Eva Mendes Just Not Nun Material

The sisterhood of the traveling wimple dodged a bullet when Cuban-American actress/bombshell Eva Mendes (Ghost Rider, 2 Fast 2 Furious) decided not to become a nun. The problem: not enough pay.

In an interview in the Kahleej Times (where I get all my news) Mendes said:

What were your dreams as a child?
I wanted to become a nun. I'm not kidding. My sister told me: “You know Eva, nuns don't get paid.” And I said: “Forget it!” I've always wanted a better life financially and was probably around ten years old when I came to that conclusion. I think I would have eventually said no to the nunnery, but that was definitely one of my ambitions as a child.

See, God does have a plan.

Little Known Facts

During the creation of Growing Up Catholic, Nuns Having Fun (both the calendars and the NEW book) frequently a semi-funny comment during brainstorming sessions was greeted by co-writers with the phrase, "How ironic!" What made this funny was the comment was never IRONIC at all! But now let us introduce you to The Ironic Catholic. This is funny stuff and who would have thought Catholics (other than Joe Biden of course) could be this funny.

Embracing Your Cultural Catholic

There is a new game (or do they call it a meme?) where we, the great unwashed, "google" ourselves to see what our connectivity and importance in the world is. Tosh. Everyone is important. But I noticed whenever I googled things about being catholic one site kept coming up which seemed to explain it all to us. The Cultural Catholic.

One of the reasons that Growing Up Catholic and Nuns Having Fun (books and the heavenly CALENDAR) have had such a great reception, is the shared culture of having participated in the Catholic faith in many different ways. Indeed the pre and post Vatican II view of the world sometimes seperates us but we are brought back together by not just nostalgia but shared beliefs.

The icing on the cake or the insense in the censor, was this nice correspondence with the webmaster of Cultural Catholic, Sharon:

Thanks for bringing this brand to the Catholic public. My late brother, a product of New York City Catholic grammar and high schools during the time period of the calender, had the Nuns Having Fun calendar hanging in his downtown Manhattan insurance company office where it garnered much attention. My brother would say, "The nuns are having fun in my office!"

Nun Stories

For me it was a nun in high school who inspired a love of good books and even the scribbling I did in Growing Up Catholic. I still have a note from that Sister congratulating us on making the bestseller list. I remember the exact moment I got "it" about what was great and lasting in books and plays. We were reading The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene and Sister's thoughtful teaching of that book let me know there was a lot more going on than I had first thought.

There is a nice article about the First Folio Theatre in Chicago and the artistic director of that fine theatre who had a similar experience:

Alison traces her own love of theatre and Shakespeare back to grade school, where an intuitive nun had her students reading Shakespeare out loud in class. "We took turns reading ‘Romeo and Juliet' out loud and I found that I naturally loved the rhythm, it made sense to me spoken out loud. Then in college I had a professor who almost killed it for me."

Read more about The First Folio Theatre here.

Feel free to leave your own nun stories in the Comments.

Nuns Having Fun Is Good Clean Fun!

No! That is not the Nuns Having Fun Calendar or Growing Up Catholic book or any of our fun looks at Catholic humor. We only do it with good clean fun!