And Then There Were Nuns

by Jane Christmas

  I walked back to the Little Catholic House of Horrors and awaited Sister Prudence’s final visit.

  In a strange way I was going to miss her and her maddeningly blunt conversation, though I wished she had taken me more seriously.

  “So, you are off up North?” Sister Prudence asked, settling into her regular chair in the sitting room and smoothing out the skirt of her habit.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I’m going to an Anglican Order—the Order of the Holy Paraclete—for about three months.”

  “You mean weeks. Three weeks.”

  “No, months. Three. Months.”

  “Months!?”

  “Yes.” I tried to hide my irritation.

  She stared at me as if I had turned into the burning bush.

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I finally said.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy.” She lingered on the word “crazy,” as if trying to find a word that meant crazy but was more polite. “I’m just curious to see how all these strands of your life fit together.”

  The heart of the conversation that day rested on whether I would tune myself to a life fully committed to God rather than heading into marriage number three. I knew which option Sister Prudence wanted me to choose.

  “The problem here is that you’re looking at marriage as a bad thing,” I said. “Both of these are good and positive options.”

  “But don’t you see that this relationship with your fiancé is an obstacle to God?” she countered.

  “Obstacle? Or gift?” I replied. “Colin might have been sent as an anchor of stability. When I was walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain several years ago, I had asked God to send me a good man, a man of quality, and He did. I ended up meeting Colin on the Camino.”

  Sister Prudence was quiet for a moment.

  “Haven’t you ever been in love?” I blurted.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “I had an experience once,” she said eventually. She had fallen for a priest when she herself was a nun. She wanted it to be purely friendship, but as her feelings for the priest deepened, she realized that would not be possible. “I thought he was sent as a gift,” she said. “But I now see that he was sent as a test.”

  “That must have been difficult for you, but in your case you had already taken your vows, as had he. That would be like a married woman falling for a married man. What you did, pulling away from the priest, was the right thing.”

  “Yes, it was,” she answered thoughtfully. “That’s why I wonder whether this new relationship for you is an obstacle.”

  “Or a gift.”

  “Well, that is what you must discern. I feel I must speak the truth,” she said quickly. “This isn’t me speaking; it’s the Holy Spirit speaking through me.”

  “I appreciate your candor, but there was no need to make me feel like a harlot. That was undeserved.”

  “Oh blimey, I’ve had worse than you!”

  The doorbell rang at that moment. It was a new guest, a young woman from London. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, cute with a shy edge, and with eyes that squinted like Renée Zellweger’s when she played Bridget Jones.

  Sister Prudence gave the young woman a tour of the Garth, and I went off to my room to pretend to finish packing. In truth, I had been packed for two days.

  It was time for Sister Prudence to leave. We hugged, and she glided out the door as the wind turned her habit into a sail of black and white.

  “Pray for me!” she called out.

  I closed the door and looked at the clock. One and a half hours until the taxi was due to arrive. Why doesn’t time fly when you want it to?

  The New Girl and I chatted in the hall for a few minutes. She told me she was thirty-seven and was thinking of becoming a nun. I told her I was fifty-seven and was thinking of becoming a nun.

  “I’m apparently too old,” I pouted. “Did you tell Sister Prudence about your intentions? She’ll be all over you.”

  “No, I didn’t tell her,” New Girl said dreamily. “I just came to check it out. How can they say you’re too old? That’s mean. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m heading to Whitby to stay for a few months with an Anglican order.”

  “Whitby? Bram Stoker got his inspiration for Dracula in Whitby,” she said. “Think he wrote much of the book there. And Whitby is where the goth festivals are held.”

  “Why, yes, you’re right!” I recalled reading something about goths and Whitby while researching the area. “How do you know all this?” I teased. “Are you a goth?”

  “I was,” she stammered shyly. “But I wasn’t a very good goth, I’m afraid. Sort of a goth-meets-hippy version. I wasn’t hardcore.”

  “From goth to nun. I love it. Hey, if you do join a convent, let me know; maybe they’ll let me be a nun there.”

  I listed off some of the vaguely goth music on my iTunes but admitted to New Girl that a convent guest house had not seemed the right venue to play them. Truthfully, it was too scary a place to play them.

  “Oh, I love AC/DC and Def Leppard, too. That would’ve been fun!” she giggled in her squinty Bridget Jones way.

  It was a pity she hadn’t shown up a day earlier to brighten up the Garth (or is it the Goth?) and rid the joint of the little cloven-hoofed creature—which I did not tell her about.

  I did, however, mention the wonderful collection of spiritual reading on the bookshelves in the sitting room.

  “That’s good to know,” she said in a tone suggesting that she would prefer a colonoscopy over that prospect. “Actually, I brought an OK! magazine just in case. And some crisps.”

  We said good-bye and wished each other good luck. She headed off to none, and I gathered up my things, put on my coat and gloves, and sat on the stairs waiting out the final interminable hour and seventeen minutes for the taxi’s arrival.

  Then forty-five minutes.

  Twenty-five minutes.

  Twenty-three minutes.

  At five minutes to three—hallelujah!—the taxi light appeared above the stone wall at the end of the walk. I bolted through the front door, locked it, and slid the keys through the mail slot. Incredibly, they popped back out and landed at my feet.

  “What the...! Get in there, you bastard,” I muttered. I shoved the keys roughly back through the mail slot, and this time I held down the metal flap until I heard the keys hit the tile floor on the other side of the door.

  The Cloistered Castle

  ················

  Order of the Holy Paraclete

  Whitby, England

  I ARRIVED WITH MY confused and broken holiness at St. Hilda’s Priory, the home of the Order of the Holy Paraclete (OHP).

  My family initially thought I was going to be staying at a religious bird sanctuary, The Holy Parakeet. The term “paraclete” refers to the Holy Spirit, which infuses each of us with character and personality. I was in critically short supply of both.

  Rain hailed from the underbelly of a swollen sky, the sort of downpour that nails you the second you step out in it. I made a thirty-foot dash from the car to the shelter of a small canopy above the priory’s front door and got soaked despite the effort. Rivulets of rainwater streamed across my scalp and dribbled down my face. My feet made squishing noises in my water-logged boots. I tugged at my sodden, clinging clothing and tried to make myself halfway presentable.

  The priory door was locked. I jiggled the door handle with the barest of hope that doing so would miraculously unlock it. I was beginning to give up on miracles.

  To the right of the door were two doorbells with instructions on when and when not to ring each one. It was a layer of complication I did not need at that moment. I pressed one and hoped it would yield a positive result and not a scolding. Thunder crackled, the wind howled, and a fresh lashing of icy rain pelted me. It felt like the beginning of the apocalypse.

  I’ll give it thirty seconds, I thought, as I shifted impatiently from one sq
uelchy boot to another. If no one answers the door, I’ll leave and give up my convent aspirations. What was I thinking anyway? I’ll send an email to the prioress and explain that something had come up. A family emergency. Yes, that’s it. I’ll say...

  Through the fogged and rain-streaked glass door, a shape instantly materialized. As it advanced closer, I could make out a woman in the gray habit of the order. The door swung open, and I recognized the woman from a website photo: it was the order’s prioress, Sister Dorothy Stella.

  “Jane? Oh for heaven’s sake, come in and get out of this miserable weather. What a day! Real Yorkshire weather, this. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. So glad you arrived safely. Oh, it’s good to finally meet you!”

  I cannot recall whether we embraced, but I do remember feeling instantly at home: warm, welcomed, relieved, and safe. I was back in Anglican territory.

  I tried to formulate a quick impression of the place, wondering whether the next three months would be heaven or hell. I cast wary glances into the dark corners to see if my little Spock-eared friend had followed me from St. Cecilia’s.

  The interior of St. Hilda’s did its best to appear inviting in spite of the limited amount of natural light filtering through huge panes of glass that lined the corridor. Around the corner, a planter containing several pots of primrose in vivid shades of lemon yellow, deep purple, bright red, and bubblegum pink winked a welcome.

  The gloomy day actually enhanced the austere Normanesque features: the low arches, the stone floors and walls, and the many doorways and passageways emanating from the entrance. If I was looking for atmosphere, this place had it in spades: more Nun’s Story than Name of the Rose, but a proper priory nonetheless. Even the habit that Sister Dorothy Stella was wearing met with my approval: light gray-brown fabric, mid-calf length, with long, slightly bell-shaped sleeves, and a high but nonrestrictive rolled collar in contrasting white. It was softly tailored and cinched at the waist/hips with the traditional black profession cord. Practical; modest but also feminine. Yup, I could wear that.

  I paused in front of a wooden statue of a woman cradling a church in one hand and holding a staff with the other; ammonites were arrayed at her feet.

  “Our patroness, St. Hilda,” Sister Dorothy Stella said proudly. “Let me give you a quick peek at the chapel, since you’ll be spending a fair bit of time in there.” She led me by the elbow through a rounded wooden door and down a couple of steps. “You’ve come at a good time: We have a funeral and a first profession this week!” She spoke as if both events were reasons to break out the champagne.

  As we stepped inside the chapel, that potent, familiar aroma rushed toward me in greeting, and it warmed my chilled body. I mused about whether the ecclesiastical sector routinely ordered the same scent of incense, placing requisition orders each quarter for a new supply of—what might it be called—Monastic Musk? Holy Halo? Reformation No. 3?

  Although constructed in the 1950s, the priory’s chapel was designed with medieval sensibilities in mind—a soaring vaulted and buttressed wood ceiling, blind arcades of stone pillars, and Norman arches inset with leaded lancet windows. The walls and floors were brownish-gray stone, and the warm honey-hued oak choir stalls were arranged on opposite sides of the chapel nave to create a spacious open area in front of the sanctuary.

  A sweeping chancel arch formed a protective embrace around the sanctuary, but it had obviously been unable to repel an invasion of jarring modern refurbishments in the last decade or so. The sanctuary’s back wall was ringed with a built-in bench of alternating dark and light oak panels that reminded me of a piano keyboard; the altar looked like a trestle table, the type used for slaughtering something for a sacrifice, and from it hung a giant disk, like a gong but with soft appliquéd designs. A large electrified crucifix of amber-colored glass and iron was positioned across the sanctuary window, and when it was turned on, it looked like a traffic light.

  It was so different from the churches at Quarr Abbey and St. Cecilia’s Abbey, and it was a complete contrast to the glass modernity of St. John’s, but I liked it.

  Several rows of padded conference chairs were set up for visitors inside the chapel entrance.

  “Do many outsiders attend your offices?” I asked Sister Dorothy Stella.

  “Not during the week, generally, but on Sundays we have a large congregation. They regard us like their parish church.”

  Sister Dorothy Stella was the eighth prioress of the Order of the Holy Paraclete. She was a tall woman with a soft body, and had a happy, open face framed by short, wavy light gray hair. Her large, pale blue eyes smiled a little wearily from behind wire-rimmed glasses. There was a kind, motherly vibe about her.

  The Order of the Holy Paraclete’s connection with the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine had come about during the Second World War, when the OHP sisters, who operated a boarding school at the time, evacuated their students to Canada. The SSJD sisters immediately stepped in and organized the billeting and care of both students and teaching sisters. The two communities stayed connected after the war, and thanks to a generous benefactor, they had been able to maintain a rotating exchange program that allowed a sister from one community to spend a month with the sisters of the other community.

  As Sister Dorothy Stella led me through the priory we exchanged news about sisters we knew in common, and this easy rapport sped up my kinship with the place. My sisterhood aspirations were back on the table.

  I tried to remember whether I had given my age to Sister Dorothy Stella; maybe Sister Elizabeth Ann at St. John’s had tipped her off. I put a spring to my step, raised the register of my voice slightly, and dropped the word “cool” into the conversation. If I couldn’t be younger, then maybe I could appear hipper. (Can nuns be hip?)

  We hauled my luggage up four flights of stairs to the top floor of the convent and then down a long narrow unlit corridor. The wing was reserved for novices and aspirants like me, said Sister Dorothy Stella.

  My room was charming, and the slanted ceilings gave it the coziness of an atelier. The floor was covered in beige carpet that looked fairly new; the walls were pale yellow. Pretty yellow-and-pink floral print curtains framed the large dormer window. A single bed was pushed up against a wall, a chest of drawers doubled as a bedside table upon which was a small vase of field flowers with a little handmade card welcoming me. A small green upholstered chair was tucked into a corner at the foot of the bed, and a wooden desk and chair occupied the dormer. In an opposite corner, a wall-mounted sink hung near a long white shelf for toiletries. Four or five wall hooks served as the wardrobe.

  “I hope this has been turned on,” Sister Dorothy Stella murmured as she ran her hand along a hip-high portable radiator. “You’re going to need it.”

  My attention strayed to the view from my window. Between wisps of fog I could make out trapezoids of farm fields stretched like a patchwork quilt across distant sloping hills. Even under a leaden sky it was beautiful.

  “This is great,” I said, turning to Sister Dorothy Stella. “Thank you.”

  She cast worried glances at the radiator and periodically laid her hands on it to feel for heat.

  “We don’t have any novices at the moment, so you have the floor to yourself. I hope you won’t be too lonely. The rest of us sleep on the other side of the attic, though one or two sisters are in cells just below you. You’ll find your way around eventually.”

  ( 5:ii )

  I’LL ADMIT it: I was scared of Sister Marjorie at first. She was five-foot-nothing and no more than eighty pounds, but man, she was intimidating.

  The job of showing me around the priory and providing my orientation had initially fallen to the guest sister, Sister Gillian. As she guided me along the main corridor, we ran into Sister Marjorie, attired in oversized wellies and a rain jacket, and about to head outdoors for, as she put it, “a bit of air.”

  I had glanced through the glass doors: a tornado was gathering steam and tearing off tree branches.

>   “It’s a bit rough out there.”

  Sister Marjorie had shot me a withering glare, looking me up and down as if I were some alien hot-house creature.

  Sister Gillian was gently explaining that I would be staying for an extended period and that she was giving me a tour when Sister Marjorie interrupted her and fixing me with flinty blue eyes said, “A tour, huh? I’ll give you a tour, a real tour. Ten o’clock. Here. Tomorrow.” Then she was out the door, swallowed up by the storm.

  “She’s indomitable,” Sister Gillian had whispered nervously as we walked away. “Just turned ninety. Went sky-diving and abseiling last year.”

  Ninety? Sky-diving? I mentally calculated how far I was from ninety.

  “When you meet with her, be prepared. Her tours are not for the faint-hearted.”

  And so, the next day I found myself walking briskly toward where Sister Marjorie stood at the end of a long corridor by the back door where we had first met.

  From thirty paces, I could spot a perturbed look on her face. She regarded my approach and alternately ran her hands impatiently through her shag-style crop of white hair and checked her watch: I was a minute and fifteen seconds late.

  In spite of Sister Marjorie’s blunt and feisty exterior and the reports of her dare-devil escapades, I figured this would be a short tour: she was old and small; she’d run out of energy in no time.

  Boy, was I wrong. She was like a terrier in a habit.

  We went up back stairs, down front stairs, through connecting tunnels, up more stairs, then down again, past tapestries and paintings, each with a story quickly told and forgotten. We barreled down carpeted passageways, past offices, rooms set aside for prayer, a conference room, a bar (A bar? Sweet!), and a few reception rooms.

  “This one is for your use, I believe,” said Sister Marjorie, flinging open a door to one of them. “In case you want to watch TV. Or relax.” I detected a guffaw when she said the word “relax.”

  It was an elegant room of pale yellow walls and white trim, a high ceiling, and floor-length windows framed by drapes of a more gracious vintage. There was a TV in the corner, some plump chairs arranged in a semicircle, and a fireplace. It would take me the better part of a month to find the room again.