Changing Habits (29 page)

Open House for

St. Peter's Convent House in Minneapolis

August 30th, 2002

From 1-3 PM

 

All St. Bridget's Sisters of the Assumption

And Former Sisters

Are Cordially Invited

The Convent House has been sold

And has been slated for destruction.

 

Reconnect with old friends

Let us gather

and

Praise God for our time together

Joanna Murray

1335 Lakeview

Minneapolis, MN 55410

June 12, 2002

 

Dearest Angelina,

 

I couldn't mail off this invitation without enclosing a short note. My goodness, where has all the time gone? It's hard to believe it's been thirty years since we were last together. I've thought of you so often and blame myself for not keeping in touch. I think it would've helped us both if we'd made the effort. I deeply regret that we didn't have an opportunity to talk before I made my decision to leave the convent. I tried to contact you shortly after I left, but I learned that you were no longer living there, either.

Those were turbulent times for all of us—personally, professionally and emotionally. I know you blamed yourself for what happened with Corinne, but you shouldn't. You weren't at fault. I sincerely hope the years have been good to you and you've been able to put the pain of those days behind you.

As you can tell from the letterhead, I married Dr. Tim Murray who worked at St. Elizabeth's—this happened in 1974. We have two sons, Michael and Andrew. That's the short version of my news. I hope we'll be able to catch up in August.

It would mean so much to me if you'd attend the Open House. It could be a time of healing for us both. A time for laughter, too, and many, many good memories.

Sincerely,
Joanna

(Formerly Sister Joanna)

Angelina's Restaurant The Finest Italian

Food This Side of Sicily

2945 31st Avenue SW Buffalo, NY 14220

 

June 30, 2002

 

Dear Joanna,

To say it was a surprise to hear from you after all these years is an understatement. Thank you for thinking of me. I appreciate the personal invitation to the Open House. How sad that the old convent's about to be demolished. But I understand it's been empty for almost ten years and if the order was able to sell it, then all the better. Still…

As for your invitation, I've thought about it constantly since it arrived. I hope I'm not disappointing you, but I've decided against attending. I could give you a list of excuses and all of them would be valid, but the truth of the matter is that I don't have any desire to return to Minneapolis or to the convent. There are too many ghosts I'd need to face, and I'm unwilling to do that.

Don't feel bad about not keeping in touch. I haven't talked or written to anyone since I left. I couldn't. Have you? What about Sister Kathleen? She was always one of my favorites.

You're right—we certainly did have a lot of laughs together. Do you remember those rubber brownies? I still giggle every time I think about the look on Sister Eloise's face.

I'd enjoy hearing from you again, Joanna. Please give me more details about your life, but don't expect me at the Open House.

Sincerely,
Angelina Marcello

(Formerly Sister Angelina)

July 1, 2002

 

Dear Joanna,

Thanks so much for sending the invitation, which came to me through my oldest brother. What a treat to hear from you after all these years! I had no idea the convent in Minneapolis had been sold. How sad. My life is so different than it was when I was a nun. I imagine yours is, too.

Frankly, I'm surprised you stayed in Minneapolis. I couldn't get away from there fast enough. But all's well that ends well, right?

Count me in for the Open House. I can't wait to see you and everyone again.

Yours in Christ,
Kathleen Doyle (formerly O'Shaughnessy)

August 1, 2002

 

Dear Angelina,

I heard from Joanna that you've decided not to attend the Open House at the end of this month. I'm so sorry you won't be there. Is there anything I can say that will change your mind? I'd love to see you.

Dealing with the past is a tricky business, isn't it? Forgive me for being so bold, but I think that unless you face what happened to Corinne—and to you as a result—this tragedy will forever haunt you.

I'm married now, happily so, and have a wonderful family. (I'll tell you more later!) What about you? How have the years treated you? If you can't find it in you to attend the reunion, I'll understand. I'll be terribly disappointed, but I'll understand.

Your friend,
Kathleen

JOANNA MURRAY
AUGUST 30, 2002

T
he day of the reunion had finally arrived. An hour before the scheduled event, Joanna, Tim and their two sons opened the doors to what had once been the Minneapolis convent of St. Bridget's Sisters of the Assumption. The convent had closed ten years earlier, and now with the building sold and due to be destroyed, this was possibly the last time she and the others would step inside.

While her men carried in the necessary equipment and supplies, Joanna wandered down the long hallway to what had once been the chapel. Just by the door, she searched the wall for the light switch and flipped it on. Some of the bulbs had burned out, but the room was clearly illuminated.

Looking around the stark chapel with its hard stone floor and rows of wooden pews, Joanna held her breath. Slowly her gaze drifted toward the altar, now stripped bare.

Closing her eyes, she could almost hear the chants of her fellow sisters as their voices rose in worship all those years ago.

Thirty years had passed since she'd walked out of the Minneapolis convent. St. Bridget's Sisters of the Assumption had dwindled down to a few hundred members
now. The average age was 69 and there were fewer and fewer women entering the community—and many of them, she'd learned, were in their forties and fifties. Usually widows who'd raised their families and were hoping to serve God in a deeper capacity.

The conservative order had undergone a transformation in the years since Joanna had joined in February of 1967. St. Bridget's Sisters had held out against the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council much longer than the smaller orders. For one thing, they were one of the last orders to modify the habit. These days, the habit had been discarded entirely. A few still chose to wear a simple black veil and crucifix, but those were mainly the older nuns who, early on, had so rigorously resisted the changes. The Grand Silence was another aspect of convent life that had disappeared.

Women who entered the novitiate were no longer subjected to the Year of Silence, either, the year that had been such a trial for her. How she'd struggled those twelve months, and what valuable lessons she'd learned about herself…

Gone, too, was the Chapter of Faults, public penance and the austere living quarters. While she was organizing the reunion, Joanna had visited a woman who was currently a St. Bridget's sister in Minneapolis. Joanna had a vague recollection of Sister Colleen, who'd been transferred to the convent here shortly before her own departure. This visit had made her aware of the many differences between then and now. In fact, a tour of the apartment the nuns rented had shown her exactly how far the order had come. Sister Colleen had proudly pointed out the cheerful decorations. Even the bedrooms revealed the personality and character of their inhabitants. Joanna recalled her own cell, a bleak room with no hint of either.

The one change that impressed and pleased her most was the openness and friendliness of Sister Colleen and the other two nuns she'd met. They had invited her to lunch and then before the meal, they'd all joined hands for a communal prayer. When she'd expressed her surprise, Joanna learned that the sisters now saw hospitality as akin to godliness. She'd been a nun in the days when eating with anyone other than fellow sisters—or occasionally family—was actively discouraged.

Joanna wondered if these changes, had they come sooner, would have influenced her decision. In retrospect she doubted it. Ritual or lack of it wasn't the issue. Remaining a nun would have deprived her of the children she longed to love.

She walked down the center aisle of the chapel and slipped into a pew. As she sat on the hard wooden bench, emotion swept through her. Her years serving Christ had been good ones. She had no regrets. Not about entering the convent and not about leaving. She'd fulfilled her mission, met Tim and—

“Mom,” Michael, her oldest son, grunted as he came into the chapel, carrying a hefty floral basket. “Where do you want me to put this?”

“Over there,” she said, pointing to the left of the altar.

“What about this one?” Andrew asked, following his brother.

“On the other side.”

As her sons placed the floral displays by the altar, Joanna watched them with a deep sense of pride. They were strong, handsome young men and the joy of her life. She and Tim had decided to wait for two years after their marriage to start their family. She'd wanted to cement their relationship first and Tim had agreed.

“Dad's getting the table set up in the foyer. He'll be along in a minute.”

Michael stood with his hands on his hips and glanced around. “You really lived here?”

“I really did.”

“It's hard for me to think of my mother as a nun, you know.” Like his father, Andrew was six feet tall, but he had the blond hair of the Baird family. Michael possessed his father's interest in medicine and was currently serving his residency in Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Also like his father, Michael wasn't in a hurry to marry and settle down.

Andrew, on the other hand, a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota at Duluth, had majored in chemistry and girls. Odds were her youngest son would be engaged by the end of the summer.

“Do you mind if we take a look around?” Michael asked. “It's not like I'll have the opportunity to explore a convent again anytime soon.”

“Feel free,” Joanna told them. “But it hasn't been a convent for quite a few years.”

“Does that make you sad?” Andrew asked. He was the more sensitive of her sons.

Joanna shook her head. “Not really. It was no longer part of my life by the time it closed.”

As soon as the boys had left, Tim walked into the chapel. “I thought I'd find you in here.” He slid an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek.

Joanna leaned against her husband of almost thirty years and gave a long, slow sigh. “You wouldn't believe the hours I spent in this chapel.” Every morning and evening, she was here for lauds and compline. And if she wasn't at the hospital, working her shift, then she was here at noon for the Angelus, too.

“Praying?”

“Always. We worshiped here as a community. Oh, Tim, I remember how lovely our voices sounded. As a postulant I struggled with the singing, but I came to sincerely love it.”

“I came to sincerely love you.” He rested his jaw on the crown of her head.

“Most of my prayers here in those final days were for you,” she confessed. “Or more accurately, for me and the way I felt about you. Again and again I begged God to keep my heart pure.” She turned her head slightly to face him. “You can't imagine what it was like to be a nun and at the same time desperately in love with you.”

“Yes, I can,” he said, tightening his hold on her waist. “I was a man desperately in love with a nun. How do you think that made
me
feel?”

“Culpable and depraved.”

“You know what they say about forbidden fruit,” her husband teased, releasing her.

Smiling, Joanna walked to the front of the chapel and straightened the floral displays. After months of careful planning she was suddenly nervous about seeing the other nuns again. This was far different—far more significant—than the high school reunions she'd attended over the years.

“You're anxious,” Tim said, sounding surprised.

“A little,” she admitted. Naturally, every now and again she'd run into other women like herself who'd once been nuns. Most people, however, were unaware of her previous life, and she was reluctant to mention it. If anyone asked what she'd done before she married Tim, she simply said she was a nurse. She knew from experience that the minute people learned she'd been a nun, there would be an awkward silence or worse, a double-take, and then the inevitable questions. Answering those was the hardest.

Only people who'd lived it themselves could appreciate how important that time had been to her. The woman she was now—the wife, the mother, the nurse, the Catholic—had been created by the years she'd spent as a sister.

It was for this reason that Joanna eagerly anticipated the reunion. Like her, almost all the nuns she'd known had left the order—the statistics were staggering. The last article
she'd read reported that between 1969 and 1980, seventy percent of the order had either died or left.

Despite her own decision to leave, it saddened her that so many priests and nuns had forsaken the religious life, and that so many Catholics had abandoned the Church. The scandals that had recently become public were devastating spiritually and emotionally to those who'd remained faithful.

Slowly the Church would recover. Devout Catholics—like her, like Tim—were working hard to rebuild what had been lost.

“I don't regret the time I spent here,” she told her husband.

“Neither do I,” Tim replied. “We never would've met otherwise.”

“Oh, you would've married someone else,” she said, confident that one of the lovely nurses who'd pursued him would have captured his attention.

“I don't think so,” he said, his eyes serious. “I needed you, Joanna. After Vietnam I came back emotionally empty. I'd turned away from God and anything that had to do with religion. You were the one who showed me the way back.”

“And you showed me how to love. You taught me that loving a man, a family, didn't mean loving God any less.”

“Thank you, Joanna,” he said quietly.

“Mom.” Andrew stuck his head in the door. “Someone's here.”

“Already?” She glanced at her watch with a sense of panic. She wasn't nearly ready yet! She still had the front table to organize and the food trays to set up and coffee to brew. It would be impossible to do all that and still greet everyone as they arrived.

“I'll start the coffee,” Tim said, giving her a chance to greet the first guest.

Kathleen O'Shaughnessy—Joanna recognized her instantly—walked into the chapel.

“Joanna?” she asked.

“Kathleen?”

With small cries of delight, they hurried toward each other and hugged fiercely.

“I thought I'd come a little early and help you get ready.”

Joanna relaxed. “I'm so glad you're here.”

Kathleen looked around the chapel, and Joanna could see that her friend was experiencing the same emotions she had when she'd first walked inside.

Oh yes, this reunion was going to be good for them all.