The Pink Sisters Part 3

Note: This series of essays first appeared on Thunderstruck in 2003, recounting my experiences of 2001.

I have a few things packed into a bag--stockings, black flats, nightgown, robe, toothbrush, Bible, Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation--and my purse. Mom points out that I might as well leave my house keys behind, since she'll be picking me up in two weeks in addition to dropping me off today. I almost don't take the purse at all. I'll have no purchases to make--why will I need my wallet? I remember how long I resisted carrying a purse as I was growing up. Now I can't bring myself to leave it. I rationalize this, telling myself that some sort of accident might happen and I'll need some ID--perhaps an earthquake? I don't examine this line of reasoning too closely because it allows me to keep my purse.

We take the highway. Mom drives and I blather on about inconsequential things. We find the convent. Mom offers to see me in, but I am suddenly shy about this. "You don't want me to come in," she accuses. I can't explain why, I just would rather I walk in alone. So I say goodbye in the car.

I walk up to the gate. I open the gate. It seems like every step forward requires a supreme act of will, like I have to command my feet to move. I can't get over how deeply weird it is that I am--of my own volition--walking into a convent. Any second now, and I'm going to bolt.

But I don't. I make it to the front door, ring the doorbell, and in a moment the buzzer sounds and I can walk in. Inside there's that other door with the little window, and there's a nun's face in the window obscured by the screen. "What can we do for you?" she asks.

I thought they were expecting me. "I'm Angela," I say, hoping this explains everything and not sure where to start if it doesn't. Luckily she recognizes the name. She directs me to the little room where Johnny and I interviewed Sister Mary Gemma.

In a few minutes Sister Mary Gemma is there too, on the other side of the grille. Two other sisters are with her and they all greet me with bright smiles. A key is produced and the door is unlocked, and then I am on the other side of the grille with them. I was expecting to feel different when I cross this threshold, like the air would turn purple. It doesn't and I don't.

First I am introduced to the one I will think of as Formator Nun, the Sister in Charge of Nuns-in-Training. "She'll show you around," Sister Mary Gemma says, and leaves me in her care.

There is a little posterboard sign in the hall when we walk in: "Welcome to Mount Grace." "That's for you," Sister tells me. But then she doesn't speak. We ride the elevator up the third floor, silent the whole time. When we reach the third floor she explains in a whisper, "We are supposed to maintain silence in the elevators and the corridors. And the stairwells. I wasn't ignoring you." She says that if I am ever in the corridor and need to tell another sister something I should walk with her to a doorway and say my piece there. Talking inside rooms is permissible.

Down the hallway we go. I'm walking double-time to keep up with Formator Nun. The doors we pass have gold-painted numbers on diamond-shaped plaques and nameplates with names on them, Sister This and Sister that, like backstage dressing rooms. Near the end of the hall the door says 21 and the nameplate has no "Sister" on it, just "ANGELA." In the old days this room would have been called my cell.

Inside is a bed, a closet, a sink, and a bedside table. On the table is a lamp, some papers and a little green card bordered with Celtic designs. "God Bless You, Angela," it reads. Sister opens the closet door and shows me three identical white dresses. "This is what you will wear. The first one will be your regular dress, the second one is your work dress. I hope you are prepared to do some work here, because now you are in the army of the Lord! The third is your Sunday dress." There is a slip, an "underdress," in the drawer by the sink. She shows me the prayer to say when putting on my habit (it's on one of the papers on the bedside table):

"Remove from me O Lord, the old man and invest me with the new man which is created after God in justice and true holiness. Grant me the grace to become like Mary, a humble servant of the Lord, and a chaste spouse of the Holy Spirit..."

By the mirror above the sink are shelves with trial size bottles of lotion and shampoo and also a little bottle marked "Holy Water." Sister takes the holy water and mimes shaking it over the bed. "Before you go to sleep, bless your bed. When you bless your bed, bless your family and friends, and ask for blessings on the Pink Sisters too." She gives me details about the daily routine--there's a schedule on my table--but it's all far more than I can absorb at the moment. Then she leaves me so I can be invested with the new man.

When I've donned the dress and wondered at myself in the mirror, I find Sister in the hall. We go to say a short prayer in an oratory, a room overlooking the chapel. Then she takes me on the grand tour, starting with the other necessary places I need to know about on the third floor--showers, toilets. I am particularly relieved (so to speak) to find the latter; there are a couple of buckets under my sink in my room, and I was afraid of what they might have been for. (They're for washing out stockings and such--my dress is to go to the laundry room once a week, but I'm responsible for washing everything else.) On the second floor is the infirmary. On the first, the chapel, the Portress (Nun-in-Charge-of-the-Door)'s room, the novitiate, which is a room for Sisters-In-Training, with a library whose books I can borrow (there are other libraries about but I am not to go into these), and the dining room. Down one more landing of the staircase is the way into the garden. She tells me, "If you want to go into the garden find out first if the dogs are loose. They might lick you to death." In the basement we see the kitchen and the laundry room.

By this time I have tried to take in much too much information, but Sister takes me back up to the Portress' room (she has door duty this morning) where I am to learn the communal prayer of the sisters, the Liturgy of the Hours--at least enough to get me through the one which will begin at 11:45, Mid-day Prayer. She fetches my stack of psalters and sits down with me to "set the books." The conversation goes something like this:

"All right, we are in the third week of the four-week psalter cycle, but at mid-day prayer of the third week we use the psalms from the second week, which are on page 794 (she sticks in a bookmark accordingly). But in the liturgical calendar we are in the eleventh week of ordinary time, so the reading and responsory is on page 1080. For midafternoon prayer after dinner we'll use psalms from the fourth week. Here's a schedule for the rest of the week--as you can see we have a memorial, a solemnity, and a feast coming up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and those of course will all have different opening hymns, readings and responsories..."

I give Sister a helpless look. "The Hours are the Waterloo of new sisters," she says sympathetically.

Every fifteen minutes as Sister explains the Hours and lunch and the rest of my duties for the day ("and remember to lower the seat of your chair in chapel for the psalms. One girl in formation forgot to, but didn't want to disturb anyone with the noise, so she sat down anyway on the air"), a bell chimes the quarter hour like Big Ben, and Sister bows her head and says the quarter-hourly prayer. It catches her off-guard twice, and then she types it so I can say it with her:

God, eternal truth, we believe in You

God, our strength and salvation, we trust in You

God, infinite goodness, we love You with all our heart

You sent the Word into the world as our Savior, make us all one in Him

Fill us with the Spirit of Christ that we may glorify Your Name. Amen.

"You get caught up in your work and you can forget the important things," she explains. "This prayer is a way to help remind you of God dwelling within." She hands me the slip of paper, but I'm not sure what to do with it. "You can keep it in your pocket."

"I have pockets?"

We examine my white dress. I find what seems to have been meant to be a pocket, just a hand's length lined break in the seam on one side near my waist. "There's your pocket," Sister says. I put my hand in and demonstrate there's nothing there; stuff would fall straight to the floor. "No, underneath that. In the slip." Ah. The hole in the dress is just the access for the pocket in the slip. "You can keep your rosary in there too."

The rosary is one of the elements of private prayer I am assigned to do each day. I am to spend 45 minutes in the chapel adoring the Blessed Sacrament, that is to say, kneeling before Christ, as Catholics believe Christ is actually present in the host which has been consecrated at Mass. One such host is displayed in a gold monstrance above the altar in the chapel.

In addition to the 45 minutes of adoration, I am to spend 20 minutes saying the rosary, ten minutes reading scripture, and ten minutes meditating on the Stations of the Cross, Jesus' journey to Calvary. I am also required to do 30 minutes of spiritual reading each day. Some days this will be on my own, other days Formator Nun will pick the reading for me and we'll read together, she acting as my tutor.

We talk a little about the recreation time usually held every evening after supper. While I spend my two weeks here, I won't get to do much recreating. My visit coincides with their annual novena, nine days of prayer dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There will be an additional Mass in the evening instead of recreation starting Thursday night. But earlier in the week I will get to experience one of the more interesting ways the sisters amuse themselves.

"On Tuesdays there's chair dancing," Formator Nun informs me, her tone indicating this is a special treat.

"Chair dancing?"

She demonstrates, waving her hands side to side like a cheerleader while remaining on her stool. "Dancing while sitting down. It's very fun; the sisters really enjoy it." She giggles.

And so, armed with knowledge and breviaries, I am sent off to do some private praying before the bell summons me to the chapel for my first taste today of the Liturgy of the Hours, Mid-Day Prayer. I go first to my room to fetch my rosary from the pocket of my purse. It's a broken rosary, held together by a safety pin, but it's functional. I notice there's a holy water font just inside my door. There are holy water fonts just inside or just outside nearly every door in this place--the kitchen, the novitiate, the dining room. Also in my room is a crucifix and a painting of Mary so placed that her gaze appears trained on my bed.

I head to the chapel to adore. The corridor leaning there is lined with cubbyholes where the Sisters stash their extra books and where one can leave a message for another. Their mail is left there too--as I pass by I see one sister has gotten a letter from Germany. In my cubbyhole is a lace veil and two hairpins. The sisters wear starched cotton veils but my head is bare; while in chapel I'm to wear this mantilla. No mirrors around, though; I take a guess as to where to stick in the pins and open the chapel door.

I have my own place in the chapel, to the far left and three choir stalls from the front. The choir stalls are like human cubbyholes, or like the sort of desk I had in grade school. There is a sort of "elbow shelf" on which to rest one's book and underneath is a hiding place for all five of my breviaries. In front of the counter is another little pocket where books can stand up. I have my own kneeler and my own seat. It is not like a pew, where one can go from sitting to kneeling and back again; there is no space for this. Instead, the wooden platform that functions as a seat is on a hinge, so it can rest against the left wall and be lowered when needed. This was what Formator Nun was referring to when she told me the cautionary tale of the aspirant who forgot to lower her seat.

I kneel and try to collect my thoughts. There is, as always, one nun kneeling on a prie-dieu ("pray-God") in front of the altar, and one other nun in the choir stalls opposite me. (There are three rows of stalls on each side, space for about thirty nuns.) When the chime at the half-hour rings the nun in the choir stall walks slowly to stand to the left of the prie-dieu. The kneeling nun rises; they genuflect at precisely the same moment; the one who was kneeling before leaves the chapel and the other takes her place before the altar.

"This is like the army," I think. "I've just watched the changing of the guard."

This, by the way, is the Pink Sisters' chief purpose--perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. All day, every hour of the day and night, there is a nun kneeling in front of the altar. My little 45 minutes isn't part of this main task force, but Sister has told me that after I have settled in to the routine she will assign me an hour-long adoration shift every couple of days.

But even 45 minutes is a long time to kneel. I lower my little platform and sit every time my leg feels like it's falling asleep. I also discover something disturbing, now that I have all this uninterrupted time to spend with Jesus--I don't know if I believe any of this.

The words of the quarter-hour prayer sound strange coming from my mouth. "God, eternal Truth, we believe in You"--do I? How about "we trust in You"? Nope, can't manage that much. And "love with all our heart"--out of the question. Do I want to be made one in Christ, or glorify God's Name? The first sounds painful and the second unproductive. I don't want to say the prayer by rote, without reflecting on the words, but neither can I in good conscience say it when so much in me is rebelling against the implications.

This is embarrassing. I've gone through sixteen years of Catholic schooling, I go to Mass every week--I'm in a bloody convent--but it seems like this is the first time the little voice has asked me, "Do you give your consent? To all of it--the little white disk in the gold sunburst monstrance being God, God not only being lovable but the only thing to love--all of it?" And I don't know what to say. It's as though faith is a trait I've enjoyed pretending to have for its counterculture value and because it's an easy way of staying on good terms with most of my family. The most I can do, for the moment, when confronted with these terrifying words "believe" and "trust" and "love," is to promise myself or Whoever else is listening that I'll try to find out if I mean it.

Little by little the chapel fills with nuns. At a quarter to twelve a chime like the alarm on a wristwatch rings and we all kneel, if we weren't kneeling already. We stand to sing the opening verse, "Oh God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me." And, bowing, "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit." Standing straight again, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen." Formator Nun--who is in the choir stall behind me--had in her Liturgy of the Hours primer given me a chart explaining which melody to use for the opening verse, because of course there's a different melody every week for four weeks and a different melody for Memorials and one for Solemnities and one for Sundays. We sing the opening verse facing the altar, then we turn so that the two main divisions are facing each other across the chapel divide. We sing a hymn (using the "weekday tune," since again there is a Sunday tune, a Solemnity tune, etc.). The righthand side sings the first verse, we lefthanders take the second verse, all join in for the last, which praises the Trinity and so, again, we all bow. The Trinity is big around here.

We sit. I remember to lower the platform first, and am mightily pleased with myself, until the nuns on the lefthand side start chanting a psalm and I discover I am completely lost in the breviary. It takes me the duration of that first psalm to find my place. I'm where I need to be for the second, which makes me smile, because it is a sentimental favorite and lands in my heart like an "Every little thing's gonna be all right" wink--Psalm 40: "I have waited, waited for the Lord, and he stooped toward me and heard my cry."

When Mid-day Prayer is complete everyone kneels again, and the chapel is silent. This time is for the Particular Examen, I've been told, where one reflects on the day so far to see if one has been advancing in holiness, or not. And then a single voice begins "Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness," and everyone answers, "In the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense." We walk in procession out of the chapel reciting Psalm 51, the one credited to King David after he a) bedded down with another man's wife, b) had the husband killed and c) realized all this was not such a good idea. I have a little card with the psalm written out on it so I can follow along.

There are four steps just outside the door of the chapel. The elderly German nun in front of me (a quirk of Pink Sisters vocation history has ensured that most of the elderly nuns here are German, most of the younger nuns are Filipino) ascends them slowly. Her walker is against the wall at the top. The younger nun who preceded her out of the chapel scoots the walker to within her reach. Another nun has her hand on the elderly nun's back, supporting her and helping her forward.

The procession moves to the dining room, Psalm 51 ringing out in various thick accents all the way. My place at one of the tables is marked with a "Welcome, Angela" card, and after dinner prayers all the sisters start clapping for me, and then I have to go round the room shaking everyone's hand. "Welcome home," one sister says.

It's leftovers day. A fellow barbecued some pork for the sisters; we have that, roast beef, lentil beans, asparagus, mashed potatoes, rice, mushrooms, and salad. For dessert there are cheese danishes and "fruit pizza"--a pie crust topped with cream cheese, strawberies, grapes, and kiwi. That was donated too. We may talk during this meal-not at breakfast or supper, just this one, unless at the end of the before-meal prayers, Sister Mary Gemma adds "God the Holy Spirit" and everyone answers "All for love of you." That's the password.

My table includes Formator Nun, another professed sister, Correspondence Nun, who tells us about the monarch butterflies she is raising, and an aspirant, a Chinese girl from Belize who had gone through this observer program in February. She wears just the white dress, like I do, but she wears a veil. Formator Nun tends to call aspirants and novices "whitecaps" but the professed sisters' veils are white too. I like her other nickname better. She calls those in her charge "young ones."

I've just polished off my slice of fruit pizza and Formator Nun is telling me why eating too many bananas is bad for your liver when the wristwatch chime goes off again. Sister stops midsentence and everyone gets up in silence to clear the dishes, wipe down the tables, and set new dishes for the next meal. I find that if I want to help I have to move fast; my three tablemates are already distributing plates and knives and cups with ferocious speed. Aspirant Nun takes pity on me and lets me set out three spoons for her. Of course I put one on the wrong side of the plate but she corrects it for me, gently admonishing me to do better next time.

But I will not give a minute by minute account of my first day. I can give a better sense of what it is like by listing the schedule, since every day of the fourteen I spend at Mount Grace follows it.

A bell rings at 5:15 a.m. for "arising." As soon as I hear it I am to say "God the Holy Spirit, all for love of You," and then a sequence of prayers kneeling at the side of my bed:

"Mary with your loving Son, bless us each and everyone. Angel of God, I greet you.

"O Most Holy Trinity, in union with my guardian angel, I adore You. I thank You for having protected me during the past night and for the new day which you have granted me. I renew my resolutions in honor of You and offer myself entirely to You through the hands of my dear Mother Mary."

This is to be followed by 3 Hail Marys and after each: "By your Immaculate Conception, O most pure Virgin Mary, purify my heart and my soul."

At 5:45 we go to chapel for Lauds, or Morning Prayer. Afterwards there is meditation until 7. Some of the nuns stay in the chapel, others wander the halls pausing in prayer before statues of saints or icons or the plaques depicting the Stations of the Cross. Two other nuns and I usually head out to the garden. The sun is newly risen then and the mist is not yet gone. I follow the adventures of a cardinal couple; the female usually seems to be scolding the male; they chase each other around a holly tree and in and out of the garden with chortling songs. At 7 it's back to chapel for Mass. Our priest has come back after decades spent in India; he wears sandals and gives excellent homilies, most of which unfortunately I have trouble focusing on as I desperately try not to fall back asleep.

After Mass we are given a few minutes to get back to our rooms to make our beds, and then a bell summons us to breakfast. Office of Readings and Mid-Morning Prayer ("Terce"), two parts of the Divine Office combined into one, immediately follow breakfast. Then we have a morning work period, then Mid-Day Prayer ("Sext") at 11:45, then dinner, then Mid-Afternoon Prayer ("None"), and a free hour. "You are free to do anything then--except sin," Formator Nun tells me. I wonder if she expects I would be planning a drugstore robbery. It's a moot point anyhow, as is the fact that one is allowed to talk during free hour. What some call free hour others call siesta; it is the ideal time to catch up on the sleep lost by arising at 5:15.

At 2:00 a bell rings to signal free hour's end. Work and private prayer occupies the afternoon. There is a 3:15 coffee break. At 5:00 there is Vespers, or Evening Prayer, and at 6:30 supper, followed by recreation. Night Prayer, "Compline," follows recreation, small work called "night position" follows Compline (I'm assigned to the kitchen for this), and then it's off to bed. Lights out is at 9:30.

All this changes of course on solemnities, Sundays, and during the Sacred Heart Novena, but the changes are cosmetic. On Sundays and solemnities free hour is two hours long, work is curtailed and Vespers moves to 4 o'clock. During the novena recreation gives way to an additional evening Mass and Evening Prayer immediately follows Vespers.

Late in my stay I tally up the average time spent at prayer. Given each segment of the Liturgy of the Hours hovers around 20 minutes, given private prayer time, Mass, meditation, the occasional hour of adoration and extra Masses for the novena...it's about eight hours a day.