Dedicated to God (28 page)

A nun works in the monastery’s woodshop, equipped with tools of every type after one woman joined the Poor Clares and, in keeping with her vow of poverty, gave up all belongings, donating them to the community.

To honor their vow of enclosure and separation from the world, Poor Clares try to maintain themselves as much of the property as possible. Here, a nun cleans the boiler.

A nun and a novice garden together. The Poor Clare day comprises regular alterations between prayer and manual labor.

A John Deere tractor—a rare concession by the Poor Clares to technological advancements—is operated only so that the nuns can mow the acreage more quickly in order to return to prayers. Rather than relying on the tractor for hauling, the nuns use a wheelbarrow and pitchforks in keeping with their life of manual labor. Here, a nun passes the gardens and a storage shed.

A nun has passed away. Her coffin, seen through the grille, is placed on the enclosure side of the parlor before the funeral.

Part III
The Threats

7
Idealism and Reality

It’s in self-giving that people find their truest fulfillment. And it’s a paradox; it’s one of those paradoxes that seem to be a contradiction. Now if you look at something as beautiful as marriage, you see how, when two people sacrifice themselves for one another and give themselves to each other wholly and completely, there is a true fulfillment there. It’s the same in religious life and on a supernatural level; when people are able to sacrifice themselves—give themselves up—that’s when we can find the deepest fulfillment, not in seeking selfish ends and selfish motives. When we’re seeking ourselves, or seeking ourselves in creatures or in creation, it’s so finite; we’re seeking what it can’t give. Only God can fill infinite desire.

Sister Mary Nicolette of the Father of Mercies

After Sister Mary Michael’s forty-fifth birthday, her family witnessed a quick transformation, somewhat miraculous, totally disruptive. “It all just happened so fast, out of the sky. I compare it with Paul being knocked off his horse,” Sister Mary Michael says.

Her journey from an insurance firm to transcendence took shape in the utterly mundane. When family members borrowed her red car and turned on the engine, they knew to anticipate blaring country tunes; now they were baffled, instead, to find cassette tapes playing spiritual lessons, and her radio tuned to church music. Her young nieces and nephews, who had looked forward to her visits and the spoiling that inevitably ensued, became the objects of her evangelism. Poolside in her backyard and during hikes in the woods near her family’s cabin in Wisconsin, the children tired of her efforts to impress on them religious teachings and stories. She taught them the sobering story of the holy children of Fatima, who saw visions of the Virgin Mary in Portugal; two of those youngsters had learned they would not live
long, and so they dedicated themselves for the remainder of their days to only what mattered for eternity—prostrating themselves for hours in prayer and practicing acts of self-mortification.