by Helen Batten
Finally on my own, I went over to the window and looked out. Trees as far as the eye could see. They were beautiful, an enchanted forest, but I had never lived anywhere where you couldn’t see another house and plenty of people. I felt a pang for the bustle of my city. I actually missed the gas works. Again, I asked God to give me strength.
Luckily strength came in the form of my new roommate, Cecilia. She was willowy and elegant and spoke beautifully. I was quite taken aback. She walked into the bedroom we were to share and it was as if an angel in a postulant’s dress had descended. She was just a few years older than me, but she had an aura of serenity way beyond her years.
‘Hello. It’s Catherine Mary, isn’t it?’
‘It seems I am.’
She laughed.
‘I am so pleased to meet you and share a room with you. I have been praying for you to come for the last five months.’
‘Gosh, no pressure then!’
Then we both laughed. I was taken aback by Cecilia’s perfect elocution. She seemed so posh. Camden girl that I was, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the thought that I was going to have to share with this lady who was so obviously ‘top drawer’. In those days the class system was still very much in place and I really hadn’t come into contact with many people from the upper class, certainly not in the kind of proximity that was demanded by sharing a room. One of the ways in which the Community was ahead of its time was bringing women of all backgrounds together and forming a community, a family, whatever our different backgrounds. I thought of something that St Benedict had written – that the bravest of monks was not the hermit, but the one who had learned to live with others in a Community. Perhaps the Mother House was not going to offer an escape from humanity but a lesson in how to deal with it. I remembered how the ancients of the Far East depicted hell as a place where people have chopsticks a yard long so they can’t possibly feed themselves. In heaven the chopsticks are also a yard long, but the people feed each other. Was I capable of this?
However, sharing with Cecilia was not too difficult a test. She was especially careful to blend in, never alluding to her background except indirectly with her fox-hunting metaphors or when reading the paper she would casually say, ‘Gosh, Johnny in a spot of bother again!’ and you’d see she was talking about a member of the aristocracy. She immediately reached out to me by telling the story of her journey to the Mother House. Home from boarding school at the age of 15, she fell in love with a country vicar who had come to preach in her parish church. His sermon sent fire through her soul and for the first time she felt a spiritual connection to another human being. Unfortunately this other human being was married, but Cecilia was very determined and knew what she knew; that she’d found a soulmate of the religious kind.
Filled with passion, as soon as she got home, Cecilia wrote to the vicar telling him how she felt. She received a letter back by return of post. This was the start of a spiritual relationship where Cecilia and the vicar explored their feelings for God together. Cecilia knew there was no other man for her and she also knew that she could never have him in the worldly sense. She decided that there was no alternative but to dedicate herself to Christ and become a nun. Her family were horrified, her friends laughed, even her own parish priest (not the country vicar) told her to think again. She may have been stopped from going to a convent, but Cecilia absolutely refused to go out with any of the eligible young men who asked her out (Cecilia was beautiful, with long red hair) and instead further upset her parents by taking herself to secretarial college and getting a job.
One day she was called into the office of the owner, Mr Smith, who said, ‘I like you a lot. I think you are a bright, hardworking, decent girl. I have to say, though, I have been watching you and I can’t help noticing your heart really isn’t in what you are doing.’
‘Yes.’
‘This job just isn’t right for you, is it?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘In that case – now this is really important – have you any idea what job would be right for you?’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ Cecilia smiled.
‘Well, what is it then?’
‘I want to become a nun.’
Incredibly, Mr Smith showed no sign of surprise. Instead he said, ‘Then that is what you must become.’
For the first time (apart from the country vicar) Cecilia had found someone who took her seriously and she felt a huge relief. Mr Smith then went on to tell Cecilia how his eldest daughter had become a nun.
‘She’s found a peace and fulfilment in her life that few of us are ever lucky to find. Would you mind if I wrote to your father?’
So Mr Smith wrote to her father and one day Cecilia was called into her father’s study and told that she had his blessing to go and join the Community. So Cecilia arrived at the Mother House and carried on her correspondence with the country vicar. They wrote letters to each other of a spiritual nature, where they shared their beliefs and the insights they were learning about the Divine. Cecilia only stopped writing on the day she was told of his death.
Cecilia guided me through those first tricky days. I was inspired by her calm obedience and yet I still had a panicky sense that I was losing something: a bit of my self was slipping through my fingers. I think the enforced strict hierarchy of the Community had something to do with it. For example, there was a rule that you had to curtsey to every Sister above you, and, as the most junior member of the Community, that meant I had to curtsey to everybody. At the end of the day my knees ached.
Mealtimes were solemn occasions. Except on feast days we had to eat in silence; the Mother Superior sat at the top of the long wooden table and dished up the food. The most junior member, again myself, had to take the plates along the rows of nuns, serving again according to seniority. This meant that if I didn’t get a move on my food would be cold by the time I got to sit down. Not that the food was particularly exciting; it was basic and nourishing, but not always incredibly tasty. I’d been thrown in at the deep end by arriving at the start of Lent. The meals were particularly plain, with dry bread on Fridays for breakfast, and there was no break in the silence.
‘Watch out for Sister Felicity,’ Cecilia had warned. Sister Felicity? She was a very old Sister, partially deaf and blind, with a line of medicine bottles in front of her plate. I couldn’t imagine what Cecilia was talking about. Then one day, just as I reached over the table and put the custard jug in front of her, I saw Sister Felicity pop her sleeping pills into the jug, looking at me all the while. She stared at me as if to say, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ I stood rooted to the spot and watched as the jug went down the table, with the Sisters pouring laced custard over their apple crumble. I did nothing, but chuckled to myself and avoided the custard.
The next day I was summoned to the Mother Superior’s office.
‘Catherine Mary, it has come to my attention that you have been making complaints about the food.’
‘Complaints? Oh no, Mother.’
I was confused, wracking my brains to try and work out when I might have said something. Had something slipped out? Who had I been talking to? Surely Cecilia would not have reported me. I felt sick to the bottom of my stomach.
‘Yes. Do not compound the offence of complaint with the offence of an untruth. It does not behove a member of this Community, particularly one so new, to be ungrateful for the food that the good Lord feels fit to put on our table.’
Shaken and tearful, I left her office. I went and sought out Sister Clemence. Luckily she knew the answer.
‘Oh dear, you must be more careful what you write home.’
Of course: writing home one day and a bit stuck for things to say (the life was so bizarre, it was difficult to find anything to write about that my family would understand), I made a joke about the food. All letters had to left outside the Mother Superior’s office unsealed. Stupidly, I hadn’t taken on board the implication of leaving them open – she obviously read them all.
I was much more careful in future.
I soon came unstuck in the matter of clothes too. When I went to be measured for my postulant’s dress, I hadn’t realised I was going to have to undress down to my underwear. There I was, standing with the most fearsome Sister Julia glaring at me, as I took off my sensible skirt and blouse and revealed the most lacy black bra and knickers.
‘I think a visit to the underwear section of the local department store is in order young lady, don’t you?’ she said. Blushing, I nodded.
‘Totally, totally inappropriate.’
This was my introduction to Sister Julia and it set the tone for our future encounters.
Unfortunately it was also Sister Julia that I ran into literally one night, when, in a quick dash to the loo, I came across her dressed in my ‘old night attire’, which I was dutifully wearing out. Unfortunately being a twenty-something girl at the end of the Fifties, my old night attire was a short black ‘baby doll’ nightie with black frilly knickers. The next day I received a note from Mother Sarah Grace,
Dear Catherine Mary,
I am writing to remind you of the Community rule that your long navy blue dressing gown must be worn at all times outside your bedroom at night.
Because I still had to wear my habit, at this stage my postulant’s dress and veil, I could never really have a break from being in the Community. However, I did on occasion dash off down the road for a swim. Public beaches in Hastings were forbidden – the sight of a nun stripping into her costume was deemed far too interesting for the sort of people who frequented the town beaches, but we were allowed to swim in a pool at a local school.
I was very struck by this on the first occasion I ventured out. I had been at the Mother House for a month and I was beginning to forget that there was a world outside the convent. For this reason when Cecilia suggested that a few of us postulants and novices take a trip to the cinema, I was overcome with both excitement and fear.
We first had to ask Mother Sarah Grace’s permission. As with our visits to the library (we were allowed to go and borrow books as long as we brought them to her for her approval; nothing of an ‘emotional nature’ was permitted), we were allowed to go if the requested film was deemed ‘suitable’ i.e. that there would be nothing too excitable or corrupting for us.
We sat around and debated what we dared ask to see.
‘Well, I reckon we could get away with The Bridge on the River Kwai,’ Cecilia said.
‘How about A Farewell to Arms?’ Novice Eve volunteered.
‘Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones?’ Cecilia looked incredulous.
‘It’s Hemingway.’
‘Exactly. It’s a love story.’
‘Yes, but is she going to know that?’
‘Her whiskers can sniff out a romance from a mile away,’ I joined in. Cecilia tried again.
‘There’s always The Bridge on the River Kwai?’
We sat in silence pondering. Then a novice called Christina piped up, ‘I’d love to see Funny Face.’
‘Yeah, and I’d love to see Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,’ Eve said.
‘Cecilia, I dare you to go and ask for The Prince and the Showgirl,’ I begged.
We laughed and then fell silent again. Cecilia sighed.
‘OK, I’ll go and ask if we can see The Bridge on the River Kwai.’
As Cecilia had predicted, The Bridge on the River Kwai was deemed respectable, so with our Mother Superior’s blessing, and having persuaded Sister Clemence to give us a lift, the four of us piled into the Morris Minor and lurched off into Hastings at 30mph in second gear in the centre of the road.
It was only when we arrived in the municipal car park and had to climb out of the car that it hit me – I was in a habit with a veil over my head and a large cross around my neck. Not only that, I was with a whole group of habits. I suddenly felt very self-conscious. I noticed a couple of young men looking at us and smirking. I knew what they were thinking, or at least I thought I did. It was only until very recently that I would have been thinking the same thing myself. And I realised that a group of four young nuns walking through the town and going into the cinema and sitting down and watching a film would stick out. People would look at us and probably make jokes about which film we were going to see. The Prince and the Showgirl? – cue laughter. If I did anything out of character in my habit – laugh loudly, trip up, cry – it would be noticed and judged that bit more than if it had been me in my ordinary clothes. And that was the worse thing of all; I felt as if no one would see me any more. They wouldn’t be able to get past my habit. I sat in the cinema, in the welcome anonymity of the dark, and silent tears fell down my face. I wasn’t crying for the poor PoWs in the film; I was mourning my old life and my old self, and my old freedom to be me.
It all came to a head on Good Friday. I was serving the traditional fish pie lunch. The Sisters were all sat in solemn silence as befits such a key, dark day in the Church’s calendar – the day of our Lord’s crucifixion. I was placing the dishes of pie at even spaces along the long wooden table, but before I could get the plates in front of the Sisters, Sister Felicity had grabbed an enormous helping and was spooning it straight on to her placemat. I looked along the line. Everyone had seen, I saw a few smothered smiles and then I saw shoulders shaking as they tried to hide their amusement. I couldn’t help myself any longer. I burst out laughing and dropped the plate I had been holding. I had been so buttoned up for so long, my shoulders were heaving and the more I tried to stop, the more this irrepressible laughter just kept on going. It was a visit from the giggle bug you only get at the most inappropriate times – funerals, classrooms, doctors’ waiting rooms, just when you shouldn’t. In fact the more you shouldn’t, the more difficult it is to stop.
‘Catherine Mary, would you please leave the refectory until you can control yourself,’ Mother Sarah Grace said firmly.
I hurried out and took some deep breaths in the fresh air, laughter gone, shame taking its place.
So why then, why did I stay? The answer lay in the chapel. I loved the chapel: the vaulted ceiling, the clear glass windows letting in shafts of light, the incense in the services that rose to the rafters and then descended again, cloaking us in the scent of the heavens.
On Easter Sunday I sat in the service silently in prayer, and I was filled with a kind of ecstasy. I started thinking about how I had started the journey, and I realised that it was the anniversary of my father’s death. I still missed him, but being in this place had brought me closer to him and to our eternal Father. I felt the division between this world and the next evaporating with the holy incense.
There were two things happening for me at the convent. On one level, I was being moulded, conditioned, processed into a way of life and being. This required me to give up something of myself. But although I was struggling with it and railing against it, I was aware that, as with all things that are worth having, something has to be given up. Because what I was gaining was something on a much deeper level: something more fundamental. I was being given the opportunity to form a profound relationship with God. Religious life demands that however busy our day, we stop and pray five times a day. This means that we are in a constant dialogue with God. In any relationship with a partner, you have to be in constant communication: sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, but always thinking of the other; in this way you get to know each other, your relationship isn’t static. You have good days and bad days but it is dynamic and alive. I knew that I wanted to have God at the centre of my life. Nothing was more important, and this habit and this life gave me both the permission and the opportunity to do so. And on this Easter Sunday, for the first time, I was profoundly grateful that this was so.
When you take those life vows and become a Sister, you put on a wedding ring to signify your consecration to Christ. In my first 40 days at the convent I had come to realise that I had started my courtship. My relationship with God had gone to a new level and I was learning more about Him, and it was the mos
t joyful experience. I had a sense that I was on a journey and I had found myself in the right place at the right time.
I had come home.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
OBEDIENCE
When Mother Sarah Grace told me I was to spend my first six weeks at the Mother House digging up the rhododendrons I was a bit perplexed. The Mother House had a nursing home attached to it, and I had presumed that because I had told them I wanted to become a nurse, I would start off working there. However it seemed she thought I would be better employed digging up some of the roots of the huge bushes that lined the driveway. I only hoped my newly mended ankle would be up to it.
My one consolation was that my digging companion was to be Sister Rachel. I had observed Sister Rachel from afar. She looked like fun. This impression was confirmed one night when, waiting outside the bathroom for my turn for a bath, I heard peals of laughter coming from inside. Within minutes Mother Sarah Grace was hurrying down the corridor and banging on the door.
‘Sister Rachel, Sister Rachel, open this door immediately! Who have you got in there?’
The laughing stopped. There was silence.
‘Sister Rachel, I demand that you open the door. Now!’
There was the sound of dripping water and padding feet. The lock turned and the door opened a crack to reveal a dripping-wet Sister Rachel, wrapped in a towel and holding a book.
‘I’m sorry, Mother, but it’s that Lent book you gave us to read. Chapter Two is so hilarious.’
(It was quite amusing, but I thought hilarious was pushing it a bit.)
The Reverend Mother looked stunned.
‘Really, Sister Rachel! I do not think the bath is an appropriate place to contemplate a spiritual text.’
And with that our Reverend Mother turned on her heels and left. Sister Rachel winked at me, closed the door and locked it again.