Purgatory on Earth

I have been reading Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede, set in Great Britain, about a woman in her 40's who leaves her professional life to become a cloistered nun at Brede Monastery. It's been especially poignant for me as my own friend has entered a Benedictine cloister, and it seems, in some senses, that I've been reading about her and her Sisters.

But it's also made me ask other questions, given the point I've reached in my own discernment.

While I've not given a lot of thought to entering a Papal enclosure, there are thoughts that draw me to it. The contemplative life IS attractive; it's tough, it's stable, and it's tranquil. The idea of routine does draw me, I have to admit. I love the idea of singing the Divine Office, I love the idea of learning the chants, of becoming a part of the tapestry that is the liturgical year.

There is a part of me that adores the hidden life; it's one of the reasons that even though so many people know who I am, I continue to blog under a pseudonym.

And yet, there is a part of me that rebels. Even as I want to be anonymous, I want to be known, and I'd lose that by entering the enclosure. If I wrote something, it wouldn't be under my name, but signed as an anonymous nun. Even as I love the habit and the importance of it, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle not being recognized within it.

I'm a person who would never stand out in a crowd...and yet, here I am, in my vanity, worried about being recognized in a habit!

Do you see the irony?

But I have yet to tell you about the biggest draw to that kind of life, and it transcends all of the above; purgation.

In reading about Brede, and in reading separately about the austere lives of the Cistercians, who also follow the Rule of Benedict, I have been deeply struck by their way of life.

It is a purgation; they die to the world, and live in self-denial, praying not for themselves, but for others, for the Church. They go about their daily tasks, they do what they need to do in order for the community to survive, but observe silence where they want to speak, eat what they may not want to eat, and spend most of their hours in prayer.

Purgatory.

How little we hear of it, and yet, we must bear it out when we go to our Judgment.

And there are some who are called to this purgation on earth, to divest themselves of pleasures on behalf of themselves and the rest of us (more so the latter). To offer everyday sufferings, the life in a cloister, to leave life early in order to spend time in the earthly fires of purgatory, perhaps praying for a special cause.

We could not survive without these prayers, without these very real men and women who are praying for us at every hour, all over the world.

I don't think I could ever live that life, but the insight from this book prompts me to pray for them, for all our dear brothers and sisters who deny themselves...for us, the Church.

Pray for them. When you wake up at 1:14 am, offer a prayer, no matter how small. If you have insomnia, take at least a moment of it on your knees in unity with those who pray for you. And when you rise, offer a Hail Mary specifically for cloistered Vocations, the most hidden of lives, the least prayed for, the most unseen.

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