THE MORNING WE left West Springfield, it was frigid cold in a way I was told that only New England knows, but it was also sunny, and the roads were clear. Father had invited Barbara and me to join him the evening before in the Large Parlor, where we met the community and were able to say thank you. I don’t think I was in a major crisis, but it was difficult to leave them, as I found them very warm and charitable, and full of joy. I imagined the nuns in Brooklyn Heights were also charitable and joy-filled, but I hadn’t had a “parlor” with the whole community, and really didn’t know. I was also struck by the largeness of the place and all the land around them. Mother told us they had 146 acres. That certainly preserves their solitude and silence in a way that Brooklyn Heights doesn’t have. And yet I recalled that I was always struck by the silence in the Brooklyn Heights monastery.
I took three postcards from the display rack in the front entranceway: one for Greta, one for Gwendolyn, and one to send to my father. He would appreciate the thought and probably ponder for a while what the Catholics could ever mean by calling Mary the Mother of God (Monastery of the Mother of God is the name for the monastery in West Springfield).
I guess I was beginning to discern that one was called to a particular monastery, in a particular Order, and that the realization of that was a two-way street. It wasn’t just God dropping you down somewhere, but guiding you to where He wanted and letting you know interiorly that “this is the place.” Again, it was simply a matter of knowing and doing His Will. How often we pray for that: Thy Will be done. That had an added significance to me now as I found myself back in familiar surroundings, in my squeaky little rocker on East 79th Street. Greta, of course, wanted to know everything about everyone, and I tried to describe it all to her, and told her about Barbara, and our going over to see Ezra. She filled me in on all the gossip at work and the new books she’d discovered.
I kept in touch with Barbara, and we went out for dinner a few times. I even took her over to Tea on Thames to meet Gwendolyn, whom I recall was not impressed with her. Perhaps she was a little jealous of my friendship with her, but that never seemed to be a problem with any of my other friends. Gwendolyn actually loved being my godmother and at times would teasingly call me Cinderella, as she saw herself as the fairy godmother and wished she had a magic wand and could change the couple mice that appeared one day in the kitchen into handsome coachmen. Instead she exterminated them. She had no sentimental attachment to mice, and thought that St. Martin de Porres probably had a screw or two loose for talking to them.
Gwendolyn was always a bit irreligious without being offensive. She kept things down to earth. She was a nice balance in my life for Greta, who could keep things stimulated on an intellectual level, which I also twigged to, while Gwendolyn could be more sentimental and even devotional. Not that Greta wasn’t a devout woman—she certainly was, and Gwendolyn wasn’t a dummy when it came to teaching the faith. They were a good balance for me.
I didn’t let many days pass before going to Queen of Hope Monastery in Brooklyn, and had arranged by phone to meet with Sr. Imelda Mary, who was the sub-prioress and the sister in charge of vocations. We met on Saturday morning in the small parlor (sometimes called the Prioress’s Parlor), which was used for more private meetings. Sr. Imelda Mary of St. Dominic was a native New Yorker and had been in the monastery for almost 25 years. She had taught school in Brooklyn after graduating from St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, and knew of the monastery since college, and used to come here on retreats. She was quite lovely and reminded me of Sr. Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary’s. That was Ingrid Bergman, who was quite a beautiful actress. I told Sr. Imelda Mary that, and she blushed slightly and said, “I know; people have told me that. No Academy Awards here, my dear.”
She laughed in that lovely innocent way only nuns seemed to be able to laugh—at least, I thought so, till I became a nun, and I realized there were different laughters because there were different sisters in different places in the spiritual life. Sr. Imelda Mary’s laughter always remained the same and came from a place of peace and contentment. She was the perfect nun to be the face of the nunnery for those discerning a vocation. She was able to put one at ease from the start. Of course, that’s all subjective opinion. Maybe I was already more at ease than others because I had been visiting there and had made a couple retreats there.
Sr. Imelda Mary knew me even though she had never met me. And she was delighted with my inquiry into their life and went through a little litany of questions, which I already knew were covering Fr. Meriwether’s impediments. She also knew of my conversion from Judaism, which, of course, was not an impediment, and she knew something of my broken relationship with my family because of it. I guess Sr. Vincent was more astute than I figured! That too was not an impediment, Sr. Imelda Mary assured me, but she told me that it may one day be one of the splinters of the cross the Lord was preparing for me. She said that with a naturalness and gentleness that assumed (I presumed) that everyone knew the Lord was preparing a cross for them.
“Remember the three P’s, dear. Our life is one of Prayer, Penance, and Peace.” She smiled. She asked if I could stay for a couple hours and said that a guest room was available if I wanted to rest, and that we would meet again after None. That was fine with me, and I was happy to be there for the day. I had brought my spiritual reading with me for the subway ride, and looked forward to just being in the chapel alone. No one was on retreat, so I had lunch by myself, served by Sr. Hyacinth Marie, who told me that Sr. Vincent Mary was not feeling well and was resting.
After None, I was surprised that Sr. Imelda Mary had brought two other nuns with her: Sr. Mary of the Trinity, the novice mistress, and Sr. Catherine Agnes of Mercy, the mistress of postulants. I realized then that I was meeting with the Vocation Team, although they would never call themselves that. Sr. Catherine Agnes did most of the talking, and seemed to me somewhat cold and objective about things; she had probably been a business woman, I thought to myself, and was used to doing personnel interviews. She didn’t repeat any of the impediment litany Sr. Imelda Mary had run through, but spoke more about practical matters, like my educational background, my work experience, any ambitions I had concerning my career, if and when I would be free to come for an aspirancy, and whether I had any debts.
I did have some school loans which could be paid up quicker than I planned if need be. I talked a little about my work at the Public Library, but I was not ambitious about a career there or anywhere for that matter.
Sr. Mary of the Trinity seemed to like that answer. She was Novice Mistress and told me there were four novices and a postulant at present, along with two temporarily professed sisters who still lived in the novitiate. She had been Novice Mistress, I later learned from Sr. Hyacinth Marie, for a total of nine years. It is most difficult to tell a nun’s age, but I guessed her to be about 60. She was actually 70…born in 1900. She was from an old Catholic family in New Hampshire and moved to Manhattan after college, hoping to be an airline stewardess (her words) or an actress. She actually became an assistant cook at St. Rose Home on the Lower East Side run by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. She had entered their novitiate, and it was there that she felt a call to the cloister. Brooklyn Heights was her first and only choice.
She had a warmth about her that was most charming for someone like me, trying to say all the right things, wanting the three of them to like me and accept me before Vespers, if possible. Sr. Mary of the Trinity asked about my prayer life and whether I attended daily Mass. She knew St. Vincent Ferrer Church well and agreed with me that it was the most beautiful church in New York. She was more probing about the interior movement of my soul that drew me to the contemplative life, as opposed to a more active order. All three listened very attentively without comment.
It was Sr. Imelda Mary again who asked if I had plans for the evening and told me that if not, I was welcome to stay for Vespers and supper and she would meet with me again shortly after her supper. That was fine with me. I figured they wanted some time to talk among themselves. I was feeling a little nervous and was most distracted during Vespers rehashing everything I said that day. Maybe they would find me immature, although they didn’t know about my tendency to take things too personally; I could be easily hurt, and if I didn’t get my way, I would pout like a ten-year-old girl. Maybe I was just too young and maybe saying I didn’t have any ambition was the wrong thing to say. Did I love God enough to be locked up behind a grille, in an “enclosure,” as they kept calling the cloister? Finally, all I could do was pray that God’s will be done. It was also quite interesting (and probably obsessive) for me to observe myself, and in all that distraction I realized that I really wanted this life and was praying that that was indeed God’s will.
I still remember supper that night: Campbell’s tomato soup and some saltine crackers and peanut butter, if I wanted it. I figured this was the same as what they were having, and I was probably right, as I’ve had Campbell’s tomato soup and saltines with peanut butter more times than I can remember.
After supper, I waited in the parlor for Sr. Imelda. It was also a little escape from Sr. Hyacinth and Sr. Grace Mary, who always came to lock the church doors after Vespers. They were both most cordial and loved to chat. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else at that moment. The silence was most welcomed, even if the interior silence was only in bits and pieces. Sr. Imelda Mary came into the room on her side of the grille. She was smiling from ear to ear.
The meeting with the sisters went very well, she told me, and they were all quite positive in their assessment. Usually they would suggest several more visits, but since I had been there on retreat several times, the next step would be an aspirancy inside. They liked a month or more, but knew that was difficult to ask, as most young women today are working. Could I possibly take a month off sometime in the next six months? I told her I was pretty sure that I could and would get back to her about that. I was only a subway ride away, I told her, and if there was room, I would like to come back next weekend for the weekend. She said that would be delightful and we could meet again next Saturday. She shared more about what the aspirancy would include, and I left before Compline and headed for home.
I walked back to the subway a foot off the ground. I was murmuring to myself, “A cloistered nun…a cloistered nun?” I was elated and apprehensive at the same time, a very strange emotional state to be in! There were two Sisters of Charity on the subway car when I got on, and I thought about that…and Sr. Imelda Mary’s Three P’s…Prayer, Penance, and Peace. The sisters on the subway appeared to have all three, at least Prayer and Peace. One happened to glance at my book, and smiled at me, and I smiled back. I was reading The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton.
Greta was all ears to hear about my day, and was very reassuring that everything would work out well. She suggested I work weekends for a few times and then get others to cover for me for a week, and I had two weeks of vacation which could probably be taken earlier than scheduled, and “play sick for a week if you need to,” spake Mrs. Phillips, the widow of a Lutheran minister.
Fr. Meriwether met with me during the week and was most pleased with how it had all went. “No impediments yet,” he added, with a smile. There was, of course, my remaining school loans…it had taken years to pay. It was only then that Fr. Meriwether mentioned that there was a Catholic-run program which helped out men and women wanting to enter religious life, by absorbing a debt under $3,000, if everything else was in order.
The personal impediments for me would again be my family, but Papa had assured me that he would handle that. It continued to amaze me how accepting he was, almost as anxious as I was to get it all settled. I went over to their place for supper midweek. It had been almost a month, and the first time since Mama and Ruthie had been to Chicago to see Sally. Mama was like her publicist talking about how wonderful her apartment was, and the fancy restaurants she and her roommate, Bobbie, took them to, and shopping on Michigan Avenue, how lovely her wardrobe was, and on and on.
Ruthie wasn’t as enthralled by it all, nor too impressed with Bobbie. She said that Bobbie didn’t know who any of the theater people were, not even movie stars. The only thing Ruthie liked was that Bobbie was a cop and looked neat in her uniform. Mama couldn’t understand why women would want to be cops, but the city paid her well.
Ruthie wanted to talk more about the school play she was rehearsing and what her costumes would be like, and would I come to opening night? I noticed a little of what Papa had spoken about regarding her flippancy towards our parents. She also told me all about Anthony Bevelaqua, her latest boyfriend whom she was hoping would be her senior prom date. She seemed to want to make it a point to tell me he was a Catholic, so I would like him…this was during supper, which obviously didn’t help with Mama’s indigestion. Papa had wine with the meal, which wasn’t the usual practice during the week, but he was happy I was with them, so it was in my honor. I noticed Ruthie was drinking it a little too fast, or so it seemed, and got louder and more belligerent.
No news from David. Mama said perhaps he would drop in later, but I knew he wouldn’t if he knew I was going to be there. Sally asked about me, according to Mama, but Sally never wrote or called, not even for my birthday or Christmas…well, you wouldn’t expect a Christmas card, I know.
I told them about my trip to West Springfield with Barbara Parker, and that we saw Ezra there, and that he had inquired after them. Mama could only shake her head and say under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear, of course, “That poor boy, such a schlemiel.” Mama did ask about my work and was happy to hear it was going well and said again how she hoped to go down to the New York Public Library and let me show her the place. She had been saying that for over three years. I knew it was her way of showing interest. Only when we were alone in the kitchen doing the dishes did she ask in her old familiar way, “So any love interests in your exciting life at the Library? Any romance novels?”
“No, Mama. I think I’ll probably be the old maid of the family.”
“Not on your life, Becky Feinstein,” she teased, “you’ve got a very pretty face that men could die for, if you let them in a little.” That was Mama’s compliment and backhanded comment about my not-so-girlish figure.
Papa liked to read the evening paper and watch the news on TV at the same time. But he put the paper down when I joined him in the front parlor. I told him quietly that I had been to Brooklyn Heights for the day and started the ball rolling. They invited me to make an aspirancy for a month as soon as I could get the time off from work. I told him a little about the sisters who interviewed me, and he found that all very curious and businesslike. And I assured him it was also very spiritual…they never asked me at the Public Library how my prayer life was!
Curiously he asked about the regulations (his word) on seeing me; could the family come to visit, and could I ever come visit them? This cloistered thing had no exceptions? I didn’t know what the regulations were, and told him I’d be seeing Sr. Imelda Mary again on Saturday and would ask her.
I was excited when Friday came, and I rushed home from work, threw some clothes in a bag, my few toiletries, a couple books and took off for Brooklyn; I’d be there for two nights till Sunday evening.
When I met with Sr. Imelda Mary on Saturday morning she went over their horarium—their schedule for the day, which I already knew fairly well from being there on retreat and attending all the hours of the Divine Office, including the Night Office. I asked her about the visiting rules and times, if ever, they the nuns could leave the enclosure. I was surprised to know that they never really left; they never had home visits or vacation days; they didn’t even leave for their parents’ or siblings’ funerals. She mentioned this was beginning to be discussed in Chapter, as it was now being left up to individual monasteries. So far Brooklyn Heights held to the stricter observance. They would also go out if need be to the doctor and of course, to the hospital. The other exterior works—shopping, driving sisters, picking up guests at the airports—these were all done by the extern sisters. I thought about all that for about a minute and decided it was all just and right and that once I was inside I would never want to go out again. Wrapping one’s mind around that, as they say today, was not really as easy as all that. It was near impossible to imagine that one would spend the rest of one’s life in a single place. But it was all for the Lord; why else would one do something so…..bizarre?
Sr. Imelda Mary said the grille was often shocking to parents and people who had never seen one before. It was also difficult because they could not hug or kiss their daughter. Family could visit twice a year, except for the first year of novitiate, when one did not receive visitors. Correspondence was unrestricted, but all letters were mailed without being sealed, and both outgoing and incoming mail were read by the sub-prioress or prioress. There was no mail sent or received during Advent and Lent.
Sr. Imelda Mary was very kind and unrushed about everything. She said the vocation was not easy, nor was it common. It proved in the end to be rather laborious but peaceful, if one gave herself to the life. It was a life of sacrifice and the Cross, but when borne with love, it was a most precious gift. She also said that the Lord will always provide the graces we need, and that what brought us or drew us to the cloistered life would probably not be what keeps us here. And she smiled as if I understood what she meant, and, of course, I couldn’t begin to comprehend all that, but pretended that I did—like they were my own sentiments.
She told me my interviews were very favorable, and they would like me to clear up my financial responsibilities, and to submit two letters of recommendation—one from my pastor, and another from someone of my own choosing (it could be another priest or spiritual director)—and along with these, a copy of my baptismal and confirmation certificates. She also kindly said that perhaps Lent would not be a good time to make an aspirancy inside, as the life was more austere and would not give a clear picture of the rest of the year, but I would be welcome at any time to spend a day or two in the guest quarters. It was only then that I learned they had an aspirant’s room always set aside and in a different location from the regular guest rooms.
That was all on Saturday morning and a short time in the afternoon. The rest of the evening I had to myself. I had brought several books and my journal along but wound up sitting in the chapel the hour before Compline and for an hour after Compline. The Lord in the Blessed Sacrament took on a special beauty in the darkness and quiet of the night. There were moments when I felt myself being “absorbed,” for lack of a better word, by the Lord’s real presence.
I was grateful the nuns had Perpetual Adoration, and knew that it would always be my greatest joy. In His presence in the Sacred Host, all my worries and fears and projections about everything would dissolve and nothing mattered except that God be loved and adored. How wonderful this Sacrament. I loved to pray over and over the now familiar prayer:
O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,
all praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment thine.
Feelings of unworthiness, and worse, fears of delusion and disapproval could be dissolved by gratitude…all thanksgiving, be every moment thine.
It was those quiet hours alone in the chapel which lingered in my memory during the week. I could close my eyes on a jammed subway car at 8:30 in the morning, with all the smells and human herding, and be at peace.
I was able to schedule twelve hours of overtime for the next several weeks, and worked for several people on my days off. I paid off a good piece of my remaining debt, and applied for an earlier vacation, which I got without a hitch. I was planning, tentatively, to make my aspirancy in the month of June. Fr. Meriwether and Fr. Norbert Georges, O.P., agreed to write letters for me. I had become a member of the Martin de Porres Guild, of which Fr. Georges was the director. He didn’t know me as well as Fr. Meriwether, but I knew he was well known and respected by the nuns.
The only thing left was telling my family and friends. O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me!