OCTOBER 15

Teresa of Avila,
Virgin and Doctor

Orion leaned toward the ocean, fleeing the smudge of light over the mountains. Muffled wingbeats: a band of crows in formation, on their way to a landfill for the morning’s harvest. Instead of cries, they made rattling sounds in their throats.

Sister John turned on the lights in the infirmary and offered the day to God:

Anyone who is lukewarm in his work is close to falling.

She dressed quietly. The wound over her ear had closed, but her heart gaped. Her doctor was right—life after epilepsy seemed dull. She felt as if she had tumbled out of a sacred mountain into a ruined village. The cloister buildings looked institutional, her Sisters’ piety showed signs of wear, and the psalms read like the libretto of an opera delivered as a speech. God’s presence was replaced by an atmosphere of human compromise. Her convalescence in the infirmary became a prolonged examination of conscience.

Throughout the cloister, spiritual quotations had been painted over doorways to keep the Sisters’ minds on God during the ordinary, in-between moments of daily life. These messages tended to become invisible over time, but now the one over the infirmary door would not disappear even when Sister John turned her back to it:

If I serve Thee in hopes of Paradise,

      deny me Paradise.

If I serve Thee in fear of hell,

      condemn me to hell.

But if I love Thee for love of Thyself,

      then grant me Thyself.

She had come to the cloister in hopes of paradise; proof of it was how disillusioned she had become in the years after Solemn Profession, when the novelty wore off and paradise still eluded her. She reacted out of fear, shutting down her emotions and losing herself in busywork disguised as service to God. Her readiness to interpret her seizures as spiritual favors rather than signs of illness: renewed hopes of paradise. Deciding on surgery out of a sense of obligation: fear of hell.

In the next bed, Sister Teresa was all white hair, parched skin, and staring eyes. She hardly spoke anymore, but when she did, it was usually to people no one else could see. In this least favorite room of the monastery, endurance passed for reverence, prayer veered toward bargaining, and cleanliness substituted for purity. Even the furniture acknowledged defeat: beds with railings, doughnut-shaped cushions, wheelchairs, a chrome-plated walker. While the cross in each nun’s cell issued a challenge to love, the one in the infirmary offered the consolation of surrender.

I’m too young to feel finished, too old to start over, and too worn out to see coherence in all this. How many times can a person fail before losing heart? Forgive me, Lord.

Fog rolled up through the canyon and over the cloister wall, so thick that even Saint Joseph disappeared into the void. Sister Miriam entered with a breakfast tray, bowing at the foot of Sister John’s bed before serving her.

A nun in the infirmary shall be looked upon as Christ.

This lesson, like so many in the education of a Carmelite, addressed the problem of how to turn an unpleasant task—in this case, caring for a sick nun—into an opportunity for grace. Nothing in the training, however, prepared the sick nun for the role of the Beloved. Sister John did not enjoy being looked upon as Christ because she knew she did not resemble Christ at all. The bandage on her head was more dunce cap than halo.

“Praised be Jesus Christ.”

“May He be forever praised. How was Father Aaron’s sermon this morning?” Speech was allowed in the infirmary, where charity took priority over obedience. Sister John thanked God for that; any distraction from her own thoughts was welcome now.

Sister Miriam set the tray down. “I liked it. He talked about how, even for Saint Teresa, things never got easy.” She sprinkled raisins and cinnamon on Sister John’s oatmeal, poured milk on it, then buttered her toast for her.

Sister John watched guiltily, knowing that Sister Miriam had eaten only cold cereal for breakfast. She tried the oatmeal, but couldn’t taste anything; since the operation, her sense of smell had all but disappeared. “Are you feeling better since your parents’ visit?” she asked.

Sister Miriam brushed her veil away from her cheek. “I had a long talk with Mother Emmanuel, like you suggested. I told her about having days where I don’t feel sure.” She pursed her lips. “About belonging here, I mean.”

“And what did Mother Emmanuel say?”

“That she has days when she doesn’t feel sure, either. Even now.” Sister Miriam looked up hopefully. “She said that no matter how many times we hear what it costs to follow Christ, we’re still shocked when the bill comes, and we wonder all over again if we can pay it. If we make an act of faith then, it counts more than on the days when we feel sure.”

Sister Miriam got up to check Sister Teresa’s feeding tube and change the towel under the old woman’s chin. The fog had lifted outdoors to reveal a clay-white sky. “What about temporary vows?” Sister John asked. “Do you feel ready?”

“I don’t have it all worked out, but I’m ready. I want to try working with what I’ve got instead of wishing I had something else.”

The sound of the wooden clapper carried from the refectory. Sister Miriam bowed again, but paused before leaving. “I want to thank you for talking to me that day,” she said. “It helped a lot.”

“You’ll do the same for me one day, I’m sure.”

Sister Miriam smiled, then passed under the quote on her way out. Silence took her place in the room, and Sister John felt marooned in it. A red-tailed hawk settled on one of the eucalyptus trees beyond the cloister wall, but was not able to enjoy peace there for long. A pair of mockingbirds, each a fraction of the hawk’s size, lunged and screamed at it until the hawk flew off. The mockingbirds gave chase until the giant had disappeared, then returned to their spot in the ginkgo tree.

Sister Teresa mumbled at the ceiling, neck stretched and hands retracted as if she were clutching a purse. Sister John thought: There’s someone who knows what it costs to follow Christ. She gave God everything she had, and now she doesn’t even know who she is, much less that she was a nun.

During private prayer after Vespers, Mother Mary Joseph shuffled into the infirmary with a basket. Her body was curved into the shape of a question mark. She uncovered the basket and held a popover roll in front of Sister Teresa, who became alert all of a sudden and grinned like a child. Mother Mary Joseph fed her by hand until she had eaten nearly half a roll, then brought the basket over to Sister John.

“Resting well?” the Living Rule asked. It came out as more of a squeak than a question.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to choir. I feel useless in here.”

Mother Mary Joseph pointed to Sister Teresa. “You’re keeping her company.” The former prioress took a moment to admire the garden through the window, then asked, “Written anything?”

Sister John pointed to her bandage. “When they took this out, my muse went with it.”

“God must think you did enough with that gift. Now he wants you to do something else.”

“That’s a positive way of looking at it.”

Mother Mary Joseph brushed the crumbs out of the basket into her palm. “What other way is there?” She crossed the infirmary, opened the window, and tossed the crumbs out to where the birds could eat them. She was barely able to reach over the windowsill. “Christ died without seeing his work completed,” she said. “By human standards he was a failure, but faith turned his defeat into victory. How he looked at it was everything.”

She returned to her spot next to Sister John’s bed. “God showed you what heaven could be like, and you shared it with others. Now you can do something even better.”

“You think so?”

Mother Mary Joseph nodded from the waist. “Walk in faith even though heaven seems out of reach. Think how good it would be if you could write about that.”

Leaves dropped from the ginkgo tree like gold coins, mocking Sister John’s poverty. It was one thing to be poor in spirit, like Christ, but another to be poor in faith. “I need to read that book, not write it,” Sister John said.

Mother Mary Joseph shook her head. “Everything we learn about God leads to deeper mystery. Hard to accept sometimes, but we have to keep going.” The old nun’s voice was ready to give out. She squinted and eyed the wall. “What does that clock say?”

“Five-twenty.”

She frowned and gathered her basket. “Too much talk. Pray for the next batch of rolls.”