Sisters of Mercy

The Sisters of Mercy are remembered through Concetta’s account of the years when they were among the strongest influences on her life. Their religious instruction and household beliefs continued to inhabit her imagination long after childhood, creating a lasting tension between her educated skepticism and her reflexive superstitions.

Identity and Influence

The Sisters of Mercy influenced Concetta from the ages of seven to twelve. In her later view, that formative period helped shape what she called her own schizophrenia, though the account presents this as her interpretation rather than an established diagnosis or a clinical explanation. Their authority mattered because it reached her before adult independence and endured beyond the years of direct instruction.

Beliefs and Discipline

The Sisters believed in God and the divinity of Jesus, and also taught that mirrors could be bewitched and that staring into one too long could bring warts. Their instruction joined religious doctrine to everyday warnings about danger and punishment. They carried rulers for disciplining children, and their treatment of pupils could be physically harsh. Concetta also remembered cautionary stories about people punished for forbidden behavior or irreverence toward the pope; such lessons made fear and religious authority part of her early understanding of the world.

Lasting Effect on Concetta

As an adult, Concetta knew that superstition was irrational, yet old beliefs still seemed to speak with authority inside her mind, in Italian. She might dismiss a superstition and still perform a protective gesture when a crow or black cat crossed her path. The contradiction persisted alongside her accomplishments: after emigrating to America at twelve, she became a Vassar graduate and a professor of English, later emeritus, as well as a published poet. Her recollection of the Sisters therefore marks not a simple rejection of education, but the durability of childhood teaching even within a life of intellectual achievement.