January 20, 1932
Mary Love leaned forward and tried in vain to stretch the kinks out of her aching back. The soapy water she was using to scrub the sacristy floor had already frozen in a puddle around her knees. The stones themselves were as cold as the icicles that hung like enormous stalactites outside the tiny mullioned window.
No one had warned her—not Father McRae, not Sister Francis, and certainly not the Reverend Mother who had so warmly welcomed her on her first day at the convent—that the life of a postulant was nothing short of slave labor, or that winter in Minnesota was only one step removed from the frozen pit of hell in Dante's Inferno. Of course they didn't tell her. No person in her right mind would have willingly volunteered for such service if she had known the truth.
And yet, here she was, on her knees in a tiny cubicle off the cavernous convent chapel, scrubbing away as if her very soul depended upon it.
The convent, called Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, wasn't really so bad. It was, as Mary Love had expected, a quiet place, conducive to contemplation. The only problem was, everything—absolutely everything, except sleeping—was done in community. At five the bell would sound to awaken them, and again to call them to meditation in the chapel. Then Mass, then breakfast, then work assignments. Every minute of the day was rigidly scheduled, and the postulants were expected to fall in like little soldiers. Obedience and discipline, after all, were inherent in Holy Rule.
But Mary Love had found a way around the rules. In the mornings, she would race through her chores and sneak off to her cell, where she pulled out a secret stash of art paper and sketched. At night, after lights out, she would slip away to the bathroom—the one place in the convent where the lights burned all night—hide in a bathtub, and continue her drawing. Once, when the temperature dipped to - 40, she nearly froze her behind. But it didn't stop her. After that, she took a blanket with her, with her pencils and paper rolled up inside.
It was against the rules, of course, and if she got caught, she would undoubtedly spend the next six months cleaning toilets and peeling potatoes. But it was worth the risk. She had left behind the familiarity of home and family for this opportunity to find herself in her art, and she would take the chance while she had it. As a postulant, she was supposed to be seeking her identity in God, but the religious exercises never brought her any nearer to the Almighty. She felt closer to God when she was drawing than when she knelt in forced prayer. Wasn't that what a religious vocation was about, after all?
A shadow fell over her. She looked up to see the scowling face of Mother Margaret, the Mistress of Postulants, glaring down at her.
Mother Margaret—as she herself told the story—had taken her name from St. Margaret, who defeated the devil in the form of a dragon, was beheaded, and later spoke to Joan of Arc. Evidently Mother Margaret thought martyrdom a glory much to be desired. She couldn't have it for herself, however, so she did her best to impose it upon her charges. She mustered the postulants like a drill sergeant, barking orders and examining their work with the critical eye of a perfectionist. She tolerated no idleness, and if so much as her shadow came into view, all the postulants went into a flurry of nervous activity. Even the Reverend Mother, Mary Love suspected, fell victim to Mother Margaret's intimidation.
"Woolgathering again, I see." The nun towered in the doorway between the sacristy and the chapel. Her voice was cold, colder than the floor by several degrees.
Mary Love had been at Our Lady for five months—long enough to know that levity of any sort, under any circumstances, was strictly forbidden in Mother Margarets book of religion. She was pretty sure the woman's face would shatter into a thousand pieces if that dour countenance ever attempted so much as a hint of a smile. Still, she couldn't help herself.
"It seems to me, Mother, that a little extra wool might come in handy, as cold as it is."
The joke fell flat, and Mother Margarets eyes narrowed. "Idle hands—"
"Are the devil's workshop," Mary Love finished. "I know, Mother."
"Then get back to work. You should have been finished by now" She pulled a hand from the folds of her habit and pointed a bony finger at Mary Love's nose. "You," she said ominously, "are one who bears watching."
Mary Love lowered her eyes. "Yes, Mother." The cold crept up her knees and numbed her legs, but she didn't dare move.
"Self-denial," the old nun muttered. "Self-control. We die to self, that Christ may reign supreme."
"Yes, Mother." Mary Love was fairly certain that her legs had already died, but she doubted that a piecemeal martyrdom was quite what Mother Margaret had in mind. She waited, frozen in place like the statues in the chapel and the ice under her kneecaps, until the nun turned her back and moved noiselessly down the center aisle and out the door.
"So she caught you daydreaming, did she?" Adriana Indergaard whispered in Mary Love's ear as they set the refectory table for dinner. "The Dragon Mother?"
Mary Love suppressed a chuckle. Behind their hands, most of the postulants laughed over that disrespectful nickname for Mother Margaret—a reference to the saints victorious encounter with the devil. The original St. Margaret might have overcome the dragon; their Mother Margaret, on the other hand, had incorporated many of its less attractive traits into her personality.
"Don't let her hear you call her that," Mary Love warned. "She's already belching out fire today."
"So I've heard." Adriana rolled her eyes. "So we've all heard." She grinned at Mary Love. "She was standing in Reverend Mother's office complaining about your 'woolgathering'—and your audacity—at the top of her lungs. Did you really tell her that the wool would come in handy to give us a little extra warmth?
"Mary Love nodded. "I'm afraid so."
"And she was not amused."
"She's never amused."
"Well, I thought it was funny," Adriana admitted. "And just between us.
I suspect Reverend Mother did too. I don't think she agrees with Mother Margaret's attitude that you have to be miserable to be a Christian—or a nun."
Mary Love watched as Adriana deftly laid out plates and silverware. The girl was a corn-fed beauty, straight from the tiny burg of Guckeen.Minnesota—a town that Adriana herself described as "a bump in the road." Every time Mary Love saw her, she wondered what a girl like that was doing in a convent. With her blonde hair and flawless Nordic complexion, Adriana was the image of a Midwestern beauty queen, and she had the brains and good sense to match her looks. She had, Adriana had confessed in a moment of candor, been chosen Sweet Corn Princess in her home county two years in a row and had left behind not one but two up-and-coming farm boys eager to marry her. Adriana, however, would accept no suitor but Christ. She had been aware of her vocation since the age of six, and nothing would deter her from that calling.
Adriana handed Mary Love a stack of plates and whispered as she passed by, "What do you daydream about, Sister?"
Mary Love hesitated. She couldn't tell Adriana the truth about her obsession with painting, or that art, not religious service, was her true vocation, the passion that fired her soul. She suspected that it might be a sin—maybe even a mortal sin—to take vows under false pretenses. But then, she was a long way from her final vows, and coming to Our Lady had provided 2 refuge for her, a place of quietness, an escape from a life that held no promise at all for the future.
"I don't know," she hedged. "What do you think about when no one's around?"
Adriana didn't blink an eye. "God," she said simply. "I think about what a privilege it is to be able to give my life in God's service. I pray to become more like Our Lady and more like her son, our Savior. I dream about that wonderful moment when I will take my vows and become a Bride of Christ."
Of course. Adriana Indergaard would spend her free time in the pursuit of holiness.
In truth, Mary Love envied her—a sin that didn't threaten her soul, but gave her something to talk about every week at confession. Adriana was so certain of her direction, so absolutely sure that God had chosen her. She would be the perfect nun—chaste, obedient, cooperative—a paragon of all the qualities Mary Love struggled with on a daily basis.
Mary Love, on the other hand, would never be the perfect nun. And if she kept crossing Mother Margaret, there was a good chance that she would never become any kind of nun at all.
Mary Love was in her cell, frantically sketching out an idea that had come to her the day before while emptying the kitchen garbage. It was a landscape, a breathtaking snow scene, with moonlight coming down from behind the clouds. Hidden in the trees at the edge of a clearing, a face looked out on the scene—a luminous, beatific countenance—which was at once the source and the recipient of the beauty of the night.
The bell sounded for evening prayer, but Mary Love couldn't stop. She had to get the face just right or she would lose the mystical ambiance of the entire drawing. In a frenzy she sketched on, possessed by an intensity beyond herself.
And then, suddenly, Adriana Indergaard stood beside her, looking over her shoulder.
"Sister?"
Mary Love jumped up, sending her pencils flying, vainly attempting to hide the sketch. Adriana, with her single-minded focus on God's will and purpose, would undoubtedly frown upon this pursuit of worldly ambition. It was unspiritual, ungodly . . . and most certainly a violation of Holy Rule.
But Adriana didn't look displeased. She looked . . . transported. She stared down at the drawing, crossed herself, and breathed, "It is the face of God!"
Mary Love gaped at her, dumbfounded. Then, following Adriana's gaze, she looked for the first time at what her own hands had created. Even in a black-and-white pencil sketch, the picture held an ethereal quality, an otherworldliness. The face within the forest watched over the scene with an expression of profound love and protective passion. Instinctively, without words to express it, Mary Love identified the feeling. It was what she experienced in her art.
"Please, don't give me away," she begged. "I couldn't help myself—I just had to—"
"Of course you did."
Four words, nothing more. But the tone and the words told Mary Love that Adriana Indergaard, the Sweet Corn Saint from Guckeen, Minnesota, understood.
"I know it's time for prayers, but—"
Adriana nodded, and a single tear streaked down her cheek. "You were praying. This is the most profound prayer I have ever witnessed."
Their eyes met, and in that moment a bond was forged between them, an unspoken connection that Sister Margaret would undoubtedly have forbidden as one of the "particular friendships" expressly prohibited between postulants.
Adriana reached out a hand and touched the face in the woods gently, with a sense of awe and reverence. "Perhaps it is a sin," she whispered, "but I envy you this gift. God has given you the ability to see and re-create a vision of what is holy. It is the stuff saints are made of."
The words lodged in Mary Love's soul: a gift. . . the stuff saints are made of. For months she had thought of the time she spent drawing as stolen hours, pilfered from the Almighty and deserving of punishment. She had hidden her sketches away furtively, dreading the inevitable day when someone would discover them and her guilty secret would be revealed. But now the truth was out, and to her surprise, Mary Love felt not guilt, but liberation. A new sense of purpose rose within her, as if, despite her disobedience to the rules of the order, the Lord had somehow smiled upon her.
She looked back at the drawing, at the benevolent, compassionate face behind the trees. The face of God, Adriana had called it. Was it possible that the Creator of the universe truly was present in her art, that every stroke of the pencil was a wordless prayer?
Perhaps. If so, maybe it wouldn't matter so much that Mary Love Buchanan would never be the perfect nun.