Changing Habits
Page 33
“If you had it to do over again, Angie, would you have joined the convent?” Kathleen asked, nodding her thanks at Tim.
Angie hesitated. “Given everything I know now?”
“Yes, everything.”
Gnawing on her lower lip, Angie nodded. “I would. I loved being a nun and part of a community. You two,” she said, gesturing toward Joanna and Kathleen, “and the others… You were the sisters I never had—the big family I always wanted. It was good for a lot of years, but finally I had to move on. There was the whole mess with Corinne, which was a real catalyst for me. And as it turned out, my father needed me. Just hours before he died, he told me I came back just in time.”
A silence fell over them. “I’d do it again, too,” Kathleen admitted. “To this day I can’t say for sure whether I had a vocation or if I was just living up to my family’s expectations. All I know is that I was raised with the knowledge that one day I’d be a nun. That life was everything I’d anticipated and more. After a while, though, I started to wonder about my role in the Church.”
Joanna knew that Kathleen might have continued with the community for years if not for Father Sanders, God rest his soul.
“What about you, Joanna?” Kathleen asked. “Would you join the convent if you had a chance to do it all over again?”
Like her friends, Joanna nodded. “I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if I hadn’t spent those years in the convent. Nor would I have met Tim.” She smiled at her husband, this man whom she’d loved for thirty years, and their eyes held for a long moment.
Joining the convent had been right for Joanna at that time in her life. She’d found warmth and healing in those years with St. Bridget’s Sisters of the Assumption.
“No regrets?” Angie asked, looking around at her friends.
“None,” Kathleen said.
“None,” Joanna said.
The three raised their wineglasses in a silent toast to the years they’d lived in love and trust and faith. Their lives might have changed in every conceivable way, but those feelings had not—and never would.
GLOSSARY
Convent: The residence of a religious community, especially nuns.
Mother Superior: The nun who is the head of a religious community.
Motherhouse: The residence of the head of a religious community. Central home for the Order. Nuns are sent from the motherhouse on assignments or missions. Postulants and Novices are trained at the motherhouse. Nuns take their vows there.
Sister Superior: The head of a convent or house away from the motherhouse.
Divine Office: Compilation of prayers based on scripture, prayed at different hours of the day. The Divine Office consists of Prime, Lauds, Matins, Compline and Vespers, each prayed at different times of the day, also known as Hours.
Custody of the Eyes: The habit of keeping the eyes lowered in order to meditate and pray, and away from things that would distract from God.
Postulant: The first-year candidate for admission into a religious order.
Novice: A second- and third-year candidate for the second stage of becoming a nun. A woman is admitted into a religious order for a period of probation before taking vows.
Diocese: The area under the jurisdiction of a bishop. There are 184 dioceses in the United States.
Chapter of Faults: A humbling, cleansing way to deeper prayer. A nun kneels before her fellow sisters and her superior once a week to confess the faults of the week and receive a penance from the superior.
Grand Silence: The practice of keeping silent from 7:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m.
The Year of Silence: Novitiate candidates are asked to maintain a year of silence while contemplating their vocation in their first year.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7017-0
CHANGING HABITS
Copyright © 2003 by Debbie Macomber.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at Customer_eCare@Harlequin.ca.
www.MIRABooks.com