Dedicated to God (6 page)

People thought that I was alive when I was with the horses. In a sense, it had become more fulfilling because I became better at it and I was better with the people and I was helping bring people to God that way. But the interest wasn’t there in that my heart wasn’t there. People didn’t know that at all, but you know God had other things. Now there’s more time for more serious responsibility and for things that can really make a difference and not just be for me. A lot of the time I spent with the horses, it was only for me—for my happiness and gratification. In the end, it wasn’t for me anymore, which was a beautiful thing. But I can’t live for me.

In the monastery we have a couple dogs, Melody and Harmony, to keep the watch. I take care of them—feed them, groom and trim them, and bathe them when they need it.

You get assigned those kinds of tasks. I really think it’s a better policy most of the time to just let the community find out what you can do. If you have an ability, God will let them know if they need to know. It all started with trimming the dogs’ nails because they didn’t have anyone that could trim the dogs’ nails and I could do that. They asked me if I could do it and that’s how they found out I worked at a vet’s for a while and I did dog training for a while, so they thought it was appropriate.

Before I came into the monastery, I had no real conception of what a religious, or a cloistered religious, or monastic life was like. Only here could I become what God wants me to be, and what I wanted to be, and what I’m called to be. I didn’t even know what I wanted to be
was
, so here I found out what it was. The transformation is to become a religious, in this case, for me, to become a monastic, a religious contemplative spouse. I had some ideas of what it was—self-giving and those kinds of things—but to experience the monastic life and to live it, there is no way you could ever describe it without just living it.

It’s rich. It’s so deep and rich. And it’s beautiful. Some people maybe think a lot when they’re going to do something, “How’s it going to be, how’s it going to be?” Well, I didn’t do that, and then when I came, I thought, “Wow!” It’s like a beautiful old cathedral or an old building. It’s almost like a work of art. The
life
is a work of art, this eight-hundred-year-old order. We have old prayers we’ve been saying from the start, and we have old traditions. We have a refectory! Everybody else has a kitchen but we have a refectory! The refectory is where we eat, and, primarily, the focus is on spiritual reading, not on eating. We happen to eat, but we’re reading, doing the spiritual reading at the same time. Collation—the evening meal—that means small portion, so that means a smaller reading, a shorter reading.

It’s a culture of its own. The monastic culture is a culture of its own. And we’re following eight hundred years of tradition. We have to cook and clean and pick up after ourselves just like everybody else does, only hopefully we can do it for the spiritual reasons and for the love of God. That’s what really makes the life because we all have the same needs in the end. But it’s the dedication of
why am I here
?
What are we called to?
The spiritual idea is: I’m here for Jesus Christ and for His people.

We are separated from the world in order to be united with God and we need to have this barrier so that we can have our space to be with our Lord. We need to keep the distractions away, and yet at the same time, the Mother Abbess keeps us very up on what’s going on and the needs and the prayers. Before our evening meal, the prayer requests are announced. We are told about all the earthquakes, and all the disasters, and the London bombings in the subway, and all the people who were stampeded and died, and in Iraq a little while ago, all those people were killed, and of course, the hurricanes. We hear about it all. I mean, I hear about this stuff more than when I was out there. We have very good connections.

We’ve set ourselves apart for God and for others, and from this place we can intercede so that, in the heart, the distance is not there. But there is a physical separation. We have to be wherever we are called to be. A mother, her place is with her children. If she wants to reconcile earth and heaven, she has got to do it where she is with her children. If she tried to go off and neglect her duties, if she spends a lot of time in prayer apart, that’s not going to reconcile earth and heaven. It’s where God wants you to be; if you’re where He wants you to be, and you follow the duties with as much love and fidelity as possible, for love of Him and love of our neighbor, we all can do
that reconciling of earth with heaven. But yet we have a special purpose: It’s the special tool that our Lord has chosen. Contemplative nuns are supposed to be the heart of the Church. We are supposed to be there praying for and loving everybody.

This is a place dedicated to God. I really believe that’s what the people who come here feel. I think that’s the sense that the people have when they come here; they can tell this is a place of God. And that’s a special and wonderful thing, to have a place that’s dedicated to God. If I’m meant to be dedicated to God as His spouse, I need to be in a place like this. And it’s got to be in the right place. Okay, we are Poor Clare Colettines, and there are Poor Clare Colettines in Cleveland. But He doesn’t call you to be a Poor Clare Colettine even; He calls you to a certain monastery. This is the certain monastery that He decided, in His wisdom, that I belong here, and that this is the place that is the best for me.

I had to find my true home. And I found it, once I came here, because I was so miserable. And I’ve thought about that recently—I was miserable every other place I’d been. I can’t imagine there being anything better than being the spouse of Jesus. I think it’s a wonderful thing. And I know it’s not for everybody, but I’m really glad that God picked me!

I wanted sisters when I was young. I had three older brothers. I prayed and I asked my mom and begged her and begged her and begged her for sisters. My mom had been told by the doctor, after me, “No more children.” I think she almost died with each one of us. She was a person they thought never could have children. It was very hard on her. So the doctor said, “No more children,” and my parents abided by that. I must have torn my mother’s heart apart. I feel really bad about it now, although I didn’t know and they didn’t explain it to me. I was begging for a little sister because I wanted a sister to play with, not brothers. I think that was even a call back then, that I have sisters. So now I do!

I would probably be so completely miserable if I was anywhere else. Ever since I met here I’ve never liked any other place that I’ve ever been. I’m just not happy or satisfied anywhere else.

I will admit, I count for other people. I do. I think it’s a wonderful thing and I think it’s exciting. I’ll count for other people and I look forward to the time of solemn vows, but I guess I am a real religious now. When you become a nun, when you take the vows of religion, you become a religious, and then
every act you do becomes an act of religion, and everything we do in the cloister, or a sister out there who took the vows does, every little tiny act you do is an act of religion and it makes it even more possibly beneficial or detrimental if you don’t act well. But I wanted this, to be able to represent God’s people and to help God to bless His people, and to be our Lord’s spouse—all of this is part of the same thing. I wanted that very badly.

The solemn vows will be a wonderful thing because it’s permanent and there is a greater responsibility as far as the Divine Office; that’s where you really become bound that you must pray this Divine Office. And then there is the Consecration of Virgins at that time, too. And you receive a ring and that ring says you are our Lord’s spouse forever. I look forward to that very much, but my dream was to be a religious, and not just to be a religious, but to be a good religious. I think I have a long way to go to be a good religious, but I am a religious and that’s what I wanted so, so, so badly.

I have to say I’m really plain Jane. I think that God speaks to me in the pots and pans. I think God is training me through the everyday life. I just need to be faithful where I am. There was a movie about Saint Faustina. They said she was a true mystic in that she gave up everything to be united with Christ. So there it is. A true mystic is someone who gives up everything to be united with Christ, and so in that way we all can be mystics. I don’t think you’re going to find a lot of experiences, and I don’t think you’re going to find many people that would want to talk about them if they did have them.

But the big experiences—let’s live the life, and let’s love God and neighbor. And I think God talks to me through all the people and through all the experiences, and that’s how He teaches me and talks to me. It’s not like you hear words. Sometimes you wish you did so that you would know more clearly, but I guess I hear my words through my superior, and in that way I know clearly God’s will.

We’re all mystics. We give up everything to be united with Christ. Let’s just live the spiritual life. We’re just simple Franciscans. Let’s just live our Franciscan life. It’s all about love and it’s all about self-giving. And to be serious about living and being what we’re supposed to be and about our duties and responsibilities that are very serious. But to me, God speaks to me in the daily life, just what I’m doing and what the people are doing and what I can learn and what I can convert and change in my life.

Now, my focus is on trying to acquire real virtue. And I guess that’s maybe why I’m not counting days for myself—because I’m really trying to be authentically what I professed. That’s a lot of work, and I need to do a lot of changing so that I am really a good representation as Christ’s spouse. “Through love you will reconcile earth with heaven.” The more I love, the more that earth and heaven will be brought together. God is love. I need to become like Him. I have a long way to go, so I’m really trying to work on that.

Part I
The Call

1
Community Life

Each person has her own responsibility for how she chooses her attitude toward others. Happiness is a choice, and we can’t blame one another if the sister isn’t the way I would like her to be. Even if you feel annoyance toward someone, you don’t have to let that annoyance wreck your day. We choose how we’re going to spend our day, and we can choose to think kindly of another person when we’re annoyed. God gave us a free will. I think after living here for thirty-two years, you grow to understand those things better. It’s a hard life in many ways. You can choose to live the life joyfully; but you can become bitter, too, because you don’t have the things you had before, and it’s possible that you make your vows and later you start to regret it, but that’s all within yourself. You have to come to the realization that it’s my fault if I’m not happy, and I can choose to be happy with this life.

Sister Mary Gemma of Our Lady of the Angels

After an early nomadic life, Sister Joan Marie has aged into adulthood and seniority within the same fourteen-acre enclosure. Decade after decade elapses, and Sister Joan Marie rarely leaves the Corpus Christi Monastery campus. She knows that she will die here, unless, she teases, they kick her out. “They overlook a lot, I hope,” she says. “You know you’re not under that tension. You know they’re not going to send you away. They’d like to …” she trails off.

Sister Joan Marie ranks eldest in the community by longevity, having entered the Corpus Christi Monastery in 1950, before any other current member. She moved here at age seventeen; now eighty-one years old, she recounts her first impressions when she walked into the monastery, when life as a Poor Clare began: In the reverential moment when she first approached the tabernacle housing the exposed eucharist in the public chapel, she heard the novices and nuns who had already made temporary vows
and final vows singing from their hidden choir chapel, which faces the public chapel but is separated and hidden from it by the sanctuary (past a swinging gold gate at the Communion rail that separates the nave, where the churchgoers sit, from the altar of sacrifice and altar of repose, where the priest offers Mass and the Blessed Sacrament is exposed). Sister Joan Marie and the other aspiring postulants walked single file, past the stained-glass windows that depict scenes from the lives of Christ, Saint Francis, and Saint Clare on both sides of the public chapel and under the frescoes with gold detail. The young women knelt before the Blessed Sacrament. “We were just overawed, and so all you could think about was, ‘God and me,’” Sister Joan Marie says. “That’s all you saw. I just thought I was in heaven. I just thought, ‘There’s God and here’s me. Nobody else. Nothing else. I left everything.’ And in a way it’s true, but not quite so romantic. But I was in seventh heaven.

“I thought this is it. Live happily ever after. Oh dear. It was so different than anything you had imagined. When you get here, you realize more and more every day, I’ve still got a lot to learn.”