And Then There Were Nuns

by Jane Christmas

  And with that Father Nicholas swooshed out of the room. The sound of the door closing echoed loudly.

  Silence hung like humidity between Colin and me. We embraced stiffly and lightly at first to avoid the stickiness of the situation, but gradually our bodies melded together in their natural way. Who knows: this might be the last time I hug a man. We reconfirmed that he would pick me up in Yorkshire at the end of my convent crawl, in three and a half months.

  As we walked to the parking lot, I kept up a light patter to prevent the conversation from veering into the maudlin and to keep my own doubts at bay. “Aren’t the grounds beautiful?” “I wonder if there are other guests here.” “Not sure this place has Wi-Fi, so don’t get worried if I don’t email.” “How long do you expect it will take you to drive back to London?”

  The next thing I knew, I was waving good-bye as his little car vanished into a cloud of gravel dust.

  ( 3:iii )

  I WANDERED back to my cell and sat on the edge of the bed in a state of mild shock with only that nagging, recurrent question for company: What the hell am I doing here? How much easier and more fun it would be to plan a wedding and a celebratory reception, to mull ideas for a honeymoon, or to shop for furniture and feather our future nest—maybe a quaint stone cottage in Devon for the two of us to grow old in—than go into a sort of self-imposed exile to see whether I was really meant to live a silent and austere life.

  I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to connect the dots of reason. Had I been too hasty, too naïve about all this?

  Enough with the second-guessing already, the Voice Within cried with exasperation. Stop beating yourself up and just accept it. The Voice Within was sounding less like Dumbledore and more like Jackie Mason.

  Of course, I thought, stiffening my resolve. Others climb mountains, run marathons, join the army, or run for political office. I happen to search for God. Nothing weird about that. Is there? My time with the Sisters of St. John the Divine had been, well, divine. Why would this be anything less?

  One major difference was that the moment I had walked through the doors of St. John the Divine, the sisters, bless their organized little hearts, had handed me a carefully prepared package of information that included a schedule. At Quarr I was completely without guidance or reference, save for that speedy recitation that Father Nicholas gave, and I could not remember half of it.

  I recalled a mantra I had adopted when I was in my early twenties: “Be willing to wait, and listen to the Lord.” The words had jumped out from a speech I was covering as a reporter in a small town. I had sat in the audience, rueful and antsy that I was wasting my time listening to this snake-oil salesman thump at the podium when I could be sending out résumés to get myself out of this two-bit town. And then he said those words, and it was as if he was speaking directly to my heart. As soon as I began repeating the phrase to myself, it was as if I became unstuck, that opportunities began to open up for me. Since then, whenever I have found myself burdened by impatience or worry, the restorative powers of those words bring resolution. Now I summoned them again: OK, God, I’m listening. Start talking.

  I sat for a few moments and waited.

  And waited.

  No God.

  Ah, He was probably busy with someone else. Eventually, I lost patience with the tension of the silence. I walked to the door of my bedroom and opened it gingerly: I looked down the long hall, to the left and to the right, but no one was around. Not a peep. I closed the door as silently as I could.

  As I checked my watch, a distant bell tolled signaling the call to prayer. I convinced myself that it was much too soon after my arrival to go to church, so I pulled a newspaper from my suitcase and proceeded to do two sudoku puzzles.

  A little later, the bell tolled again, this time for vespers. It was now five o’clock. Again I demurred, deciding my time was better spent unpacking my luggage.

  I unzipped my suitcase and carefully withdrew each piece of clothing from my 2011 Winter Nun Collection. I shook out each item, appraised it for imperfections and creases, then folded it up and reverently placed it in the drawer of the chest that doubled as a bedside table.

  It was a pitiful assortment. One big pile of monochromatic dull. More depressing was that most were new purchases. No heart-pumping colors; no red, fuchsia, mustard, sage, emerald, turquoise, amethyst. Just a morose palette of brown, gray, black, and for a jolt of color, navy. It was certainly serviceable: three pairs of trousers (brown, black, navy), two skirts (black, gray), one dress (brown), four tops to mix and match with the aforementioned, and one sweater (the color of porridge). The nail polish I used to wear on my toes had been downgraded from hellfire red to a pearly but boring beige.

  But so what, I told myself with a forced jauntiness. I’m going to be a nun, and clothes no longer matter to me. Right? Right?

  Father Nicholas had said something about seven o’clock and dinner, so at the appointed hour I sauntered down the hall to the dining room. No one was about. The double doors that separated the dining room from the monks’ refectory were still closed. I pulled on one of them to sneak a peek. A scratchy creak emanated from the hinges and echoed embarrassingly.

  The refectory was cavernous. Broad, low brick arches rippled the length of the room like the way sound waves are depicted in illustrations. Five or six narrow trestlelike tables, each with bottles and jars of condiments clustered in the center, and three or four chairs apiece, were lined up on opposite sides of the room, facing each other. The room could easily handle many more, and still have room for a dance floor. I did a quick calculation based on the number of tables and chairs in the room and figured that twenty-four monks must live here. Aside from Father Nicholas, I hadn’t seen any others.

  I pricked my ears for a sound or movement. Nothing. The door creaked again as I slowly pushed it shut, and then I scuttled over to the solitary place at the table that had been neatly set for me. I stood patiently at my place, not knowing what the protocol demanded. It was a little like Alice waiting for something to happen in Wonderland.

  Suddenly, shuffling sounds came from behind the refectory doors. I held my breath and cocked an ear. A voice murmured something and a group of male voices responded in mumbled unison: “Amen.”

  OK, they’re saying grace, I cleverly deduced. Then more shuffling, followed by the sound of chairs dragging across the floor. Someone—I did not see the face—pushed open one of the refectory doors. I craned my head to the left and saw a monk in profile seated at a table. I took that as my cue to sit down. I waited, almost afraid to breathe in case I missed some dog-whistled direction.

  The silence was broken by the clattering sound of a trolley, which was pushed through the doorway by a tall, thin monk who looked a bit like Sting. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to look at him, so I kept my head bowed and whispered “Thank you” as he ladled out my dinner. From the corner of my eye I saw him bow slightly before taking his leave. I nodded humbly in reply.

  Impressive. My own serving monk. It made me feel a bit like visiting royalty. What if I were visiting royalty? Traveling incognito—which would explain the suitcase of drab clothes—to escape some diabolical court intrigue or workplace shenanigans. Quarr was the safe house.

  I ate my food in undisturbed silence, entertained by my little fantasy. From time to time I checked back into reality and craned my neck to see what was going on in the refectory, but I could not really see anything; nor could I gauge the rhythm of the meal. Or maybe I was smuggling in some secret Vatican document.

  When I finished eating, I placed my knife and fork on my plate in the customary fashion that royalty does and waited, hands folded serenely on my lap. The way the Queen does.

  Father Sting reappeared and removed my dirty dishes. Again, eye contact was avoided. He bowed as he took his leave. I nodded thanks. There was no offer of coffee or tea, an after-dinner liqueur, an invitation to join the monks for cigars or a game of billiards or to watch TV.

&
nbsp; I waited in silence for someone to tell me what to do. After several minutes I leaned my head to the left to see why the place had fallen so inexplicably quiet. It was then that I discovered that the room had emptied out! Well! That was rude! They could have at least told me.

  I hauled my royal self up from my chair, bowed my head, said a brief and silent prayer of thanks for my dinner, and harrumphed back to my cell.

  I stood in the middle of the room wondering what to do next. Compline was at eight-thirty, and I decided I had better attend. My belongings had been unpacked; books were lined up like soldiers at the head of my desk; my toiletries neatly arranged on the bathroom countertop. The room looked rather homey.

  There was a knock at the door. It was so unusual to hear sound after such a great swath of silence that I hesitated in answering it in case I had imagined it.

  But when I cautiously opened the door, there stood a monk who beamed with friendliness.

  “Hi. I’m Luke.”

  Father Luke and I had corresponded briefly by email before my arrival—he was the cousin of a friend of mine—and it was a delight to finally meet him in person. In appearance and manner he reminded me of my friend, and this sense of familiarity erased my doubts and put me at ease. Plus, it was great to have someone to talk to. It had been four hours since I had uttered a word.

  Father Luke, however, was not the garrulous sort. He was a thoughtful, intellectual man given to long pauses when a question was posed. He also possessed a deferential manner, and when he spoke his head was bowed, eyes fixed on the ground. It was the posture of humility St. Benedict urged for his monks in the Rule: “Whether he is in the oratory, at the work of God, in the monastery or garden, on a trip, in the fields; whether sitting, standing or walking—he must think of his sins, head down, eyes on the ground and imagine he is on trial before God.”

  Born an Anglican, Father Luke had converted to Roman Catholicism in his thirties. He had been a teacher before he became a monk, as well as a parish priest and a prison chaplain. He was a literary fellow—he had written a few books—and fittingly, he was in charge of Quarr’s bookshop. He had been at Quarr for seven years, having left a previous community—he did not elaborate on the circumstances—and he said that his relocation to the Isle of Wight had been a natural homecoming.

  “I used to come to the Isle of Wight as a child with my parents on holiday. It was a very happy time for me, a golden time, and to come here was always special because it was a place apart from our ordinary lives. When I came to Quarr it was, in some ways, a return to those memories, a place that I could return as a child—as a child of God. Now, what about you? Tell me about your interest in a religious vocation.”

  I told him about my time with the sisters at St. John the Divine and about my engagement to Colin. He listened thoughtfully, his hands folded under his black scapular.

  “Both—marriage and religious life—are huge commitments,” he said before retreating into lengthy silence. He pursed his lips and occasionally nodded his head of silvery curls while staring at the floor intently, as if it held divine knowledge.

  When it looked as if the poor man had taken on my quandary as a sort of life’s work—or he had zoned out and was thinking of something entirely different—I broke the silence.

  “Seems to be a big monastery.”

  “It is,” he nodded solemnly. “A big place for eight monks.”

  “Only eight?” I thought back to St. John’s and how the sisters were freaking out that they were down to about thirty active sisters. “Well, at least you get some sort of subsidy from the church to keep the place running.”

  A smile broke across his face, and he lifted his gaze, his eyes twinkling at me over his wire-rimmed glasses: “Now, that’s funny.”

  “You mean you don’t?”

  He chuckled softly, which is the monastic equivalent of a belly laugh.

  “No, not at all. We survive solely on donations and earnings.”

  “How do you earn money?”

  “We have a piggery, an apiary—they’re closed at this time of year, otherwise I’d show them to you—we have this guest house, and we operate a small bookbinding business. There’s also the bookshop and the tearoom. We live very close to the bone.”

  This was an astonishing revelation. I had assumed, like many others, that churches financially supported their religious orders. When your business solely supports the traditions of a larger operation, you would think that would entitle you to some assistance from head office. Artists get subsidized; why shouldn’t monks and nuns?

  Before I could probe further, Father Luke jolted, and looked at his watch.

  “Almost time for compline. I’ve got to go. You coming?”

  Not wanting to be chalked up as a plastic monastic, I got up, too.

  We walked down the hall of the guesthouse and paused in the vestibule.

  “You have to go out that way,” he said, pointing to the door that led outside. “This door adjoins our cloister, and, you know...”

  “Yes, men only,” I smiled.

  I stumbled out into the dark, cold January night and made my way toward the church door.

  ( 3:iv )

  IT WAS the aroma that hit me first, though all my senses tingled to attention the moment I entered the dimly lit interior of the Abbey of Our Lady of Quarr.

  The thick, sweetly pungent scent of a century’s worth of incense had permeated every inch of the church—its bricks, mortar, and stone floors—and as if recognizing a fresh and available receptacle, it rushed toward me, penetrating my skin and bones. My body welcomed it happily, as if reuniting with some long-lost opposite.

  Gradually, my eyes registered the cave-like interior. Being somewhat of a troglodyte, I found it appealing in an aesthetic sense, but also in a monastic sense because it was a reminder of early Christianity’s humble roots in faintly lit, secretive settings.

  Quarr’s church looked nothing like a traditional church. There was a lower nave with several rows of chairs. A set of five broad stone steps brought you to the upper nave. Was this an architectural statement about the separation of the secular and monastic worlds? In the upper nave, about ten rows of chairs were arranged on each side to create a central aisle, followed by two rows of dark-wood choir stalls facing each other on either side of the nave. In front of this was the sanctuary.

  A series of broad gothic-style and blind arches spanned the width of the interior, and ran the length of the church to create a tunnel effect, rising to a vaulted and ribbed brick ceiling. It looked a lot like the refectory. The combination of soldiered brick on the inside of the arches and linear coursing on the walls gave a sense of texture and subtle movement.

  It was a remarkably simple church; no grand works of art; indeed, no decoration at all, just a powerful sense of being in the presence of something immense and holy.

  Dom Paul Bellot was the genius behind this design. Born in France, he had trained as an architect before joining the Solesmes order in 1902 just as it was fleeing into exile on the Isle of Wight. He never expected to practice his profession once he took holy vows, but he humbly accepted the commission from his fellow brothers to build new Quarr Abbey.

  Bellot was perfect for the job because only a monk could best understand the monastic mindset and therefore create according to God, not according to man. It was easy to see why, upon completion in 1911, that it was deemed a revolutionary and controversial design.

  Just then, a door opened behind me, and a cluster of monks filed in, cowls pulled over their bent heads. The snap and flutter of their habits sounded like a flock of swans about to lift off.

  They took their places—four a side—in the choir stalls, and without ceremony, a single voice began to chant, “Deus, in adjutorium meum intende.”

  Eight deep voices fell into unison, and their chant reverberated through the church. Although the language was Latin, I recognized the melodies of a few chants that the sisters used during compline at St. John the Divine, p
articularly the Nunc Dimittis with its haunting and plaintive plea: Salva nos, Domine, vigilantes, custodi nos dormientes, ut vigilemus cum Christo et requiescamus in pace. (Save us, O Lord, as we watch, guard us as we sleep, that we may watch with Christ, and that we may rest in peace.)

  The soothing and pulsing rhythm of the chants softened my earlier doubts about a religious vocation, and I felt pulled back into spiritual alignment. Their hypnotic quality recalibrated my breathing and returned it to a calmer, deeper form.

  It is hard to believe that when Vatican II was issued in the 1960s, it marked Gregorian chant’s fall from grace. It was not exactly jettisoned from worship, but since Vatican II was all about modernity, it rendered Gregorian chant archaic and opened the floodgates to guitar-strumming cantors who were generally awkward, pathetic, or both. Dodgy interpretations of and assumptions about Vatican II kicked to the curb a thousand years of Gregorian chant. Why would anyone chuck something so universally synonymous with religious faith? Chant is practically the brand of the church.

  Gregorian chant grew out of the pre-Christian chants heard in Middle Eastern temples and evolved over an eight-hundred-year period from the sixth to the fourteenth century. It stands as one of the shining legacies of the not-so Dark Ages. “Gregorian” comes from Gregory I (540–604), who did not compose a staff of music but just happened to be on the papal throne when Christianity and chant were exploding across the Roman Empire and into Britain.

  Chant’s minimalist melodies were created to convert Holy Scripture into song. During early Christian times, singers were considered the bridge between Heaven and Earth, and it was believed that the human voice alone brought audiences into direct contact with the Divine. Musical instruments were considered sacrilegious in worship.

  Melodies were developed in the evening when candles were ablaze and the faithful were huddled in secrecy during the frequent periods of persecution. Learned by heart and passed from one generation to the next, chant found its way into daily worship, particularly into the offices of monastic communities, where it remained a central and integral liturgical device.