I just finished reading The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme. It is really good. I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in why someone might choose to enter a religious order and how the discipline of religious life forms a person for life.
I first heard of this book when my grandmother tried to give me a copy. We were visiting her in New Jersey and my sister and I were teenagers, after we had converted from Catholicism to the Assembly of God Church. I knew she wanted us to come back to the Catholic Church, and that’s why, for the first time ever, she was giving me a book.
My grandmother couldn’t have had more than 10 books in her house. It is possible that books came and went, but my sense is that she wasn’t much of a reader. She had an education cut short by the Depression and worked hard her whole life. To have her hand me this thick hardcover book and insist that I would really like it was an odd experience. I was sure it would be boring– the title alone seemed completely uninspired. I had no interest in nuns, having never met one even when we were Catholics, and I didn’t want to open the door to her thinking I might consider becoming one.
If I had taken the book at the time, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten through it. The truth is, the first third is only interesting to me now because I’ve become extraordinarily interested in nuns! The first part of this book goes through the years of formation experience in a cloistered monastery in Belgium, which seems to me to be very much like all formation experiences of Sisters in all religious orders in all parts of the world at that time, in the 1920s-30s. The process and the inner struggles of a faithful woman whose real desire is to seek and serve God, loving God and others through service as a nun and a nurse, is told in a detail some might find tiresome. To me, it feels like the only way to possibly convey the depth of this experience. This formation underlies everything that happens for the rest of the book. And once she leaves the cloister, there is more dialogue and more, well, plot.
The second part of the story follows this nun, Sister Luke, during her years as a missionary nurse in the Congo. In the final part of the novel she travels back to Belgium for a short stay but is “stuck” there during World War II. It is her experience with convent life during WWII that brings about the resolution– at the end of the book she leaves the convent, believing it is more important to do work as a lay nurse in aiding the victims of war and fighting the enemy than to stay in religious life, which has meant certain compromises and a standard of love (forgiving the Nazis) that she finds impossible and, in fact, unconscionable. Feeling she could be of more help outside the convent is a very contemporary issue for nuns. What is the place of the convent/cloister/motherhouse in a life of service?
Mary Louise Habets
The book, which was on the New York Times bestseller list and made into a popular and award-winning film with Audrey Hepburn in 1956, was written by an American, Kathryn Hulme (1900-1981). She met the woman whose autobiography provides the story, Marie Louise Habets (Sister Xaverine), while working at a camp in Germany assisting displaced Polish people after the war. The two women became lifelong partners, sharing a home and life together for 40 years.
Hulme seems like a very avante garde person. Another of her books recounts her experiences studying in Paris with George Gurdjieff an esoteric Christian teacher of Turkish/Armenian descent who promoted a “method” toward higher consciousness. It is a testament to these two women’s relationship that Habets would entrust her story to Hulme and that Hulme would be able to get it so right.
It is interesting that Grandmom would give you a book that you thought would bring you back to Catholicism, which was really about living out your calling whether in or out of the church establishment. I don’t think we truly realize what an extraordinary woman she (Grandmom) was. One memory I have of her is of much later, her visiting us and sitting for hours reading Mom’s parallel version of the Bible. She never talked about what she read, but she read for hours and prayed. I’m looking forward to talking with her about it. Thank you for this post! Have a Blessed Easter!……. egg hunt still on?
Oh, Kathy, I wouldn’t go that far– she stops being a nun but she doesn’t stop being a Catholic! And the novel I think is supposed to make being a nun look exciting– i.e., a missionary in Africa! Helping the Belgian/French underground during WWII! I do think Grandmom had a very pure and lovely faith. Her joy in it was quite obvious to everyone. Writing the post I was thinking about other things she had– like the Medjugori hotline for calling and hearing the prophecies of the Virgin Mary apparitions for that day to the children in Yugoslavia (which I feared was costing her $2/minute or something) and she also had a “collection” of albums by popes!
The Easter egg hunt is on– and hopefully there will be enough bare ground to lay the eggs on!
Oh, I didn’t mean that she left the Catholic Church, just the confines of being a nun.
Makes me smile how Grandmom obviously wanted to be surrounded by what she perceived to be all things holy. You’ll have to tell me more someday! Where have I been? I was just the middle child mindlessly running about. I might have more Aunt D in me than I thought! Praise God for big sisters who are good listeners!
Hooray for the egg hunt!
I’ve always been fascinated by nuns. My children attended Catholic school and we had the best with the Sisters of Mercy from Ireland. Sr. Anne was their principal and one of the most wonderful women that I’ve ever known. I’ve kept in touch with her until recently when she retired and returned to Ireland. Until that point, she was working at an Indian reservation in South Dakota. I sent her pics of the 2 oldest children’s wedding~ she was so proud. She sent me a letter last year telling me how the sacrifices that my husband and I made had paid off in that our children had turned out so well~~ sniff sniff Still makes me tear up!! Sr Mary was her counterpart and she’s still here at the parish where she has taught since the 1960’s. We love them both dearly and always will.