Sisters of the East End

by Helen Batten

  ‘Dear Father, Please let the Sisters see what I see – that You are calling me to this religious life; that I want to serve You here and now in this way, that I want to give myself up fully to a life dedicated to You and to helping Your people on earth in the best way I know how.’

  At this moment I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I jumped and swung round. It was Mother Sarah Grace.

  ‘Oh, Mother, you startled me.’

  Why, oh why, and how, oh how, did these Sisters manage to just appear, as if by magic?

  ‘Sister Catherine Mary, we have finished discussing your application and have come to a decision. We’d like it if you could step into the Chapter.’

  I looked at her face, desperately trying to read its expression. She seemed very serious, but then wasn’t she always serious? I tried to recall when I had last seen our Reverend Mother smile, and I couldn’t. I followed behind her through the corridors of the Mother House, wondering if the fact I had received no signal of affirmation from her, not a squeeze on the shoulder, or a helping hand to stand, meant something. It was a tortuous walk.

  The Chapter meetings traditionally took place in a circular room underneath the chapel, which was reached by some winding narrow stone steps. The 22 Sisters were seated in a semicircle, with Mother Sarah Grace very much centre-stage, right in the middle. She gestured to me to stand in front of her and face the Sisters. There was silence. I felt like a gladiator standing in front of Caesar, waiting for the thumbs up or the thumbs down.

  ‘Sister Catherine Mary, we have read your application and discussed it with the Community and we have voted.’

  There was a pause. I felt myself swaying, my habit suddenly feeling enormously heavy.

  ‘To accept your application and allow you to take your life vows. God bless you, Sister Catherine Mary. Welcome.’

  The Emperor’s thumb was up! There was a happy murmur around the circle and a little self-conscious round of applause. And then Sister Rachel got up and came over and embraced me, and she was quickly followed by Sister Alice, and then the whole team from Poplar. It was a joyful moment. I noticed Sister Julia hung back but that was no loss.

  It was only a few years later when I was waiting to go into a Chapter meeting that I realised the quiet influence that the Mother Superior had. One of the more senior Sisters was quietly discussing a matter we were about to vote on and I heard her whisper to another Sister, ‘Well, I don’t agree but of course Mother wants this to go through’, and there was nodding. The vote was carried and I was cross.

  Surely the whole point of a vote was for the will of God to be carried through our collective conscience? Why have the vote otherwise? We may as well be living under a dictator. But then in the case of the election of a Sister perhaps it was a good thing because in the Community even the most saintly of our number makes a few enemies. A religious community doesn’t escape the human frailties of any other community on this earth.

  A religious community also doesn’t escape the winds of change that are blowing over everyone else. Yes, sometimes I wondered why I was taking a step back into the Dark Ages, but at other times it felt like there was a possibility I might find myself somewhere quite progressive. There were cracks rapidly appearing in the old order. The Christian Church was being shaken up by the Swinging Sixties, and I watched intently from the sidelines with real excitement.

  It was customary for a significant period of time between the vote taking place and the actual ceremony to take life vows. I was given notice that I would have four months to prepare myself and reflect. At the same time as I was reflecting on my future, the Roman Catholic Church was engaged in a series of meetings reflecting on its own future, which would have a profound effect not only on the Roman Catholic Church itself, but also on the Anglican Church and therefore my life as well.

  In 1958 John XXIII was elected Pope. A man with a vision and a mission, he saw the Roman Catholic Church as stuck in the past and imprisoned by tradition, with little room for a lively questioning faith that could grow and renew. Three months after his election, Pope John XXIII declared it was ‘time to open the windows of the Church to let in some fresh air.’ He called a Council to address the relationship of the Catholic Church with the modern world, to which one Cardinal said, ‘This holy old boy doesn’t realise what a hornet’s nest he is stirring up.’ This Council, known as Vatican II, began sitting in 1961 and was in its final stages in 1965 as I prepared to take my final vows. It called for the Catholic Church to return to its biblical roots and have a greater engagement with the modern world.

  Part of its remit was to look at the lives of the religious orders. One decision which came out of the discussions was that there should be a greater recognition of the individual in religious life, meaning they should be able to fully participate in decisions affecting them. Along with this, religious orders had to take greater personal responsibility for ensuring God’s justice in the world. It was radical and turned the existing order on its head – obliging religious communities to become more outward-looking and responsive to the world around them. I read the documents produced by the Council and I thought of Cecilia and how differently things might have turned out, had these principles been applied to her predicament.

  I wasn’t the only one excited about the news. There were reports of buses full of Catholic nuns going to special seminars and lectures to explore what this meant for their future. Results were immediate. The most obvious was the incredibly quick disappearance of the habit. Yes, some nuns remained in traditional habits (and still do), with full-length dresses and heavy veils, but within a few years the majority of Catholic nuns had adopted simple contemporary clothes. But the disappearance of the habit was just the visible sign of a much deeper change. In 1988, when the Cold War ended, and I watched the pictures of the Berlin Wall coming down on television, it reminded me of Vatican II. The Soviet Union broke up into lots of countries, with their own language, laws and ways of worshipping. Similarly, some of the larger Catholic orders started to break down and split into smaller, autonomous Communities.

  With the breakdown of the Communist bloc came freedom of movement and expression. So the Catholic nuns were not only allowed, but urged, to mix with the world around them and go out to work. There was much greater freedom of expression and nuns were encouraged to continue their education. A whole host of them started university courses and a new breed of highly educated, theological, learned nuns was born. It really was revolutionary and as I watched, I was jumping up and down with excitement because I knew, I just knew, that what my Catholic sisters were getting today would be ours tomorrow.

  However, my excitement was not shared by everyone in the Community. The split seemed to be between the older Sisters and the younger generation. The poor twins, Sister Clare and Sister Hope, were totally bewildered. Brought up by a loving, but domineering mother, they had no siblings and knew only each other and a mother who wanted to keep them safe from the dangerous, corrupting world outside. When they were still very young, she had encouraged them in the direction of the religious life.

  Sisters Hope and Clare were wonderfully pure and naive. One year they took their annual holiday together and went on a coach trip around Italy. They made friends with an elderly spinster and after a long day’s sightseeing decided to invite her into their hotel room for a cup of tea. They wrote a little note saying, ‘Come to room 27, you know when, for you know what!’

  Sister Clare put the note under the spinster’s hotel-room door but when she didn’t appear, Sister Clare realised she hadn’t said whom the note was from. So she rushed back and put another note under the door, saying, ‘By the way it’s me, Sister Clare.’

  But the lady still didn’t appear. So Sister Hope asked, ‘What room did you deliver the note to, dear?’

  ‘Well, number 44, of course.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s why she’s not here. She’s in 54.’

  Sister Clare dashed back to room 44 and banged on the door. It opened str
aight away and she found herself facing a distinguished elderly gentleman holding her notes. ‘Are these yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, they are, bless you,’ she said and took them from him.

  When she recounted the story to us later she revealed, ‘The strange thing is he kept on winking at me after that. Funny man!’

  The next year the Sisters decided to fulfill a lifetime’s ambition to go and visit the Holy Land. As they went through the strict Customs on the return journey from Israel, Sister Hope was taken aside by an armed guard.

  ‘Is this your suitcase?’ he asked, pointing at the bag she was carrying.

  ‘No,’ she said, which of course strictly speaking, it wasn’t. It was the communal suitcase we all took turns in using whenever we went on holiday. However, this set in motion an enormous security alert and delayed their aeroplane, and all the passengers waiting for it, by two hours.

  For Sisters Clare and Hope, now in their sixties, the traditional way of life of a Sister was a comfort blanket; it meant security. I saw it, at its worst, as a way of keeping them as children; they never had to make a decision or take responsibility for themselves.

  One day, busy with our needlework in the communal sitting room of the Mission House, we discussed the changes brought by Vatican II and Sister Clare piped up.

  ‘Poor ladies, I shall pray for them – to have to give up their habits and move out of their houses. I couldn’t bear it.’ She shook her head.

  ‘No, indeed. I shall be praying for them. God forbid anything like that should happen to us,’ Sister Hope nodded in agreement.

  I waded in.

  ‘But I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. Isn’t it about choice, so each Sister is more able to follow her own path as she feels called within the Community?’

  ‘But how would we know which way to go? That is for the Mother Superior to decide,’ said Sister Hope.

  ‘And how does she decide – through prayer. Through listening to God. Isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing all through the day?’

  ‘But isn’t that the whole point, child, it isn’t clear?’ Sister Ruth said, stepping in and looking at the twins.

  Sister Julia, seething at the other end of the table, could hold back no longer.

  ‘Muddle is the work of the devil. It is clear and it couldn’t be clearer we have all taken a vow of obedience. All this talk of personal journeys, people’s wants and desires taking precedence over the wishes of their Community; Sisters being consulted and asked their opinion over what they do next. Absolute rubbish! No, worse than rubbish – a slippery slope down. It’s the will of the individual getting in the way of the will of God. Obedience is never negotiable, it is a state of grace.’

  Now I was the one who was seething.

  ‘And who exactly determines what is the will of God? What if, after constant prayer and contemplation, you feel God is taking you in a direction that your superiors don’t agree with?’

  ‘Then you ask God’s forgiveness.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what Mother Caroline did when the Bishop of London told her to resign and she refused?’

  There was a stunned silence in the room. I caught sight of Sister Alice trying to smother a smile. I’d got Sister Julia now and everyone knew it.

  Mother Caroline is perhaps the most revered and beloved Mother Superior in the history of our Community. She was Mother Mary Jones’ successor and led the Order for 20 years, through its biggest period of expansion and transformation. Though a quiet, gentle lady, she was highly religious, principled and determined. Her deputy, Sister Aimee, however, was a different matter altogether. She was appointed matron in charge of King’s College Hospital and immediately came to blows with the hospital authorities over such small matters as beef tea and the washing of linen.

  Sister Aimee was a strong disciplinarian and saw wickedness in even the most innocent exchanges between her charges and the male staff and patients. She introduced extreme rules: for example, no male medical officer was allowed to enter female wards during the hours of darkness. There followed a decade of trouble where the Sisters became quite unpopular and the hospital and the St John’s Council asked for Sister Aimee to be removed. Mother Caroline refused, perhaps because she herself had been trained as a nurse under Sister’s Aimee’s care. It all came to a head in 1882, when Sister Aimee made a ‘vile accusation’ against one of the doctors, who she believed had manhandled one of her nurses. The accusation was proved to be false but Sister Aimee refused to retract or apologise. The hospital withdrew their contract with the St John’s Community and the Council sacked Sister Aimee. But the Sisters and nurses under the leadership of Mother Caroline refused to leave the hospital. Instead they demanded the removal of the Council and to set up a Council of their own with Mother Caroline at the head and the Sisters in Chapter governing themselves.

  The hospital chairman, Lord Francis Hervey, ordered the doors to the hospital to be locked against them, not knowing that the Sisters were already in there and he had effectively locked them in. There then ensued a three-day sit-in, with the nurses and Sisters refusing to leave. This is perhaps the first instance of a female sit-in in the Western world, a marvellous example of principled disobedience and a prototype for all the Sixties sit-ins that were about to take place. In the end the Sisters were persuaded to leave the hospital, but they also left the order and set up their own self-governing Community, with Mother Caroline in sole charge.

  And so the new Community of St John the Divine was born. The old order struggled on with a skeleton staff, but was disbanded a few years later. The Sisters never again nursed at King’s but from then on, their work was centred on the East End and Southeast London. But probably most importantly, they were free from their male Council and the authority that had always held them back from the more spiritual and devout lives they wanted to live.

  Sister Julia could not argue against the heroic example of our beloved Mother Caroline, but she had to have the last word.

  ‘What nonsense! It will have a sticky end, you mark my words. They’ll be calling for women priests next!’

  ‘And what if they did, Sister? What if they did?’ I asked. ‘What would be wrong with that?’

  There was a gasp of horror from the twins in the corner. Sister Ruth decided this conversation had gone far enough.

  ‘I think we can leave it there, Sister Catherine Mary. You have proved the point that our Community does indeed contain many different points of view. However, the important thing is that we come together in unity, that the things we agree on are greater than the things we disagree on, and we strive unceasingly to build on these, rather than widen the gap between us.’

  For now, I accepted the calming words of Sister Ruth but I was determined not to be left out of any chance of progress. I thought it might indeed be possible to square the circle of religious life with the modern world and Vatican II had illuminated a path.

  One of the developments to come out of the Vatican Council was a reaching out to other denominations and faiths. Suddenly, there were opportunities for us to go to meetings and seminars with our Roman Catholic counterparts. The week before I was due to make my vows, I had the opportunity to attend just such a meeting. The subject was how different Christian churches might work more closely together.

  I was surrounded by Sisters who looked like my aunts – sensible shoes, pleated skirts, blouses and cardigans; short, neat, grey or white hair – the only clue to their profession being the large cross that hung from a long chain around each of their necks and the ring on their right hands. The feel of the gathering was very different to how it would have been, had it been full of Sisters in habits.

  We broke in the afternoon for coffee and chat. As I stood in the corner of the room, I was a bit stuck. I am a natural mingler but usually a Sister’s habit offered an easy opening line. For example, ‘So, you come from the Community of St Clare, how is Mother Jane?’ or ‘I’ve been very interested in the work that the
Sisters of St Margaret’s are doing in Hackney’, or ‘I hear that the Sacred Heart are opening a new house in Manchester? Is Father Michael still the chaplain at your Mother House?’ And off I would go. Now I looked around the room of sensibly-clad Sisters and found I had no bearings. I also felt rather self-conscious, being one of the only Sisters still in a habit. Suddenly, being a member of the Church of England felt rather regressive. Luckily, I was saved by the approach of a smiley Sister in navy blue cardigan and skirt, hair in a bun, glasses on her nose and a large wooden cross hanging from her neck.

  ‘Hello, are you from the Community of St John the Divine?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Sister Catherine Mary.’ I held out my hand.

  ‘Sister Sophia, Daughters of St Paul. I recognised the habit.’

  ‘Yes, I’m in a bit of a minority here.’

  ‘But such a wonderful habit, a beautiful blue!’

  ‘Hyacinth, darling.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  I laughed.

  ‘I used to work in the nursing home at our Mother House and one of the patients used to call out, “Hyacinth, darling”.’

  Now Sister Sophia laughed.

  ‘You know, I always thought you had the best habit. If I was to wear any, I’d like to wear yours.’

  ‘But you aren’t wearing one. What’s it like to be in mufti?’

  ‘Well, at first I felt rather exposed and it was rather difficult to purchase a wardrobe. It used to take me a long time to choose what to wear in the morning but now I think it’s rather wonderful.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It means you have to work harder. You can’t hide behind it. The barrier is down, people judge you more on yourself rather than your uniform. It takes more courage but in the end you make a better connection, a more authentic connection, be that with your Sisters, or with other members of the religious life like yourself, but especially in the wider community.’

  I paused for a moment and thought.

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘There have been so many changes. We are in freefall but it feels like a creative freefall.’