28 YEARS IN A CONT
THE HONGKONG: TELEGRAPH SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1949.
Penances of scourges and haircloths
THE MOTIVES THAT
INSPIRE THEIR USE
Here, In the final chapter of her story, Monica Baldwin tells how she came to realise she had made a mistake in becoming
nun.
Her petition to the Vatican to be released from her vows after 28 years was accepted and a papal rescript istued permitting her to return to the outside world.
By
MONICA BALDWIN
OOKING back, it now tingo-even for an instant would be a fault against the
Beoms to me that an occupation which, the Rule. what was hardest to moment the bell sounds, human neturo in religious has ceased to be "of Rule," He was the absolute sub. is to commit a fault.
free will jection of one's to the exigencies of the Rule of the Order.
Neither are you left free as to the manner in which you do things. Everything From the
of is ordained, down to the hour very way you sit or move the awakening till when at last you fall asleep, or hold your hands.
moment
in
the Rule holds you in ita Even when you sweep or grip.
dust, it must be done One prays, reads, cats, exactly the particular walks in the garden, at the fashion that was taught to appointed hour; no religious you in the Noviceship. is allowed to follow her own inclinations in the disposal of her time.
By the Vow of Poverty, none of the religious might possess anything whatsoever of her own.
08
Should she be late to ring, or
community would be
nially by the votes of the forget altogether. the earth choir nuns. Her position shook and trembled, for the was that of mother to the entire community. The extreme periously inconvenienced. respect shown to her was based upon the idea that in the monastery she held the place of Christ..
Church" Then, kuid vestiteerta
were kept in an ancient room called the custry.
possible
,
Superior heat
if the petition'
"Nöview"ukking
to be received
A. Novice presents her petition in Chapter asking to be received, into the Order.
Here were long cheels with
set my heart on was in reality deep drawers full of cottas and
His Will for me. The nuns, until they had albe, each one folded in the
Instead of which, I simply been for a certain number of tiniest
accordion Therefore, in the old religious and at other times when the took, the bli between my teath years in the community, pleats, and then bound tightly
with strappings of linen or orders, besides silence, fasting, spirit of penance is in the air, and galloped onwards.- always knelt when she spoke tape.
and vigils the use of the "dis most religious, I imagine ga in cipline' is also enjoined by for something of the kind. Hi! Now It stands to reason that to them.
And it is a positive fact that, religious life, which is essentially The snowy gossamer lawn out rule.
Most people, I suppose, would there
when wisely ponances,
a. life of sacrifice, will never When she passed, they of which most of them were
lace edged be horrified If they were shown practised, produce remarkablo succeed if it is based on welfah- had to rise and bow as she priceless, historic lace, inducing the small scourge made of thin
resulte
Dess. went by. Her will
of breath and waxed cord, to was sharp intakes
under obedience, which five or Performed
great deal to supreme.
And I fear (though it deeply talls are at- they do a very wide eye-openings when shown six little knotted
tached, to connoisset12%.
and told
that it was bring about that subjection of humiliates me to confess it)
can be no doubt that used by almost all religious to the body to the spirit without there inflict upon themselves a con- which the highest adventures in solishness was the foundation the spiritual life can never be on which my own religious Ho siderable amount of pain.
was built. achieved.
She herself was expected to be in all things a model of perfection.
The
who
fashioned
Each
pleco
had its
And what masses of it! Cream foam-colour, Ivory, linen-white, ghost-grey, or palest oysteri
The metal "discipline" is an the faint, indescribably even more vicious-looking in choir huns also pil
quartertones between white
strument. Its slender, make- elected perhaps 16 or 17 and white that only addat in
tails can cut and sting sisters
represented lace.
quite cruelly.
There are bracelets of steel, them, much as an M.P. re- pedigree.
studded with Most of it was well over a wide-linked, and
points
although not These alsters were con- yard in depth.
which, sharp
to draw blood, presents his constituency. sulted when important deci-
aro none the less extremely sions had to be taken by the SELF-DENIAL is Paul when fastended tightly
tant
enough
and a little
HIGHEST way of living
From this, the trouble sprang. It must have beer, I think, after about ten years in the convent that I first began to whether I wonder, miserably, WAS 17 when the iden first had not, perhaps, made a dread-
came to me that I had a ful and tragic" mistake.
disturbed me idon no "vocation" to bo
seemed to me the very that I put it aside as a tempta highest way of living to which tion. I dared tell no one. It
I
nun.
a human being could aspire.
The
round an arm or les
however, that, Choin not enough
Kirdles on the same
I had I will not analyse my mental cemed to me, lines are also worn occasionally; procesors during the next few mistake or no mistake,
could be no withdrawing. flat wooden cross months in order to prove to you taken a step from which there sacristan set forth
THIS is no place in which set with short, slightly blunted exactly where I went wrong.
the motives nails, can cauɛo-when worn, is enough to say that, when
The only thing to do was to on the shoulder I determined that I would go set one's tooth and go on with
chair into a convent, It never oc- practices of the
It is
religious or under a heavily xcruciating curred to me to ask myself or it, if not from Inclination, then
The nuns, like the early Christians, had "everything in common." There was no such thing mine and al- thine; everything was
priorcas. ways spoken of as "ours"...
The actual work of the "our knife and fork," "our
Was divided up "our
choir. house breviary,"
"our among the "officers." even mantle,"
Of these, the brush and comb."
Everything one has is to had one of the most impor which inspire the penitential for example,
and arduous tasks. So deeply did the Rule cut begin with, exactly like Two other nuns usually ders,
manilo almost
indeed, anybody else whether by sheer dogged force of will into one'a liberty that even that used by everybody else,
pain. the strongest -
not my among
tho favourite or
religious vocation But at last came a day when Hairclothe the mind was subject, at
I knew that I could blink the It is, however, interesting to allowed to her as were to the most and, since it is only lent to
note that the extraordinary garment of the Fathers of the were a genuine affair. certain times,
own
wanted to become a nun: it truth no longer. I was no more one, nothing of one's
desperately un- saints were Desert-were helps.
ponances of the
followed, therefore,
the fitted to be a nun than to be an rigorous discipline.
personality is to be found
One was always respon not so much the outcome of a comfortable things
day, that God must acrobat. before the in it. Half an hour
their own sanctif- There were two styles: one a night the
Because I sible for the bell-ringing in desire for
sleeveless tunic like a have chosen me. must abandon whatever last bell which Bummoned
wanted it, it must be the Will of cloister which cation as a tremendous urge to kind of choir and
tabard: the other, a help and save and, if possible, herald's they are doing.
Divine MOTHER of the Office, the cloister bell rang solemnly to remind them community that you should break off begun and that, from now OUR convent
When the cloister bell rings as the signal for a change of occupation, all
Should you be writing, no mattor how ardently genius may burn, the Rule exacts
in the middle, not only of a sentence, but of a word.
To "disobey the first sound of the bell" and con-
the nuns
that
to the
"strict silence" had
onwards, until that particu-
was divided into choir nuns and lay
It was then that I finally made up my mind that I must
called the nuns to various one for the sins and sufferings wide belt, strapped about the God for
It now seems to me that my go. were made of
of a world
duties.
has which
They very loins.
was largely the out- She find also to start the largely lost the true idea of knotted horsehair, with as many fallure
arrogance, ends as possible left loose to come of choir for God.
to have done "peal" rung in the
What I ought prick the wearer. five minutes or so before each
With the exception of the was to take advice: then, fair The life itself-hard, silent, part of the Divino Office.
packed discipline, nobody is obliged to ly and squarely, to weigh up On high festivala, the under- rigorous, austero-19 lar "hour" of the Divine sisters.
self- use any of these instruments of my faults, qualities and ter Encristan's
opportunities was a perfect with
dencies; and finally, humbly to The Superior-known as nightmare of bell-Flaglag. She denial. And yet, Office should be ended, to
for many torture. Reverend Mother seldom put on weight for lack souls, even that does not seem During Lent, however, on the prey, that God would show me occupy the mind with any the
vigils of the greater festivals, whether or no the life, I had thing but spiritual thoughts Prioress was elected trien- of exercise.
to be enough.
for
The End
(These articles are extracts from the book "I Leap Over the Wall, by Monica Baldwin, published by Hamish Hamilton, Ltd.1
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