Dedicated to God Read Online Free PDF

recently, Sister Maria Benedicta was the community’s youngest member, a thirtysomething former college softball pitcher who grew up in Kansas and did not see a religious sister in person or in a movie until the fourth grade. Sister Maria Benedicta has embraced the hidden life. She is “good,” the older nuns say; she is suited to this life. Sister Maria Benedicta is in the midst of a series of transitions, a process of detoxification from the world and integration into community that takes six years before she commits herself to this space for the rest of her life by professing final, solemn vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and enclosure.
    One afternoon, Sister Maria Benedicta sits and sews with the Mother Abbess. She has completed one year as a postulant and two years as a novice. She hopes to make first vows, a temporary three-year term. The community is scheduled to vote the following day in a yes-no ballot to allow or deny her passage to the next phase. Each member of the community will receive a piece of paper with the word “yes” typed on one side and the word “no” typed on the other; they will circle one word. (In the past, the nuns voted with beans—a white bean indicating “yes” and a dark bean meaning “no”; the new system was put into place to make it easier for the older nuns.)
    Sister Maria Benedicta and Mother Miryam spar, verbally. Sister Maria Benedicta mentions the Mother Abbess’s recent message to the religious sisters that they are to be a “yes” community. Sister Maria Benedicta coyly seeks reassurance that she will be accepted by consensus. Mother Miryam demurs, saying something about the virtue of patience and not knowing for certain just yet. In truth, there is little doubt that Sister Maria Benedicta will be accepted by the community. She must know this, and so she turns and addresses me, a mostly silent but conspicuous presence. Sister Maria Benedicta counters the wait-and-see approach and jokingly provokes: Do I have extra space in my house?
    I say that I do, indeed, have a spare room and could definitely arrange chores for someone with her carpentry skills. At this point, Mother Miryam tells Sister Maria Benedicta that making backup plans could be construed as less than the requisite seriousness needed to join the community. Both women are still teasing. Still, Sister Maria Benedicta blushes and her tone turns solemn. They discuss the demands and the joys of the cloisteredmonastic life. Sister Maria Benedicta makes clear she really does want this life, within these walls.
    She, like the nineteen other women in the Corpus Christi Monastery, wants to become a Poor Clare to devote her life to prayer, to intercede on behalf of humanity. She has left the world because of her devotion to it.
    Sister Maria Benedicta continues the detailed work of affixing beads to a veil for her biological sister’s upcoming wedding, a ceremony that Sister Maria Benedicta will not attend because she cannot leave the monastery. She falls back on what seems to be second nature; her cheeky analysis amuses Mother Miryam, who is sewing a baptismal gown and bonnet to sell in the gift shop. Sister Maria Benedicta tells Mother Miryam about a conversation that also took place in my presence with her Novice Mistress, Sister Mary Nicolette, earlier that same day in the woodshop. Sister Mary Nicolette, elected by the community to the post, oversees Sister Maria Benedicta’s instruction and guides her toward the Poor Clare ideals. While the two stood near a window, sending a plank through the teeth of a table saw, the afternoon sunlight refracted particles of sawdust, which appeared to glow around Sister Mary Nicolette. I photographed the pair and commented on the beautiful imagery. Then I opened myself up to their teasing by saying, earnestly, that the scene looked almost “mystical” or “magical.” Both Sister Maria Benedicta and Sister Mary Nicolette laughed. They joked that it was “holy dust,”