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wildflower8281 · 7 years ago

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#nunlife

A lot of people ask me what #nunlife was like and why I left. So I’m answering some of that here in various parts because #nunlife is so multi-faceted, happens in steps and in 8 years I experienced many sides of it! Also, the reasons why I left deserve some space, thought and clarity. 😊 While I do get saucy in various parts because lots of my #nunlife was kinda cray, I also would not change my time in the convent because it has brought me to where I am now, a space and a life that is full and bright. So even though I call out some of the bullshit antics here and in other places I’ve written, I also still hold much love for the actual humans who I grew up with there (I was age 22-30 in the convent, with many of the same) and who I know are still living that life with good intentions. Also, I know there are many former nuns who prefer not to revisit convent life or remember things, which I honor. For me, I have no problem sharing (really?!) any parts of it - the good, the bad and the ugly. And honestly, sharing has helped me to make others aware and also reap the wisdom from those years for my own life and spirit.

Below is everything from our insane schedule, sleeping on pieces of wood to chauffeuring the priests around. Also the cool stuff like traveling to the White Mountains of New Hampshire every summer, playing volleyball and getting a new name. Oh and why the sound of a bell is semi-ptsd for me!

In adjectives only, nun life was: fun, challenging, quiet, loud, sacrificial, routine, adventurous, exhausting, annoying, ignorant, blind, well-intended, broken and beautiful. Full of humanity, right?!

What order? I entered The Servants of the Lord & the Virgen of Matara (ssvm), they are the female branch of the larger Religious Family of the Incarnate Word, mostly a missionary catholic priesthood, originally founded in Mendoza, Argentina in 1984. (www.ive.org; www.iveamerica.org) The order has definitely had it’s fair share of shadiness that has recently come to light, but honestly none of that had any personal, major effects on my life or leaving. The sisters were founded in 1988, marking 30 years this year (www.ssvm.org; www.ssvmusa.org) They are a catholic missionary order and so when I met the ssvm while attending Catholic U. in DC, they had only been in the states for maybe a handful of years. They only had probably 7 American sisters, most of them still in formation. I think my class was probably only the 4th or 5th class here in this province (which now includes USA, Guyana, Surinam, Mexico & Canada!) Still to this day, the Novitiate formation houses for both the men and women resides in Maryland, very close to DC.

Entering the Convent: I entered at age 22, only 9 months after graduating college. I entered the Novitiate House/Convent, where both postulants and novices lived together. Postulancy is the stage upon entrance until a girl receives her habit & religious name. At this point, that is usually a year or longer. For me, back in the early days of SSVM in this province, it was only 11 months and for some of my classmates, it was only 1-4 months. The order did not have a certain level of church approval yet (it only had local ones or something,) so we didn’t yet have to follow canonical rules, which was fine and semi-normal.

When I entered, there was a novice class already living in the house that consisted of all Americans and 1 Philipina. They were about 8. My class that followed was also 8, but we were much more diverse: 3 Americans, a pair of Pakistani twins (truth), 1 Haitan, 1 Mexican and 1 Guatemalan. Of the 8 of us, only myself and the Mexican girl eventually left. Of the novice class before me, 4 remain and 4 left. The ones who remain have been and are still in various missions all over the world such as Italy, Tunis, France, and various places across the US.

My Religious Name: Technically now after about a year of postulancy, the sisters are given their religious names in a special, fancy ceremony and Mass. We were allowed to propose names, but also ultimately our superiors chose them for us. The name given to me was: Sr. Maria Lumen Christi, which is Latin for Sr. Mary, Light of Christ. I loved the name and really resonated with it. As all of us were named after Mary in some fashion, we went by the 2nd part, so I was Sr. Lumen, or just Lumen (as we called each other) for the next 8 years. (I still feel that my “calling” here is to Be Light, so that name still is most definitely a part of my being from all eternity.)

Novitiate Life – Koolaid Initiation: I spent about a year and ½ in this house and for the most part, it was pretty fun and I loved it. It was actually a house in a small Bowie, MD neighborhood that had been turned into a convent (which only meant that 1 room was created into a Chapel basically.) It had 4 bedrooms upstairs that were stocked with bunk beds (except for the Superior’s room,) a kitchen & dining room, a library room, a study/classroom, the chapel and a backyard where I played my first volleyball games. At our smallest, we were probably 8 or so, and at our largest in that house we were probably around 20, definitely more than allowed. The class who entered after me was large, to the point where we set up bunks in the library and in the garage that summer, until my class moved out to the Juniorate House in DC that Fall. It was community living at it’s best.

Everything in convent life was scheduled. We had a weekly schedule, divided into the days, divided into hours, marked by the bell ringer, which was an actual job. (To this day, whenever I hear a certain tone of bell, I am brought right back – it’s semi-ptsd and semi-nostalgic for me! Truly.) These years were basically learning how to live like a nun, how to live in community, as well as studying the catholic faith. A normal day in the Novitiate House might look like this:

Take a good, long look at that one!

If anyone ever gives me shit for being slightly cray about my personal time, tell them to go live that life for 8 years and get back to me!

Work duties consisted of various tasks to keep the house in order: cleaning, laundry, sacristy (taking care of the things in the chapel), cook (not cooking every meal, but meal planning for the house & coaching those of us who had never cooked in our lives!), librarian, liturgy (prepping all music & songs for Mass & prayer) etc. There were also sisters in charge of sports and recreational activities. There were also “drivers” – as some, but not all of us could drive. Picking and dropping of the priests for Mass (yes, that was a thing…don’t get me started) and various other things we needed them for was a daily task. In this house, there were only 2 showers, 1 phone line and maybe 1-2 computers. Needless to say, we all learned about community in very real ways.

While the novitiate years were mainly focused on community life and study, with some apostolic work on weekends (like teaching ccd, etc) once a sister left the novitiate, she entered the Juniorate House of Studies, where all of that only intensified & multiplied.

Below: the novitiate and juniorate houses present day. The superiors and lead sisters in these houses were girls I lived with for many years.

Juniorate House of Studies – A Whole Lotta Crazy: A sister usually would

spend 2-3 years here and begins her life in this house only after her first profession of temporary vows (poverty, chastity and obedience.) It was all the things above – including the hour by hour daily schedule complete with large bell ringing & everything - except everything was more – classes, responsibilities, hours awake, hours driving, cleaning, cooking for more, etc. It was meant to be a harder, more demanding lifestyle, in preparation for “missionary life.” The house was huge, there were 2-3 classes of sisters living together, usually over 20 of us, plus the superior and formators (older sisters who help the superior in various specific arenas like discipline & studies.) (Again, if ever anyone wonders why I revel in living alone…!!!!) Thankfully there were way more bathrooms and showers here, but sadly it was in SE DC, so there was not a yard to play in, but we had access to the school gym which is where we would play volleyball and basketball about once a week if we were lucky. Sleep here was less, despite the fact that work was more. We would rise at 6 I think, but usually were not in bed until 11pm. If you had to pick up Father, you were up at probably 515am. While there was still a siesta scheduled in the Juniorate, very often sisters would catch up on work or study during that hour because there was just not time enough in the day to keep ahead of the game. While it sounds like nun-studies might be an eye roll, the order is actually super academic and takes studies very seriously. We learned some high level philosophy, metaphysics, church history, roman history, not to mention Latin, Spanish and Italian studies. A shit ton of church documents, papal letters, names, dates, etc. It wasn’t just make sure you know the Saints and the 10 commandments. This order knows their Catholic doctrine, history and all of the Church documents really intensely. So, classes, studying and exams were very real and for some caused a great deal of stress.

Despite the demanding schedule and responsibilities, these years were probably the most fun and enjoyable for me, because I was not in charge and didn’t have enough time to realize how much I naturally disliked a lot of people and a lot of movement, ha! I was too busy people pleasing and trying to be a good, docile, generous nun! But honestly, a lot of us were around the same age – 18 to early 30s – and generally had a great time together. There were a shit ton of cultural differences that we all were challenged by and eventually learned to honor, as they all made us more open and wiser. Meals together, sports, road trips to other convents or shrines or holy sites, recreation and games, and religious feasts and celebrations were usually joyful & lively, with an abundance of good food, guitar playing and lots of songs. We celebrated the various represented cultures with feasts of ethnic food, drinks, music and ceremonies. Every summer, we would drive up to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for vacation. We would spend a month hiking those awesome mountains, swimming in lakes, camping, playing volleyball, barbecuing and singing around the campfires. Those were also pretty amazing times, despite the on-the-go routine and lack of sleep!

Things to notice about these years: the young ages, the lack of free unstructured time, the lack of sleep, the dozens of hours being taught by a superior or priest (read: Koolaid,) the lack of time alone, catering to the priests…Anyone who knows me, knows that I do think the life was and is a cult...I just never noticed it until years later. (Still wouldn’t change it though! lol!)

Deny Thyself: Penances, YAY!

Some things that are rarely brought up in conversations about #conventlife are the physical penances. As most people know, Catholics practice various forms of penance. Our order was and is very old school, orthodox Catholic and so the physical penances were very much a part of the spirituality and practice. This may be new or surprising or crazy to you, but for us it was pretty freaking normal and eventually not a big deal. I understand if you read this and think that we were like trying to live in the 1500s. It was like that sometimes!

o Fasting: every Friday of the year (except a few) it was encouraged to fast until dinner. This was always optional. There were all kinds of ways to fast, including removing sugar or milk from coffee, only eating bread or fruit, etc. There were a zillion ways to deny the palate & appetite and we were allowed to do whatever worked for us.

o Hair shirt: this was introduced in the Juniorate and we could wear it in accordance with what our spiritual director allowed. It was basically a lightweight chainlink belt that we wore around our waist, under our habit, as a penance – to remind us that we are sinners, or to remind us ‘what Christ suffered for our sins.’

o Self-flagellation: also a thing! In the juniorate, we were given a medium sized whip made of rope, I don’t remember the name. At least once a week, we would perform community self-flagellation, on our knees, at night before we all went to sleep, usually to the duration of a decade of the Rosary (a few minutes.) This may have increased during Lent, like 1 extra day a week. Since it was an obvious thing, it wasn’t easy to do it secretly. I’m sure many of us also performed this penance during silent retreat weeks and months.

o Sleeping on Wood: I discovered this option for penance at a visit to a NY convent, when I was still in the Juniorate. Girls would elect to remove their mattress and use a similar size piece of plywood to sleep on. I asked to do this my last year in the Juniorate and slept this way my 4 years in Harlem.

These are just the main forms I remember, and only physical penances. There were a zillion other ways we learned to “deny ourselves” throughout the day mentally, emotionally, etc. But I thought the physical was worth noting since I would guess most folks don’t think these types of penances still exist, except in some strict monastic convents maybe. Well, they do!

And on that fun note, I will end this post!

Up next: Sent to Spanish Harlem!

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