I had been at the hospital for five weeks. Just before Easter Sunday, Doctor Ong came to me, “I am sorry but I have to let you go back to the monastery,” he told me.
“I do not want to go back,” I told him.
“I know,” he responded, “Your mother prioress wants you back for Easter. I am sorry but she insisted you have to go back for Easter. Your weight is up, I have no reason to hold you back.”
I had been away five weeks yet it was almost a total stranger who stepped back into the monastery. I felt cold, distant and removed. The moment I stepped back into the monastery, my eating problem resumed.
It was Good Friday. A Good Friday, I will never forget. I attended the service and knew I no longer wanted to be a nun. It was the longest, most agonizing service I had ever attended. The service dragged on and on,
As I sat there, I realized why some saints saw in purgatory mothers who forced their daughters into religious life. It was a common practice in Spain during the fourteen centuries. To be a nun when one no longer wants to be is sheer hell.
The service over, I came out of the choir and saw Mother Therese standing there. “I want to go home,” I told her simply.
Mother Therese looked at me, grief on her face. “Is it the three nuns? I will talk to them.”
I told her, “Not exactly.” They had a hand in it, they contributed to it but was it all them? Part of it was my personality. I have a personality that could not be boxed in.
“Wait till Father Patrick comes,” She told me. I agreed. Both of us knew he was not coming, and that she said it, stalling for time.
Father Patrick was a Carmelte Definitory General who visited us a few years ago and was my long distance spiritual director.
I walked back to my cell. I entered the cell and at that moment, I found myself asking myself, “Are you going to give up, just like that?”
The answer came, no. This is just a crisis, I told myself. I will fight it through. I will it through to the bitter end. I will not lay my weapons down unless I have to.
However, there is one difference.
Until now, I had followed the older nuns and adhered strictly to the teachings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Jesus. It was being faithful to the Teresian charism.
Until now, I had followed the older nuns and adhered strictly to the teachings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Jesus. It was being faithful to the Teresian charism. I had stuck to everything that was traditional and it did not work, it landed me in a full blown crisis. I will not limit myself, I will read every and anything on spiritual life. With that, I struck out on my spiritual revolution.
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