Navigating the Zeitgeist. Helena Sheehan
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classes to and from Chestnut Hill. Yet there was no question of his seeing me while he was there waiting for them. Week after week, they made the most minimal small talk, and otherwise recited the rosary all the way to school and back. After a while, my father had enough. He found the sisters’ behavior inconsiderate and rude. He was a working man with a house full of young children and lots to do on a Saturday.
As the months went by, we were gradually introduced to a series of secret practices: things never to be discussed outside the order, or even inside it, except to our superiors: Examen, penances, acts of humility, chapter of faults, and what was called “the discipline.” We knew nothing of the discipline until Holy Week. We had moved from the postulate up to the mother house to begin our novitiate. We were in deep retreat, preparing for the ceremony on Easter Monday when we would be formally received into the order. We had been immersed in the Good Friday liturgy, full of the vivid imagery of scourging at the pillar, bleeding from the wounds, carrying the cross, crucifixion, death for our sins. We then met with the mistress of novices; she produced an instrument, a chain that branched out into a number of sub-chains, each with a hook at the end, and instructed us in precise techniques of self-flagellation. Every Saturday night from then on, the bell would ring, the lights would go out, and the shades would be drawn. We would pull our veils over our faces, our sleeves over our hands, our skirts up over our backs, and expose our bare flesh. We would then use our instrument to inflict as much pain as possible without drawing blood, while reciting prayers in unison. We were shocked, but we had come this far, and had accepted so many things leading up to this, that we accepted it and moved on to the excitement of Easter and Easter Monday, which, in total contrast, brought the most absurd fussing over our physical appearance, as we set our hair in rollers, practiced walking in high heels, and broke the solemnity and self-abnegation of the novitiate with girlish giggles and the silliest ceremonial preparations. Of the original ninety, seventy-nine of us were left, all to be dressed as brides the next day. I was uncomfortable with the bridal imagery, but others gushed with sublimated eroticism and embraced it.
On Easter Monday, clad in long white dresses and wedding veils and new hairdos, we solemnly filed into the chapel of the mother house to the strains of the novitiate choir singing “Veni Sponsa Christi”: “Come, bride of Christ, receive the crown that has been prepared for you.” At the appointed time, we prostrated ourselves in the aisles and gave the prescribed answers to the prescribed questions asked by the bishop: “What do you ask, my children?” “I ask for the grace of God and to be admitted into this congregation.” It went on in this vein. We promised to live by the rules of the congregation. We declared ourselves dead to the world, dead to the flesh, dead to our old selves. Then, one by one, we approached the bishop, who placed in our hands the habit of the order. Out we processed in white, carrying the black habits reverently. Outside, in a designated room, we were undressed down to our slips by our sponsors. Then much of our hair was chopped off (the next day our heads were shaved). We were then clothed in the habit: the long black serge dress, the cincture around the waist with a heavy rosary attached, the stiff white guimpe covering the chest, the white linen cornet framing the face, the band across the skull, and then, crowning it all, the flowing black veil. We processed back into the chapel, where the bishop then read out our names: “Helena Sheehan will be known as Sister Helen Eugenie.” These, we were told, were the names by which we would be known in heaven. We had been asked to submit three names in order of preference, but the name given might not be any of these. In my case, it was not. Many sisters wanted to take the names of their parents. I did not, but my superiors decided otherwise. After the ceremony, we were allowed in the grounds to visit with our invited guests. My relations fussed over me. What meant the most to me was that Ken was there. He was a Dominican seminarian now and I was so happy to see him. It was also a measure of the disparity in freedom between male and female religious orders, as I would never have been allowed to attend a comparable ceremony for him. It was the only time I saw him during my convent years. I was deeply disappointed that Greg could not come. He had been transferred to Weston, Massachusetts, and I missed him terribly.
Our mistress of novices seemed ancient. She had been in the position for decades, presiding over the formation of several generations of nuns. She saw no reason to do anything differently from the way it had always been done. She was the type of old nun who had lived in that world for so long that she had no idea what went on outside it, no idea even of what certain words meant in the wider world. She warned us to avoid unnecessary “intercourse” with seculars and to encourage those in our care to “ejaculate” often. In her world, short prayers were called ejaculations. Life in the novitiate, especially during what was called the canonical year, was even stricter than life in the postulate. We went into deeper cloister. We had even less contact with the outside world, and no more university studies other than theology. We endured more meditation, more penance, more severe scrutiny, more merciless admonition. The occasional letters we were forced to write home were bland beyond belief. Any mention of what went on behind our cloistered walls was out, as was any reference to our personal feelings. Most letters were lyrical descriptions of nature and the change of seasons, with dutiful and clichéd praise of the glory of God. Even in such passages, any real literary flair would result in the letter being handed back for rewriting, with a strong rebuke for vanity and another exhortation to empty the self.
Meals were full of tension. Except on Sundays and first-class feasts, they were taken in silence, while a sister read aloud the assigned book of spiritual reading. Several factors contributed to stress in the refectory: the difficulty of keeping custody of the eyes when a senile older sister started acting up, the challenge of not laughing when something struck us as funny. Every morning the lives of the saints on their feast days were read at breakfast. One day it was the story of a saint who was so chaste even from infancy that he refused even his mother’s breast. It set off a giddiness in me that I could not repress, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, amid such solemnity and tension, the harder one tries not to laugh, the harder it becomes to stop. Needless to say, I was made to do penance. Even for lesser offenses, such as dropping a knife at dinner, it was necessary to get up from the table, pull down our sleeves and veil, walk to the top table, kneel before the superior, kiss the floor, and ask for a penance for making an unnecessary noise. We would then kiss the floor again, rise, go to our place, kneel down, kiss the floor, say the prayers, kiss the floor once more, rise, pin up our sleeves and veil, sit down, and try to finish eating at the same time as everyone else. Trying to do all this promptly and correctly often caused such nervousness as to make it almost impossible not to then drop a fork or make some other “unnecessary noise,” and be forced start the whole cycle over again.
Another regular ritual was chapter of faults. Every Friday night after recreation, lights would go out, shades would be drawn, veils pulled over faces and sleeves over hands, and one by one, we would approach the superior, kiss the floor, prostrate ourselves, and confess our infractions of the holy rule. If any sister knew of an infraction another had committed but not declared, she was obliged, in charity, to accuse her. The superior would then admonish her and give her a penance to perform. It was often a farce, because sisters consistently confessed routine infractions, such as breaking ordinary silence or failing to keep custody of the eyes, while concealing those that would bring down serious opprobrium, such as smuggling out mail or pursuing particular friendships.
We rarely ventured outside the novitiate grounds. We were not to speak to college girls if we encountered them on the campus that the mother house shared with the college. Medical appointments were a way to go out and one day I was taken to a dentist. For many reasons, it was the most memorable trip to a dentist in my life. The dentist drilled my teeth without anesthetic, using an old-fashioned, heavy drill. While he was drilling inside my mouth, workmen were drilling the pavement just outside the window. I had to take the pain without complaining or even remarking upon it. We were returning to the novitiate on a public bus when a black woman got on and, in tears, announced to everyone on board that the president had been shot. Everyone started talking and expressing their shock and sorrow. People spoke to us too, although we were not supposed to engage in any unnecessary conversation in such situations. I think that I spoke when spoken to, but I was so stunned that it is hard to remember what I did. I know I cried, which was definitely considered out of order in public. When we got back to the novitiate, the president had been pronounced dead. We prayed through our shock and tears. The Kennedy funeral was the only time we