I HAD PROBABLY NEVER had a more memorable evening with my father than that night. There was a wonderful, family-run, Italian restaurant two blocks away from the monastery, where we ate spaghetti and meatballs and devoured a whole loaf of garlic bread and a bottle of Taylor’s rosé wine. We talked of many things, and Papa allowed me to share about my life of faith the past four years, and he never expressed judgment or tried to argue with me. He listened and seemed at times quite fascinated by it all. He said that although he couldn’t understand a lot of the religious beliefs, he could see what it did to me, how it influenced the way I lived. He said that I was never given to the superficial banalities many young people seem so attracted to, that I was always more serious about life and thought about things. He said he could understand why I would be attracted to a life with others who pondered things deeply and were given to prayer.
I couldn’t believe my ears. It was almost as if Papa knew I wanted to be a nun before I did, and that I could actually be happy being a nun. I didn’t know if he realized what being a cloistered nun meant, but he was viewing it all through the nuns in The Sound of Music, and they were cloistered.
When we drifted off the subject of me, Papa shared some things I’ve never heard him speak of. He was proud of his first born son, David, and proud that he was a doctor, but he saw a lust for money (Papa’s words) which didn’t sit well with Papa. He was worried that David would wear himself out, and not always for the right reasons. Sally, his eldest born daughter, was full of ambition. (I could have told him that years ago.) She was always good to the family, and came home as often as she could, but (Papa said) her political views were a little too far left for his comfort. David had a new girlfriend every six months and couldn’t settle down, while Sally was married to her career, and had become a feminist of sorts. Papa hesitated saying it, and quickly covered it up with a mouthful of garlic bread. “And our Ruthie, well, you know our Ruthie. She wants to change her major to Dramatic Arts, and is taking tap and modern dance; she’s obsessed with her diet, and, frankly, she dresses a little too immodest for your mother and me, and she (Ruthie) flies off the handle if I say anything and threatens to run away like Becky did.”
It was my turn to listen and let Papa get it all off his chest. “Your mother, God bless her, is a very superficial woman… appearance is what matters, and she has a stubborn streak that I haven’t been able to break through in thirty-two years. She’s been a good wife, don’t get me wrong, and I love her dearly, but she can’t hear or see my concerns over our children. You, of course, are the black sheep of the family, and I don’t know if she can ever open her mind and heart to try to understand.”
I still didn’t say a word, but took Papa’s hand across the table. “I know, Papa, I know…and I don’t hold it against Mama that she can’t accept me. I think it has been the most difficult cross I’ve been given to bear, after thinking that you didn’t accept me either.” I stopped before I got too choked up.
“Ah, my little angel, I have accepted you and am more proud of you than you will ever know.” Now Papa was getting choked up. “I have always wanted for you to be happy and to be free to be yourself. That’s all I want for all my children, but you, you are the only one that doesn’t cause me worry and anxiety. I think you will make a beautiful nun…” and the words caught in his throat.
We changed the subject and talked about the dessert menu and how the meatballs were a little too spicy, but good. We talked about The Sound of Music and Oliver and Funny Girl, the one movie Mama went to and loved. After a while of easy small-talk banter, Papa got serious again. “You must not tell your mother about your plans, but leave it to me. Actually, leave it to me to tell her, and Ruthie, and David, and Sally—in their own time. Can you imagine!” And we both laughed.
“Nothing is decided yet, Papa. It’s not like I can knock on the door and say ‘Here I am’ and that’s it. There’s a discernment period, (thank you, Joanne Meyers), but till tonight I was unwilling to even begin that.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’m ready to begin. I feel so light and happy, like a ton of bricks has been lifted from me. It’s almost five o’clock; would you like to sneak into the back of the monastery chapel and hear the nuns sing Vespers? They’re not quite up to the Salzburg Music Festival, but they’re good.”
I paid the waiter, leaving a more than generous tip, and walked the two blocks with my arm linked in Papa’s, just like the old days. We slid into the pew near the front, just as Mother was intoning “Deus in adjutorium meum intende.” Papa sat enthralled for a half hour with his eyes closed much of the time, thinking about Austria, no doubt, or his family, or maybe, just maybe, thinking about God.
Sr. Mary Vincent came over almost immediately after Vespers, and I was happy to introduce her to my father. She didn’t look at all like her, but it could have been Peggy Wood, Papa was so humbled to meet her. Sister was the epitome of discretion, a special grace given to extern sisters, but I caught the twinkle in her eye as she gave me a little hug goodbye. “We’ll be seeing you again soon, I hope…you bundle up now, dear, and take care of your father.” And she disappeared behind a doorway.
We took a cab back to West 79th Street. It cost more than the dinner, but I could see Papa was tired and had a lot to process. He invited me in, but I said I couldn’t, and promised I would come by and cook dinner for him tomorrow night when I got off work. He thought that would be splendid, and said I should bring my roommate.
I took the cab further up town and got out at Tea on Thames, thinking I would surprise Gwendolyn and thank her for being…well, for just being herself really. I walked through the front door, and I was the one to get the big surprise! There sat Ezra Goldman and our old friend, the Earl of Grey.
I had to get used to calling him Br. Matthew. He looked marvelous, not at all the old man with the long white beard from my dream. He was dressed in “civvies,” and his hair was all buzzed off, which made him look younger than ever, but his broad smile hadn’t changed in the years since I’d seen him. Gwendolyn was at the table in an instant to celebrate the happy reunion, with an entire devil’s food cake in the shape of a penguin lying on a plate of coconut snowflakes.
We had so much to talk about we didn’t know where to begin. So we let Br. Matthew take the lead. He was on a Christmas “quies,” as he called it, a Latin word for rest. I suspect our English word quiet comes from it. He was only in the City for two nights and would go back to West Springfield by train. He was expecting to take his final vows in four months, sometime in May, and hoped that we would all be there. He was doing very well, and would be going to the seminary in Boston in the fall. He was staying at his Aunt Sarah’s while here, and hoped we could have dinner tomorrow night. I told him that was perfect, because my father was alone for a couple days, and I was to cook supper there tomorrow night; they could all come. Even Gwendolyn could come, as she often took Monday nights off and let her niece manage the place.
While Ezra and Gwendolyn solved the world’s problems for a few minutes, I called Greta at home. She was grateful and wondered where I was; it looked like I had been abducted in the middle of reading the Sunday Times. I told her that I had been, and that I was being held hostage at Tea on Thames. Then, all I told her was that my father was alone for a couple days, I was going to cook supper for him tomorrow night, and he had invited her—could she come? I had forgotten Monday night was her “Bridge Night,” but it had been cancelled for the holidays and wouldn’t resume till February…so she could and would be delighted. She’d bring a Bavarian pastry for dessert. I didn’t tell her who else would be there.
We sat at the table for a couple hours; poor Gwendolyn wasn’t making any profits from our patronage. She said she would bring the wine—red or white? I hadn’t even thought about what I wanted to cook. Br. Matthew suggested pasta with anchovies and chunks of chicken…he’d help. I didn’t say anything about God’s giving me a sign; it was too awesome to throw out on the table amidst the half-eaten penguin and Earl Grey. It could wait.
It was close to ten o’clock when I sunk into my rocker and was reviewing the situation. How incredibly ordinary and miraculously God works in our lives. I sat in that rocker with a different mindset than I ever had before. I also still felt bad about Fr. Meriwether. Although I’d been to confession and did my penance, I felt like I needed to make it up to him personally. So I hoped he had the seven o’clock Mass tomorrow, but I’d write a note just in case he didn’t. I had shared the afternoon’s events with Greta when I got home, and she was awestruck and happy for me. I asked her, “Greta, do you think it would be an awful thing if I became a Dominican nun?” She came over and took me by the shoulders.
“My dear Becky, I think it would be an awful thing if you didn’t.” And she hugged me.
And that’s how the old ball got rolling. Greta and I went to Mass on Monday morning on our way to work, as usual. Fr. Gleason had the seven o’clock. Br. Albert was always hanging around the vestibule in the morning, greeting people. I gave him my note for Fr. Meriwether and he said he would see that he got it. It was primarily a note of apology, but it also asked for another appointment before our monthly appointment, as he had given me much to ponder.
There was a whole other side to Fr. Meriwether which I don’t think most people knew or saw. And I don’t know if I did till this little incident. He called me at work that very morning and made an appointment for Tuesday after work. He was so full of kindness and gentleness. In other words, he was very fatherly…paternal in the best sense of that word. He may come across as academic and even scholarly when he teaches class or preaches, and a bit direct and unbending in some things, but beneath all that he’s very gentle.
While I was afraid that he would reprimand me for being so rude, which I was, he didn’t even mention it when we met on Tuesday. He let me do all the talking at first, and blubber over how sorry I was for speaking to him the way I did and walking out all in a huff. He only smiled and said, “You see, even after baptism, confirmation, and hundreds of Holy Communions, there’s still some of the ‘old girl’ left.”
The “old girl” was his way of saying St. Paul’s “old man.” There was a stubborn, self-willed, independent old girl left in me. I hadn’t realized how belligerent she could also be!
He was delighted to hear my tale regarding my father and how that whole incident happened when it happened, and how I wouldn’t have been in a frame of mind to grasp it had he, Fr. Meriwether, not said what he said. This was Tuesday, the night after our dinner at my father’s apartment with Greta, Gwendolyn, and Br. Matthew. I told him I wish he could’ve been there and met my father, and perhaps one day he would.
It was a bit intense for poor Papa, I told Fr. Meriwether, being surrounded by four Catholics, three of whom were converts. But Papa handled it in a gentlemanly way. Of course he already had met Br. Matthew several years ago, and found that whole thing interesting, Ezra now being a Passionist Brother. Aunt Sarah was also there, so Papa wasn’t the only practicing Jew in the house! A good time was had by all.
“And now,” I told Fr. Meriwether, “I need your direction as to how to go about ‘discerning’ if I have a vocation, this time, accepting the fact that I may, and that I even hope I do.” I remember feeling that saying it was all a bit overwhelming, even a little surreal!
Fr. Meriwether is very spiritual but also has a gift of being very down to earth—of keeping it real, and sometimes I need to get real, as they say today. He said that on a practical level, it’s very simple: you ask to see the vocation directress, who is usually the subprioress, or even the novice mistress or assistant novice mistress.
“They already know you, so that part is easy. If there are no impediments, they will probably ask you do an aspirancy inside the cloister.” The word impediments frightened me, and I couldn’t imagine what impediments there were, and figured I probably had at least two. Fr. Meriwether could tell already by my expression that I had sunken into a dark hole, just in my thoughts and fears.
“Being Jewish is probably an impediment, right? Or having a Jewish mother who disapproves of your being a nun, and two siblings who don’t speak to you?”
“Rebecca!” Fr. Meriwether’s gentle sternness brought me back to earth. “Being Jewish is not an impediment if you’re also a baptized and confirmed Catholic! Jesus and the first Thirteen Apostles were all Jewish!”
That, of course, made me laugh, and his throwing in the thirteenth apostle was so “Meriwetherian.” I knew he meant St. Matthias who took Judas’s place.
“‘Impediments,’ Rebecca, have to do with one’s freedom: you are not married, and are therefore free to enter the monastery; your age, and your physical and mental health are normal and sane; and no one is forcing you against your will to do this. You are practicing the faith—more than most, I might add—and you have a prayerful and peaceful disposition. All of those things are expedients, not impediments.”
Well, that was a relief. I didn’t quite know what he meant about mental health; some people would think I’m crazy, and sometimes I wonder if they aren’t right! He also knew my soul pretty well and knew I wasn’t living a life of habitual sin; I was chaste, but I also knew that I had a lot of venial sins, and probably a lot of habitual venial sins, which may be impediments.
“Heavens to Betsy!” the priest exclaimed. “We don’t come into religious life as saints ready for canonization. There’s always going to be a struggle with certain sins perhaps, and the life is not free of sin or suffering. One needs to be able to let go of a lot of good and ordinary things, but all that is discovered in the ‘discernment process’ and over time. You won’t be taking your vows the week after you enter,” he added with his usual grin.
After a minute or two when we both sat silent in our thoughts, he said, “What I think you should do right now is to pray about all this, and to make a retreat somewhere other than Brooklyn Heights (meaning, the monastery there) and then let the prioress or even the guest mistress, who knows you, let them know what you’re thinking. Are you able to get any time off from work?” And of course, I could. I had accumulated sick days, and we had enough assistant librarians on the staff that we often covered for each other so we could take some days off. He also had something—some place—in mind, but would have to get back to me on that.
“For now, continue doing what you’re doing. Try to go to daily Mass and pray the Rosary every day, and do spiritual reading…oh, and if you’re dating or planning to date, now would be a good time to let it fizzle out.” Fizzle out—those were his exact words, I’ve never forgotten them. I would learn over time, that that’s just what we have to do with a lot of impediments in our spiritual life—let them fizzle out.
This was his plan. He was scheduled to go to the Dominican nuns’ monastery in West Springfield, Massachusetts, to give a series of lectures for five days on the Theological Virtues in St. Thomas Aquinas. He had been there before to preach their retreat, and he knew that they had three or four rooms for women guests. He had called the prioress and asked if he brought two young women with him would they be able to stay in the women’s guest quarters and make a private retreat? The rooms were available. We would drive there from New York, stopping at the Dominican Priory in New Haven, Connecticut, on the Yale campus for lunch, and would arrive at the monastery in mid-afternoon. This was all pending on the weather, as the lectures were scheduled for the last week in January. This gave me time to arrange for someone to cover for me for a few days, plus three sick days I could use.
The other young woman was also from the parish. I had seen her on occasion in church, but didn’t really know her. Her name was Barbara Parker, and she was discerning a vocation as well. There was also another Dominican Brother, Br. Jerome, whom I didn’t know either, who was going to visit his sister, who was in the community. Br. Jerome was probably in his sixties and had lived for many years at the House of Studies in Washington, D.C.
West Springfield…of course. That’s where the Passionist Monastery and Retreat House was, and where Br. Matthew presently was. Fr. Meriwether promised to drive me there one afternoon and surprise him. He liked Ezra and wished he had become a Dominican.
Barbara and I sat in the back seat the whole way and enjoyed the view. It seemed like it was expressways and interstate highways the whole way, but quite lovely, especially going through Connecticut.
St. Mary’s Priory was very impressive, and the church was really beautiful. The friars welcomed us to a casual pick-up lunch in their beautiful refectory, very masculine-looking with a dark wood dining table under an elegant, early American chandelier. Their front parlors were also as exquisite as St. Vincent’s, and I told Fr. Meriwether that I’d be happy just to stay there for my retreat. But I was also excited to visit another monastery. We were not far from another Dominican monastery in North Guilford, but didn’t have the time to visit there, perhaps on the way back. It was also threatening to snow.
We arrived in West Springfield close to four o’clock. The drive up their entrance road is so wonderful with the monastery at the top of the hill. There are acres and acres of land, covered in snow. The enclosure wall on the side is hidden by huge hedges. Unlike Brooklyn Heights, there were no immediate neighbors; this was almost like farmland except for the commercial businesses going on across the street. But still, the monastery itself is far enough away and up a large hill that one doesn’t even hear the traffic passing by. So different from the sights and sounds of Brooklyn, New York, going on outside one’s window!
We visited the chapel before letting the nuns know we had arrived. The chapel was so beautiful, larger than Brooklyn Heights, but, like Brooklyn, had the monstrance in the middle of the large wrought iron grille. The nuns’ part of the chapel (the choir) seemed very plain from what I could see, devoid even of statues except for one (Our Lady of Grace, I believe, but she can’t really be seen from the public chapel). The stained glass windows depicted the mysteries of the Rosary and, high above them, various Dominican saints and blesseds. The pews were a light blonde stain, which made the chapel seem brighter, and the floors—all marble—were clean and shiny. There was a marble communion rail separating the nave from the sanctuary.
The community was also quite large, probably twice as big as Brooklyn. They sang most of their Office in English, which was new and different, and quite lovely. They have an impressive pipe organ inside the choir with real pipes over the back entrance to the choir.
I didn’t know if Fr. Meriwether had intended this to bring on a crisis or a greater or lesser degree of surety. I had only really known the monasteries in Brooklyn Heights and Buffalo, plus little visits to Corpus Christi in the Bronx, and once to Summit, New Jersey.
Our rooms were small and very plain with tiny windows looking out on the front drive. By the time the bell rang for Vespers, it was snowing outside, which blanketed everything in the most wonderful silence and in turn made the nuns’ singing even more angelic. We had lots of time to pray in the chapel and read. Fr. Meriwether gave his lectures in the nuns’ community room/Chapter room, and Barbara and I weren’t invited. We got to know each other during the five days, however, and every afternoon we bundled up and went for a walk up and down the entrance driveway.
It was nice having a new friend about my age, maybe a year or two younger, who was thinking of doing something so radical as entering the cloister. She was intimidated by the stress on study and the intellectual life of the Dominicans, and was more drawn to the Carmelites or maybe the Poor Clares. She seemed a little rigid about some things, or maybe just shy. She was a pretty young woman who didn’t appear to be aware of her beauty. Maybe it’s just a foible of us slightly overweight maidens to think skinny girls are prettier or have it more together.
She also made a fuss over the difference in the Carmelite and Dominican habits, something I had not really paid much attention to. We both noticed, however, that some of the active orders of sisters were wearing what they called “modified” habits, and we wondered where all that was leading. There was a spirit of renewal in the air since the close of the Vatican Council, and we were all rather swept up in it.
I remember Fr. Meriwether being very cautious about it all, and perhaps his caution rubbed off on me, too. After all, I was the daughter of Tevye and Golda Fiddler, who held fast to tradition. It was a traumatic enough event to embrace Catholicism, but it was also something very solid, stable, and an unshakeable rock like Peter, the rock on whom the Lord founded the Church.
On the third day of our retreat, Fr. Meriwether told us that after his morning conference we would take a ride over to the Passionist Monastery. He had called ahead and arranged to meet with Br. Mathew, who didn’t know who would be hiding under Father’s cappa. It was only a ten-minute ride to the Passionists, located on Monastery Road.
The retreat house and grounds were most impressive, especially when blanketed in snow. The house where the priests and brothers lived was warm and cozy; there was even a fireplace in the parlor, which was nicely alight with birch logs. The porter led us in and called Br. Matthew, who came bounding into the room a few minutes later, totally surprised and delighted to see us. Of course, he had never met Barbara, but knew Fr. Meriwether fairly well.
We sat on sofas facing each other near the fire, and Br. Matthew talked excitedly about the work of the house, about his making final vows in a few months, and about the marvelous liturgical changes they were incorporating into their retreats now. Active participation, lay readers, and everything being in English were the main points. He was so excited about it all, he didn’t seem to grasp why we were there, at the Dominican Monastery, or didn’t really put two and two together yet. But that was okay. Sometimes, I think the world revolves around me, and wonder why others, like my friends, don’t get that, too.
We left less than an hour later, as we were due back for dinner at noon, and Fr. Meriwether had to look over his afternoon conference, which I presumed meant he wanted to take a nap beforehand. I’m sure he had everything down pat in his head already. I was surprised when Br. Ezra hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, not because he’d never done that before, but it seemed awkward given the place, and I promised I would be there for his final vows, unless I was making my own, but he missed that entirely. He even hugged Barbara, which I found more surprising, and Fr. Meriwether, who always seemed humble and shy at those moments.
The drive back was rather silent, and I was lost in my thoughts, not able to put a finger on something about it all that disturbed me. Maybe it was just the bleakness of the weather.