps in becoming a novitiate of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, the cloistered order Teresa had founded in the mid-1500s. (
Discalced
means “barefoot,” a defining aspect of their asceticism.) At age twenty-five Shannon was preparing to leave society, while, at twenty-three, I was finally emerging into it.
Our apartments reflected this divergence. Her studio was as Spartan as a monk’s cell, merely a bed and a table with a single place setting. As is the prerogative of little brothers, I poked fun: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
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