‘I felt colder inside than I did out...’

A FASCINATING documentary aired on BBC One last week following the story of two young women in their early twenties as they prepared to become nuns. It was a spiritual journey viewers were told which had the potential “to change their lives forever”.

Twenty-three-year old Clara had just graduated from Aberdeen University and is one of a growing number of women, it appears, who choose to give up careers, boyfriends and everything they own to embark on a life of silence and contemplation.

Brought up in a devout Roman Catholic family she has chosen to enter St Cecilia’s Abbey, a closed community of Benedictine nuns on the Isle of Wight and, if successful, will never again be allowed to leave the walls of the convent. Family and friends can visit for one hour – just once a year.

But even then a barrier in the room will restrict her contact with the outside world.

Catherine, a 25-year-old languages student, has spent the last few years travelling, partying and studying at King’s College in London. She describes herself as a “girly girl” and does catwalk modelling for fashion companies in her spare time. But life has left her feeling “empty” and unfulfilled. Since a child she has always dreamed of becoming a nun.

She likes boys – and boys like her – and she recognises the life of a nun will mean making many sacrifices – not least giving up any possibility of marriage and raising her own family.

All nuns, the programme reveals, make a promise to God to live according to three vows: poverty, chastity and obedience.

The programme featured the work of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal – one of Britain’s most youthful religious communities based in the heart of Leeds. The average age of the sisters is just 30.

They choose to live and work in poor neighbourhoods unencumbered by personal possessions and living on the food people offer them; in this way they claim to identify with the poorest members in society.

Who on earth would choose to live these seemingly detached, austere lifestyles which entail so much personal sacrifice?

Sister Jacinta, a Franciscan sister, who had previously worked as an occupational therapist, says simply: “This is what makes me happy. Not money, not sex, not power – not any of those things. But to truly live for God.”

Catherine, who hopes to join the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, near Lymington in Hampshire, wants “something more” from life. “When I’m here I love it here. Each time I come back I like it more. And I want to join more. The desire is there.”

The programme takes viewers through the selection process. It’s very much a two-way thing – the nuns in these communities need to be assured the applicants fully understand the vows they are considering.

And they can all live together in harmony. In Catherine’s case she is asked to delay her application by a year to ensure she is truly ready. Clara enters St Cecilia’s Abbey but the wrench of being cut off from family is just too much and she returns home after five months.

THE programme put me in mind of my visit last summer to the Transalpine Redemptorists who live in their remote Golgotha Monastery on the northern Orkney island of Papa Stronsay. Part of a movement of 477 Redemptoristines located in 46 monasteries around the world they live not just on the margins of society but of the Church itself.

Back then I had just embarked on a three-month sabbatical to tour around the country on a personal quest to find, as I hoped, the meaning of life. I was intrigued by the monks and their life of abstinence and devotion. They lived seemingly cut off and remote, sacrificing personal comforts and the daily things we take for granted.

I was invited to join one of their early morning services as they celebrated the Festival of the Sacred Heart – all very mystical, Gregorian chants and a Tridentine Mass conducted in Latin...

Away from the chapel they seemed a happy brotherhood. They liked to laugh openly and were working hard – physically and spiritually – to build a community that would last the test of time.

My own faith, like a stack of cards, had come crashing down about my ears at that time. Remove the card that represents the Creationist ideal or the card that upholds biblical literalism (or any other symbolic card for that matter) and the foundations of faith become like shifting sands...

I still e-mail Brother Nicodemus who had been my guide. His e-mails describe a life of prayer, feeding chickens, buildings walls and archways, tending the animals on the farm and editing the community’s newsletter.

They also provide fascinating insights from the lives of historical and biblical characters that give much food for thought about the world and our relationships in it today. A man of deep faith, he told me the search for meaning in life was the main appeal of monasticism. His devotion to God meant everything to him. “Love is a commitment,” he said, “not a feeling”.

A CONVERSATION with Nina Mackay, from Ackergill, has me mulling over other spiritual matters. She was telling me about a trip to Poland, the beautiful city of Kraków and a visit to the former German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

I don’t suppose anything can prepare you for the horrors perpetrated on the Jews. However, a prior visit to Schindler’s Factory Museum in the Kazimierz (Jewish) district of Kraków provided some insights as to what would follow.

“Auschwitz and Birkenau are bleak, haunting and miserable places,” she told me, “but there is something that compels people to visit and remember the atrocities that happened there.

“I felt very strongly about this after my visit and the memory of being there and standing on the very worn steps that thousands of poor souls walked up.

“Viewing the numerous personal belongings that were found after the camps were liberated is something that will never leave me.”

Nina did not anticipate what happened next. In Birkenau she took photos in one of the barrack-like huts where women, herded like cattle, were housed before being sent to the gas chambers. One of those photos, all misty and eerie, reveals a ghost-like face looming from the shadows...

“Whilst in one of the blocks at Auschwitz, I felt colder inside than I did outside.

“This was the one place where I did feel emotional and it was because of the displays of children’s shoes, toys and an array of human hair that was still in its original shape after being cut off – some of it curly and some in plaits. Then, at Birkenau, which is massive and one of the bleakest places I’ve ever set foot in, I took the photo. It was only after that I discovered the mist in the photo. A fellow tourist took photos at the same time and place and his images were clear of any apparition.

“The trip to Auschwitz is one that I’ll never forget,” Nina says. “At Birkenau, we heard no birds singing and saw no vegetation – it is desolate and uninviting, and there is definitely a presence – of what, who knows – but there could be many tortured souls there waiting to be freed, and perhaps visitors who go there and show or feel compassion and empathy, may somehow help in that process.”

It does seem there are unforgettable spiritual experiences that can change people’s lives forever. Some, like the young nuns, represent the hopes and dreams of individuals who contemplate a divine commitment beyond the “norm”.

For Brother Nicodemus it is his norm! Others, like Nina, have unexpected encounters beyond the rational. Together they challenge our understanding of the world we live in, the lives we lead – and the life denied to others.

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