ISTJ: Sister Mary Lazarus, “Sister Act”

ISTJ, the Inspector, the Sentinel, the Trustee

You’re never too old to learn something new, they always say. They also say, however, that the older you get, the more set in your ways you become. Who do “they” think they are, anyway?

The promising thing about MBTI is that it expects that we’ll grow. The cognitive function stack is organized so that we work our way down as we mature. We start off with our strong dominant function, and as we journey through life, we gradually learn to use to use the rest of our cognitive abilities to become more balanced, healthy, and effective.

For an INFP like me (or Sister Mary Robert), that can be learning to find practical ways to execute my ideas by harnessing my inferior Te—to plan a move across the country, to speak up for what I believe in, or you know, to keep up with a blog. For an ISTJ like Sister Mary Lazarus, it can be connecting with her inferior Ne, which opens her up to novel and daring ways of accomplishing traditional goals, gains her a new friend, and brightens up her life in her later years.

So for some of us, maturity looks like responsibility, and for some of us, it looks like playfulness.

Dominant Function: Introverted Sensing (Si), “Relive the Experience”

Sister Mary Lazarus respects tradition and history. She’s been a nun through “four popes now,” she proudly announces to Mary Clarence. She’s not impressed with these progressive, “newfangled convents,” and misses her old convent in Vancouver, where they lived barefoot in the woods with no running water. “Now those were nuns!”

She’s suspicious of Mary Clarence’s presence in the choir. “Out with the old,” she concludes, worried that Reverend Mother is trying to get rid of her. Mary Clarence, however, appeals to her sense of duty and discipline as a nun to help train the sisters.

Auxiliary Function: Extraverted Thinking (Te), “Organize the Experience”

Sister Mary Lazarus takes great satisfaction in her work. She leads the choir when we first meet her, though it’s more out of a sense of duty than ambition. They’re pretty terrible, but she doesn’t push them beyond their previously established rehearsal routine.

However, once she sees what they’re capable of, she takes the lead as Mary Clarence’s right-hand nun, drilling the sisters till they’re perfect. She’s out there in the thick of it when the sisters reach out to the neighborhood, helping fix cars and build a playground. When it’s announced that the Pope will be visiting to hear their choir, Mary Lazarus proclaims joyfully, “We’ve got to get busy!”