Have You Eaten?
Some fragmented thoughts on the life and work of a faithful Catholic advocate for justice and the odd, beloved concoction known as strawberry-pretzel salad
Thursday, July 28
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Hello, friendly reader.
As I’ve mentioned before, my people traditionally greet one another by asking, “Have you eaten?” The idiom is a way of expressing care and gently inquiring about a person’s well-being. Its literal translation is actually, “Have you eaten rice yet?”
Today I’m launching a series of occasional Q&As entitled “Have You Eaten?” Every so often, I’ll introduce you to someone I admire who is doing good work in the world—someone I consider a hopemonger.
First up: Sister Jeannine Gramick. For the past fifty years, Sister Jeannine has been cultivating welcome and extending care to LGBTQ+ Catholics—a costly labor of love. Next month, she turns 80. In advance of that milestone, I called her and we chatted. She told me that it had been a full and taxing day, so she only had half an hour. That was enough to talk a bit about her life and ministry—and her pen pal, Pope Francis. (Our conversation has been edited for clarity and condensed.)
Jeff: Have you eaten? And what’s a food or a meal that gives you delight?
Sr. Jeannine: Today? I had lunch! Actually, I had cereal. But I like soup. Soup is one of my favorite things to eat. I’m vegetarian, and I like lots of good garden vegetables in my soup. That does give me nourishment.
The call to religious life feels so countercultural these days. Though you now belong to the Sisters of Loretto, you joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame at age 18. How did you discern that call, and what has that call meant to you?
I discerned the call very early. I was 7 years old. I grew up Catholic, and I went to Catholic school and was taught by nuns. In hindsight, I was very influenced by the good women who were my teachers. I had the same teacher in the first and second grades, and she was a very kind person. Her kindness influenced me to want to be like her—to be kind. I was also a very— I don’t know what word to use. I was going to say ‘pious,’ but I don’t like the word ‘pious.’ Let’s say I was a child who learned about God and believed in God and loved God and knew that I was very much loved by God. I wanted to spread that love to others. I felt like God was coming to me and then going out to others through me, even when I was a kid. That never left. That grew.
As a School Sister of Notre Dame, you taught math in the 1960s. But then you began ministering to LGBTQ+ people in the 1970s. What precipitated that shift?
I taught grade school for a year and then high-school math for three years. Then I went to get my PhD to teach math at the college level. While I was at the University of Pennsylvania doing graduate work, I met a gay man named Dominic. He posed to me a telling question: What is the Catholic Church doing for my gay brothers and sisters?
This was 1971. I didn’t know. We didn’t even say ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’—it was ‘homosexual,’ and nobody even said that word. I heard their horror stories about being ostracized, about being thrown out of the confessional if they confessed to a priest that they were gay. So I spoke to my community leaders—women of great vision—and they encouraged me to do what I could to be a support for gay people at the university. So while I was at the university, we had weekly Masses at Dominic’s apartment for his gay friends. That ministry continued when I came to Baltimore to teach at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. I was a full-time teacher but I wore a part-time hat doing pastoral work among lesbian and gay Catholics.
In 1977, you and Father Robert Nugent founded New Ways Ministry to serve LGBTQ+ Catholics. Over the years, New Ways has been investigated by the Vatican. Both you and the ministry have endured bans and much critique from leaders throughout the church hierarchy. In the 1990s, the School Sisters even asked you to stop speaking out about LGBTQ+ matters. How did you navigate that?
My religious community really bore the brunt of it. If someone wants to criticize someone who is a nun or a priest, they usually go to their superiors and complain. My superiors—the provincials as well as the superior general in Rome—dealt with a lot of complaints. They always defended what I was doing, saying that this was the work of the Church.
On three occasions, the Vatican asked my superior general in Rome to evaluate the work and ministry I was doing and make recommendations on sanctions. On each of those occasions, the community talked to me—what was I doing? In one case, they contacted people who had come to my workshops and did some investigation. And the report to the Vatican was: She is doing the work of the Church. They recommended no action. But in 1985, the Vatican appointed its own commission. It took a while to get off the ground, and in 1999, it made its decision, issuing a notification that Fr. Nugent and I should leave this ministry. I told my superior general that I would take a year off and I would pray about it and discern what to do.
At the end of that year, I replied that I had decided that I was going to continue in the ministry. They said that if I chose not to follow the directives that I was given, they would probably have to dismiss me from the community. They supported me, but this is my interpretation: They were very fearful of what would happen to the whole community. I didn’t want them to dismiss me, and I also didn’t want to put them through all that. So I transferred to the Sisters of Loretto. I’ve endured all this in community.
My husband is Catholic. I have friends and acquaintances who have chosen to remain within the Catholic Church. Others have departed. Likewise, I remain in the Reformed Church in America, which has battled fiercely over homosexuality, while other friends and acquaintances have left. I’m curious why you have chosen to stay in the Church despite your differences with church doctrine.
Because I am a fierce advocate for justice—social justice, religious justice, any kind of justice. I also am fiercely religious. And I also love history. So I know how religious congregations, religious denominations, have changed over the course of history. All religious groups change. One of my favorite quotations is from Cardinal Newman from Britain—now St. John Henry Newman. He said: ‘To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.’ Change is part and parcel of living. Any religious denomination is a living body. It’s going to change. We need to change, and I want to be part of that change. So I am here to see that my church becomes a better church by changing—specifically by changing to make life fair and just for LGBT people and for their families and friends, but also for non-LGBT people. Everybody benefits when there is justice for any minority. Also, I am a one on the Enneagram!
Ministry can be incredibly depleting, and we live in a culture that always pushes us to do more, say more, be more productive. When and how do you find rest?
I like to swim. I try to exercise. But I think my main energy comes from seeing the fruition for the work. I find rest when what I am doing and working for has a good ending—and I have lots of those happy endings. That is very energizing for me. I feel so refreshed. We’ve been writing to Pope Francis, and when he writes and says that he appreciates what we’re doing— Wow! That is really refreshing.
Last year, New Ways received two letters from Pope Francis, thanking you for your work. I believe you also received a personal letter in which the Pope “your closeness, compassion, and tenderness.”
I’ve gotten several personal letters from Pope Francis! I only made that one public.
How has this correspondence affected you?
It energizes me. It gives me hope. It makes me feel that what I’ve been doing has borne some fruit. I now have the ear of a wonderful, very human, loving, and compassionate person who is trying to do something for many, many people—including LGBT people.
Have you heard from Pope Francis lately?
Just the other day, actually. Cardinal Gregory, who is the archbishop of Washington, we have shared our letters with him. And he said, ‘You’re pen pals!’ It feels like I’m writing to a friend.
What did the Pope have to say?
We keep him informed about what we’re doing. He just wrote back and thanked us again. Then, because we have mutual friends, we had told him that one of our friends had broken his ankle. So he asked us to say hi. As I said, it really is like writing to a friend.
In one letter, Pope Francis described you as ‘a valiant woman who makes her decisions in prayer.’ Many people who have felt alienated from the Church—and I’m using the word ‘church’ here very broadly—have struggled to pray. Can you tell us about the place of prayer in your life? And what counsel do you have for those who find themselves alienated from conversations with God?
Let me look at it several ways.
There’s the traditional way of prayer: We’re alone with God and speak to God in our hearts. I do that every day, but it’s not always easy. Right now, I’m in a very dry period. It’s humdrum. But you have to keep at it. I try to read Scripture, and I try to pray with Scripture: What does it mean? What is it saying to me? And then I just try to talk to God.
Then there’s the continual prayer that— well, the whole day can be like a prayer. It’s a combination of being in the world, doing one’s job, doing what one likes to do, doing what one doesn’t like to do—all with a friendly face. That is also prayer. We might not be in a conscious space of prayer, but in a prayerful mode—kind and compassionate and loving toward people.
Then there’s communal prayer. It is really important to pray with a community of believers. We get to tell God how much we love God together. We get to go to God not as individuals but as a family—the human family.
It’s so important that we pray often—daily and even continually, let me say. As I said, it’s not always easy. I long for a time when it is easy. There was a period of my life when it was. Maybe two months? I felt like I was in heaven. Just floating. But that went away. That was a gift. Maybe I’ll get it again, but probably not.
Some people, having been through some suffering, become hard, even bitter. How have you remained tender-hearted?
Well, I don’t know. Probably because of the friends that I have. God comes to me through my friends—some in my religious community, some not. God comes to me greatly through my friends.
You will turn 80 in a couple of weeks. What would you say to your 20-year-old self if you could enter into conversation with that Sister Jeannine?
That 20-year-old didn’t know anything! She was so wide-eyed. I’d say: Look forward. You’re going to have a great life. Keep that dynamism. You’re going to have rough times. But overall, it’s going to be just wonderful.
What are you still learning?
I’m trying to learn how to grow old gracefully. One of my friends said: ‘Not grow old. You are old!’ So maybe I have to learn how to be old gracefully.
And what are your hopes for your next decade?
For myself, that I can sustain my energy. I find it dwindling. For my Church, which I dearly love, and for my country—I see such division—and for my world: That we might come together and dialogue more. We have differences. But before we can talk about our differences, we have to talk about what we have in common. We have more important things in common than what divides us.
You mentioned your regular reading of Scripture earlier. Is there a verse or a passage that has been a touchstone for you throughout your life and ministry?
I do love the Gospels, but I also love that passage in Galatians: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek... male nor female...’ I always add: gay or straight, bi or trans. We ‘are all one in Christ.’
What I’m Cooking: Last week, I wrote to you about Amanda Held Opelt and her book A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing. One ritual that Opelt discusses, which I didn’t mention last week, was that of bringing a casserole to those who are mourning.
Casseroles aren’t really part of Chinese cookery. In China and Hong Kong, most kitchens have not traditionally had ovens, and baking was rarely done at home. I asked Opelt if she had a favorite casserole recipe to share. In her experience, “most casseroles involve some kind of Campbell’s cream of dot-dot-dot and I’m just not a fan,” she said. “There was a casserole that someone brought after Rachel died that I still do. It’s just sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, green beans, carrots, and chicken—like strips, like tenders—piled in a casserole dish and drenched in butter and spices and ranch dressing mix—the powdered stuff—and baked.” (350 degrees, 45 minutes or so... this is my kind of recipe.)
As we chatted, Opelt made an off-hand mention of something called strawberry-pretzel salad. I’d never heard of it. “What?!” she said. “Somebody dies, you get strawberry-pretzel salad. It’s so obviously everyone’s favorite thing. That’s the only reason I didn’t mention it earlier.”
A few minutes later, she texted me a link to the Betty Crocker recipe for strawberry-pretzel salad. I didn’t have most of the ingredients in my kitchen—not the Jell-O, not the Cool Whip, not even the pretzels. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had Cool Whip in my kitchen. So I went to the grocery store, and over the weekend, I made strawberry-pretzel salad.
It was... fine? I confess that I’m now going to be one of those people who annoy me: They tweak the recipe, and then they say they didn’t love it. But here’s the thing: The recipe calls for an entire cup of sugar to be added to the cream cheese and already sweetened Cool Whip in the filling. I cut the sugar in half. The recipe also calls for frozen sweetened strawberries; I told myself that the strawberries in my freezer, which we picked last summer, were already naturally sweetened. We liked the salty-sweet pretzel crust. But even with my tweaks, the strawberry-pretzel salad was too sweet for our palates.
When I tweeted about strawberry-pretzel salad, the responses were rapturous: folks described the dish as “amazing,” “the best church potluck food ever,” “so yummy,” and “a regular feature of my childhood.” That last comment is key. I wonder whether part of what makes this dish so beloved, especially among some Midwesterners and Southerners, is something that I can’t replicate: the association with happy memories.
Good food is so often not just about the dish itself but also about context. What’s on the table is enhanced by what—and who—is around it: the laughter, the storytelling, the people. I’m glad I tried strawberry-pretzel salad. Even though I didn’t love the dish, I did love the making of shared memories. The best parts of the process were getting teased via text message by Amanda as I made it and sharing it with Tristan and our friends Nate and Sarah, who came for dinner on Sunday evening.
Have you eaten? I hope you’ll eat something this week that brings you not just delight in the moment but also the echoes of past happiness. I’m thinking I might make some fried rice. (Who am I kidding? I’m always thinking about making fried rice.) What foods kindle that kind of memory for you? I’d love to know.
I’m so glad we can stumble through all this together, and I’ll try to write again soon.
Yours,
Jeff
Thank you for sharing your conversation with Sister Gramick. Her life inspires me and helps me to stay hopeful, and I need quite a bit of both of those things these days.
I, like you, I am not a big fan of strawberry pretzel salad. I didn’t grow up eating a lot of things made with Jell-O so as an adult recipes with Jell-O are not appealing to me at all. But I did recently create a dessert recipe that tickled me to no end and I’m thinking about making again soon. It’s a double dark chocolate brownie recipe with mint extract and sprinkled with peppermint schnapps after it’s baked. Did I just say sprinkled? What I really meant was doused! I happen to love making homemade brownies with half of the sugar the recipe calls for and then adding either rum or bourbon to make them a little extra special.  And sometimes I will soak 2 cups of toasted walnuts with some sort of booze overnight, strain them, and then throw them in the brownie batter the next day.  It’s surprising how much liquid the walnuts will absorb so they make the dessert a ‘for adults only dessert’. Basically, I like boozy brownies of any kind, so that’s what I’ve been creating these days. (Well, I am going to be making baklava and spanakopita today because I’m in a Greek mood today but that’s another story).
Random question for you: how can I find out when you’ll be preaching at Crosspoint a week or two in advance? There are a few of us in my area that would like to ride over to Raleigh to hear you in person and say hello. We just need more than a day to pull that together.
I have several foods that I don’t consider particularly good and yet are delightful because they are “extended family foods” - foods that showed up at reunions at my Mamaw’s house (midwestern fare) or at church potlucks (Italian American staples): iceberg layer salad, peanut butter pie, green bean casserole, chili Frito pie, baked ziti, lasagna, manicotti. The last three I do consider both delightful and truly satisfying. Perhaps one of my very favorite foods though is grilled cheese. This week I discovered that pesto in grilled cheese can be magical. In the book Heidi there is a description of the girl’s grandfather melting cheese with a skewer over the fire and letting the melted cheese fall onto bread. I’ve never fully understood the physics of it but was enchanted at the image. So any kind of bread and melted cheese experience also involves the charm of an awakened beloved book memory.