Through the Narrow Gate: A Nun’s Story

His dress sword brushed against me, laddering my stocking.

“I was just admiring your uniform,” I said innocently, ignoring the poke my mother gave me. “What is a Knight of St. Gregory?”

He took a slug of brandy and swirled it in his mouth. “It’s a special order,” he said complacently, “given by the Pope.”

“Gracious!” I said, winking at my father, who earnestly studied the olive in his martini. “What a marvelous person you must be. What’s it given for?”

“Well,” he said modestly, “it’s given in recognition of charitable works.” There was a splutter from my father, who had transferred his attention to a potted plant. His shoulders were heaving strangely. He coughed.

“Haven’t seen you for some time, have we?” my father said, and I noted an ironic edge to his voice. “You were always popping in and out at one time. Not so long ago, either.” Sidney Foster looked momentarily confused and cleared his throat. “Still, I expect you’ve been too busy getting on with your charitable works,” said my father genially. “Well,” he finished, clapping Foster jovially on the shoulder as he determinedly set off in another direction, “be seeing you, no doubt.”

As we forced our way through the chattering crowds, I looked back at the Knight who, red in the face, was talking animatedly to a monsignor about the funds for a local church roof.

“I was damn useful to Sidney in business once,” my father said caustically. “Interesting that we never see him now, isn’t it?”

“It’s Birmingham,” my mother replied shortly. “All they ever think about is money.”

And now, sitting in the peaceful chapel, I saw what she had meant. What had that very Catholic party with its materialistic values—values that even my “friends” seemed to share—to do with Christ? My readings of the Gospels over the years had built Christ up for me as a dynamic figure. He stalked across my mind, vivid and challenging, driving the money lenders out of the Temple, inveighing angrily against the hypocrisy of His day, overturning all the conventions with the unpredictable nature of His love. He had mixed with prostitutes and sinners, not hypocritical Knights of St. Gregory, and had frightened His hearers with His shattering commands. Leave all you have and come, follow Me.

Follow Me. Suddenly the familiar invitation leaped out at me with a new force. Leave all that you have. Really, what was there in the world that was worthwhile? You couldn’t count on anything the world had to offer. Friendship could be destroyed in a moment because people valued what you had, not what you were, whereas God’s love was perfect. Human love just couldn’t measure up to it. I thought of Suzie and Anthony. I wanted more than that. Even the most perfect love would ultimately be destroyed by death. In fact, when you came to think about it, death was the only thing in life that you could be absolutely certain of. It was inescapable and made everything but God seem empty and hollow.

Follow Me. How much more satisfying to leave all the emptiness of the world and follow Christ! A nun in the bench in front of me got up, genuflected gracefully in the aisle, and quietly left the church. Her face was serene. It was as though she had tapped some hidden store of strength before plunging into the melee of afternoon school. I looked up at the crucifix. That was what sustained her. The cross turned all human values upside down; they just weren’t worth worrying about. And the cross showed the greatness of God’s love. As I looked at the tabernacle, which contained the Real Presence of Christ, I felt a pull toward Him that was almost physical in its intensity. I’d thought a few minutes ago that death was the only certainty. Now I saw clearly that the only way to achieve life was by leaving the world behind and looking for God Who was there for the seeking. Absolute power, goodness, and love.

As I knelt there I knew that something very important had happened. I wanted to find God so that He would fill my life, and that meant giving my life back to Him. I wanted Him with a desire that was frightening in its urgency. And I knew that looking for God had to be a full-time job; no half-measures would do. The cross showed that clearly. But how satisfying such a search would be. Far more satisfying than pursuing the chimeras of the world, which could only lead to disappointment and death.

Silently I made the sign of the cross and left the chapel. I had made up my mind.

Once my decision was made, the world with all its confusions seemed to fall into place. Second place. The strange pull I had experienced in the chapel stayed with me and I knew that I must act upon it soon. That was why I found myself some weeks afterward standing outside Mother Katherine’s room one afternoon. I have to do something about this, I was telling myself. Until then it won’t be real. “Come in!” I heard Mother Katherine call. I glanced down at myself, straightened my school skirt, and, seizing the brass doorknob, burst into my headmistress’ office.

“I want to be a nun!”

The words were out now and, startled, I listened to them in the ensuing silence, turning them over and examining them. Yes, they fit. But how strange to hear them spoken aloud for the first time, after hearing them lumbering round in my mind as a possibility that was almost too momentous to believe in.

“Sit down, Karen.”

I looked at Mother Katherine. For a moment I had almost forgotten about her, I had been so intent on speaking the words, spilling them outside myself.

“Come on!” she urged kindly. My hair fell over my eyes in two sweeping curtains, but shaking these aside I looked at her intently, shifting from foot to foot, my plump adolescent body self-conscious and uneasy at being the object of close scrutiny. “Come on!” Mother Katherine repeated. “Don’t stand on one leg like a restless stork. Sit down!” and she gestured dramatically at the small wicker armchair opposite her desk.

Everything Mother Katherine did was dramatic. Rumor had it that she had been an actress before she became a nun. She was certainly beautiful enough. Her smooth olive skin was slightly touched now by middle age, but the lines spoke of character and strength. Her regular, generous features were enhanced by the severe wimple, and her blue eyes looked out challengingly on the world—frightening, passionate eyes.

I sank into the chair and looked at her apprehensively. What was she going to say? How was she going to react? It suddenly seemed an impertinent announcement to have made so impetuously. “What, you!” she would say. “You! What makes you think you have it in you?” No, she wouldn’t say that. She’d be kind and tactful. But wouldn’t that be even more humiliating?

“Say it again,” she said quietly, her face for a moment alight with attention before she continued sorting through the untidy pile of papers on her desk. “I’m listening to you, but it will probably help you to talk if I don’t look at you, won’t it?”

“I want to be a nun.” Less of an eruption this time. More calmly spoken.

“I’m not in the least surprised,” she said, still leafing through the pile of bills. “It’s a wonderful life.”

We sat there silently, at peace.

“Why?” she asked suddenly, her eyes watchful.

“Well,” I sought round helplessly for a second as the reasons swarmed round me. Which one should I pick out as the most important? “Well, really, Mother, I want to find God.”

“Yes?” she pushed her papers to one side and leaned her chin on her hands. “Go on.”

“I want to know more about Him,” I plunged on. “The more I think about Him the more other things and other people fade into insignificance. He seems so passionate and generous with no time for compromise and sloppiness. And I want to get to know Him better.”

“Then why become a nun?” Mother Katherine probed. “You don’t have to enter the religious life to get to know Him better. Couldn’t you do that just as well in the world?”

“No,” I said quickly. I was really in my stride now. “Not so well. Not for me anyway. I mean, He said that if you wanted to follow Him you had to be prepared to give up everything. After all, He gave up everything for us.”

“Are you prepared to give up everything?” Mother interposed swiftly and, seeing me about to rush on, said, “No, wait. What about your family? Are you prepared to leave them?”

I thought for a moment. Yes, it was hard. I’d often felt that leaving one’s family was one of the hardest things about the religious life. But there was no option.

“It’s awful to think about it,” I said slowly, “leaving home for good. Nuns never go back home again, do they—even for a visit?”

“Some orders don’t,” Mother nodded. “We don’t.”

“After all, nobody knows you as well as your family does. And no one ever will—not in the same way. I feel bound to my family—closely tied up with them in all sorts of ways. It’s almost a physical bond.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, her eyes watching me carefully. “St. Teresa said that when she entered her convent and left her family she felt as though she were being pulled apart, limb from limb.”

I remembered.

“Would you be prepared for that kind of suffering?”

“There really isn’t any choice, is there, and in a way it’ll be even worse for them.”

We looked at one another. “Yes,” Mother Katherine said, “I know. My mother lost three of her children to the religious life.”

I nodded soberly. “You’ve got two brothers who are priests, haven’t you?” We’d seen them at the school when they came to visit her. “It must have been so hard for your parents. At least I’ll have chosen this, but my parents won’t have. It’ll just be pushed on them.”

“Yes,” she smiled at me, her eyes still boring into mine, watching my every reaction. “Your parents will share your sacrifice, but they’ll also share your joy eventually. I know my mother says that she’d never have it any different. But there are other things, too. What about marriage, children? Are you prepared to give up all that natural fulfillment?”

This was easier.

“I used to think that I wanted to be married,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “But lately I’ve not been so sure. For me it isn’t the answer to everything. You know, ‘The Prince married the Princess and they lived happily ever after.’”

“Go on, think it out carefully. You can’t go rushing into this without thinking over all the pros and cons. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well,” I said, “can any one person fill all your needs? Every single one of them? A husband’s not like God Who is perfect, Who isn’t limited, and Who knows you through and through. You said that marriage is our natural fulfillment …”

“Yes,” Mother Katherine said, “for most women it is. Do you think it is for you?”

“It’s hard to tell,” I shrugged slightly. “How could one be sure? But even if I didn’t want to be a nun I’m not certain, really, that I’d want to get married. Husbands, babies—all that. I don’t think I’d be completely fulfilled being a wife and mother.”