Changing Habits (31 page)

JOANNA'S HOUSE

J
oanna sat on the large sofa in her spacious living room as Tim opened the wine. The reunion had been exhausting but well worth the months of effort that had gone into the planning. Gathering the community of nuns and former nuns one last time had been everything she'd prayed it would be. Now with Kathleen and Angie, Joanna could unwind after a hectic afternoon.

“I can't thank you enough for doing this,” Kathleen said, sitting next to her husband. The sky was only beginning to darken, the last rays of the sun casting a warm glow over the lake that was visible from the large living room windows.

Brian Doyle placed his arm around his wife. “It was smart to do this while the convent was still intact. I only wish something like this could be arranged for priests and former priests—the guys I went to seminary with, for instance.”

“I didn't know how I'd feel about this weekend,” Angie said, accepting a glass of merlot from Tim Murray. She sat in the recliner and leaned back, her gaze focused on the setting sun. “Even after the plane landed, I wasn't sure coming here was the right thing.” She raised her glass. “Now I know it was.”

Joanna remembered how Angie had spent much of the reunion secluded in the kitchen. She'd worried about it at
first but then realized this was where Angie felt most comfortable. Not only that, she was grateful for the extra help.

“Did you get to visit with everyone?” she asked, fearing Angie had been so busy with details she'd missed out on the most important aspect of the reunion.

“I had a wonderful time. I talked to Sister Julia and Martha and a number of others. Oh, and Sister Colleen.”

“I don't remember Sister Colleen,” Kathleen said, frowning. She glanced from Angie to Joanna.

“She taught ninth-grade French,” Angie explained.

“Oh, yes,” Kathleen said. “She must have left the community after we did.”

“No,” Joanna said. “Sister Colleen's still a member of the order, although she no longer wears a habit.”

“Surely she's retired from teaching by now?” Kathleen murmured.

Angie crossed her legs. “I believe so—quite a while ago, I'd say. She didn't mention exactly when, but she did tell me she shares an apartment in the city with two other nuns. All three of them work with the homeless.”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I've visited the sisters at their place. And I've seen Sister Colleen at parish events.”

“Did she tell you why she stayed?” Kathleen asked Angie. “There must've been tremendous pressure to leave when so many other women did.”

Angie shook her head. “We didn't get around to discussing that, but I have the feeling Colleen's been completely content with her life. As I remember it, she always was. She felt then as she does now, that she was doing God's work.” Angie paused and sipped her wine. “It did come as a shock to her that I'm no longer a Catholic.”

“You mean you don't attend Mass?” Tim asked, moving to the edge of the cushion, openly curious.

Joanna smiled to herself. Her husband was a strong
Catholic, and a Eucharistic minister in their church. No one who knew him would believe that at one time he'd rejected God and Church.

“I attend a Protestant church in Buffalo now,” Angie explained.

“In our day, that was like joining ranks with the enemy,” Joanna said with a laugh. “We didn't dare so much as walk on the same side of the street as one of those
other
churches.”

“I talked to two or three women today who've left the Church,” Kathleen said. “In fact, not one of them wants anything to do with the Catholic Church. Remember Sister Janet? She's dropped out, and so has Sister Ruth.”

Joanna had been so busy acting as hostess that she hadn't had the opportunity for more than brief conversations with any of the visitors. She was hoping her friends would enlighten her.

“I had the most wonderful afternoon,” Kathleen murmured. “It was such a validation of the decisions I made, and it was so great to talk to women who understand everything I went through when I first left the convent.”

Everyone looked to Kathleen, nodding in sympathy. “That time wasn't easy for me,” she said softly. “But I was fortunate in that I had a supportive older brother and a place to go.”

“I've heard of nuns who were given little or no support by their communities,” Angie added.

“Can you imagine,” Kathleen said, “coming out of the convent after twenty or more years with no retirement funds, no savings and sometimes no skills?”

Tim frowned and shook his head. “That didn't happen to any of you, though, did it?”

“No,” Kathleen was quick to respond, “but we were relatively young when we left.” She gave a slight shrug. “We all went our own ways for different reasons—but there were similarities in each case, too.”

Joanna agreed. “I left because I'd grown into a completely different woman from the nineteen-year-old girl who'd entered the convent with a broken heart. I was so certain I had a vocation. I wasn't prepared six years later to find myself feeling restless and uncertain.”

Tim loudly cleared his throat. “You mean to say
I
didn't have anything to do with your decision?”

Everyone laughed, including Joanna. “Yes, dear,” she said, playing along. “I was in love and longing for a family, too.” But it was more than that. In her pain over the broken engagement, Joanna had turned to God for comfort, convincing herself that He was calling her into His service. Her vocation hadn't been genuine, although no one could have convinced her of that in 1967. If it had been, she'd still be a nun to this day, the same as Sister Colleen.

“I was one of the lucky ones,” Angie said. “I had a home and a career waiting for me. Never once did I feel displaced or a burden to my father. According to his friends, the minute I was back, my dad was happier than he'd been since I left.”

“A lot of the women I talked to mentioned feeling guilty,” Kathleen said.

To Joanna, that made sense. For a time, soon after she'd come home, she too had experienced the burden of guilt.

“I think a lot of us felt lost and displaced,” Kathleen said. “For myself, I went from Grand Silence to my brother's house with two preschool children. Emma and Paul had no appreciation for silence.”

That comment produced smiles all around.

“I talked with one former nun—I don't think she was part of the community when we were—who spoke of that feeling of displacement,” Kathleen continued. “She couldn't go back to live with her parents, nor could she afford to rent a place of her own.”

“What about friends?”

Kathleen shook her head. “She didn't say, but I sort of had the feeling that she's been drifting for years, no roots, no real home or family.”

“That's sad,” Angie murmured.

“I was surprised how many of us have married and divorced,” Joanna said. She'd talked to four former nuns who'd married quickly after leaving the convent; after a child or two, their marriages had fallen apart. It made her feel all the more blessed to have Tim in her life.

“A lot of the women I spoke to had problems with relationships,” Kathleen added. “Especially relationships with men.”

One of the most telling conversations of the afternoon had been with a woman who'd come out of the novitiate at the same time as Joanna. “Sister Joan's been married three times in the last twenty-five years. She said she'd failed God as a nun and then was divorced within a year of her first marriage.”

“Talk about going from respected to rejected in two short steps,” Tim said, and sipped his wine. He reached for Joanna's hand and they entwined their fingers.

“I want to go back to this issue of relationships with men,” Brian said. “Was it a recurring theme?”

“It was,” his wife confirmed.

“It must have something to do with how submissive we were taught to be,” Angie said thoughtfully. “Remember Custody of the Eyes?” She rolled her own eyes now, mocking the custom of always lowering one's gaze while in the presence of a man.

“I think that submissiveness set many of us up for exploitation by men,” Kathleen muttered.

Joanna noted the way Brian's arm tightened around his wife's shoulders, as if offering her love and reassurance. “My biggest problem was money,” she said.

“Not enough?” Angie asked.

“No—managing it. Before I entered the convent, as well
as when I left, I lived with my parents. As soon as I could, I got my own apartment but I had no idea how to budget my paycheck.”

“She still has problems with budgeting.” Tim winked, then went around with the wine bottle and refreshed everyone's glass.

“If you had it to do over again, Angie, would you have joined the convent?” Kathleen asked, nodding her thanks at Tim.

Angie hesitated. “Given everything I know now?”

“Yes, everything.”

Gnawing on her lower lip, Angie nodded. “I would. I loved being a nun and part of a community. You two,” she said, gesturing toward Joanna and Kathleen, “and the others… You were the sisters I never had—the big family I always wanted. It was good for a lot of years, but finally I had to move on. There was the whole mess with Corinne, which was a real catalyst for me. And as it turned out, my father needed me. Just hours before he died, he told me I came back just in time.”

A silence fell over them. “I'd do it again, too,” Kathleen admitted. “To this day I can't say for sure whether I had a vocation or if I was just living up to my family's expectations. All I know is that I was raised with the knowledge that one day I'd be a nun. That life was everything I'd anticipated and more. After a while, though, I started to wonder about my role in the Church.”

Joanna knew that Kathleen might have continued with the community for years if not for Father Sanders, God rest his soul.

“What about you, Joanna?” Kathleen asked. “Would you join the convent if you had a chance to do it all over again?”

Like her friends, Joanna nodded. “I wouldn't be the woman I am today if I hadn't spent those years in the con
vent. Nor would I have met Tim.” She smiled at her husband, this man whom she'd loved for thirty years, and their eyes held for a long moment.

Joining the convent
had
been right for Joanna at that time in her life. She'd found warmth and healing in those years with St. Bridget's Sisters of the Assumption.

“No regrets?” Angie asked, looking around at her friends.

“None,” Kathleen said.

“None,” Joanna said.

The three raised their wineglasses in a silent toast to the years they'd lived in love and trust and faith. Their lives might have changed in every conceivable way, but those feelings had not—and never would.

Convent:
The residence of a religious community, especially nuns.

Mother Superior:
The nun who is the head of a religious community.

Motherhouse:
The residence of the head of a religious community. Central home for the Order. Nuns are sent from the motherhouse on assignments or missions. Postulants and Novices are trained at the motherhouse. Nuns take their vows there.

Sister Superior:
The head of a convent or house away from the motherhouse.

Divine Office:
Compilation of prayers based on scripture, prayed at different hours of the day. The Divine Office con
sists of Prime, Lauds, Matins, Compline and Vespers, each prayed at different times of the day, also known as Hours.

Custody of the Eyes:
The habit of keeping the eyes lowered in order to meditate and pray, and away from things that would distract from God.

Postulant:
The first-year candidate for admission into a religious order.

Novice:
A second- and third-year candidate for the second stage of becoming a nun. A woman is admitted into a religious order for a period of probation before taking vows.

Diocese:
The area under the jurisdiction of a bishop. There are 184 dioceses in the United States.

Chapter of Faults:
A humbling, cleansing way to deeper prayer. A nun kneels before her fellow sisters and her superior once a week to confess the faults of the week and receive a penance from the superior.

Grand Silence:
The practice of keeping silent from 7:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m.

The Year of Silence:
Novitiate candidates are asked to maintain a year of silence while contemplating their vocation in their first year.