photo by StuffEyeSee
Since converting to the Catholic Church as a teenager, I’ve scrupulously avoided anything having to do with nuns. Not that I dislike them (far from it!), but rather have harbored a deep-seated fear of giving God any opportunity to upset my comfortable, former Congregationalist plans to serve Him through marriage and children. In fact, I nearly had a panic attack one summer when I heard a young woman punctuate the end of her witness talk by pointing to the cross behind her and saying, “That’s the man I’m going to marry.” So, despite having read and loved a few of Rumer Godden’s other novels, when my mom suggested her book about a Benedictine nunnery titled In This House of Brede, I carefully and consciously left it on the shelf.
Perhaps because I did eventually discern a real call to married life, and have in fact been comfortably married for over two years, or perhaps because the busy reality of juggling a one year old, part time employment, and homemaker duties often awakens a longing for the quiet solitude of the religious life, I found myself tracking down the novel recently. I’m not sure what I expected to find as I opened the cover; probably something, otherworldly, spiritual, serene, nunnish; in other words, completely foreign to my current life as mom and wife. Imagine my surprise, then, when the very first words leapt off the page as ones that I might have written myself:
“The motto was ‘Pax’: but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. ‘It is my own peace I give unto you.’ Not, notice, the world’s peace.”
A confession: after that first paragraph, I devoured the entire book in one sitting.
I don’t intend this to be a book review, although I do very much encourage you all to read it yourselves. Rather, having found myself reflecting deeply about the vocation of marriage ever since reading it, I thought I’d share how surprisingly relevant a novel about nuns has been to my experience as a wife and mom in the early 21st century.
Since becoming a mom, I’ve often thought that whichever vocation you’re called to really just amounts to a life lived on your knees. I don’t mean in any way to downplay the significance or uniqueness of the religious life, nor to somehow intimate that the challenges are exactly the same. However, I am coming more and more to see how both roads are different terrain to the same destination. As such, I found a lot of parallels between the world of Godden’s nuns, and my own life.
photo by suvodeb
In the admittedly fictional house of Brede, the nuns wake repeatedly in the night to gather and sing the Divine Office. They are liberated from the pursuit of worldly beauty when they take on the nun’s habit, and their lives are noticeably deprived of many of the goods we take for granted, such as warm showers, rich food, and comfortable beds. At first glance, married life seems worlds away from the deprivations of Brede; but is it, or is it simply that I haven’t learned to embrace and offer up my own small inconveniences to God in the same way?
For instance, I may get a hot shower on a daily basis, but the timing of that shower is no longer in my control, and quite often it is cut short by other, more pressing, demands. My relationship with food has certainly changed since I left the single life, first with pregnancy, now with meals continually interrupted by pleas for more finger food. And sleep? Waking multiple times a night and accommodating a wiggly one
photo by RIPizzo
year old takes away from whatever luxury a plush bed might offer. Even the religious vow of poverty has its echoes in marriage and parenthood: we have certainly found that our wardrobes, toys, and accessories are sacrificed in favor of meeting our daughter’s wants and needs. Yet, because I’ve never taken an explicit vow to renounce these goods, I often chalk deprivation up as a nuisance, rather than seeing how these voluntary sacrifices lead to holiness.
The peace we seek is “not, notice, the world’s peace,” and there are definitely very real temptations in the vocation of marriage to both distraction and dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the intended end of marriage and motherhood isn’t simply a tacit resignation to discomforts and suffering. In both these areas, Brede shows the Christian life as a solution to the choice between a cheerless asceticism, and a frenzied attempt to “keep up with the Joneses.” She suggests a different road – one that offers joy through wholeheartedly serving God, embracing sacrifice in our daily lives, and striving to change our shortcomings – and at the same time, whets our appetite for Christ’s peace. That peace isn’t a privilege of living in a monastery: we too can find it, in the daily chaos of our married, motherly lives.
Abby Badillo is a young wife, and mom to a spirited one year old daughter. She blogs about life, love, and the pursuit of holiness at Writing Living Epistles.
Photos by StuffEyeSee, suvodeb and RI Pizzo.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, I can’t wait to read this. Our library actually has it and I reserved a copy. Sounds like a wonderful book. Thanks!!
I think a lot of what impressed me about the nuns at Brede in my most recent reading of the book was both their vowed stability and the fact that they had to live with and love some pretty difficult people. So often it seems like in the current era we are neither willing to embrace stability nor extend love to difficult people in our lives. Godden really captures the sense of Brede, not just as a place of peace, but as a place of spiritual growth and spiritual battle.
Embracing marriage means embracing a vow of stability of a sort (you are vowing to stay with this person until death), embracing parenthood is also embracing stability (you will be this child’s parent forever). In a world where marriage partners have been increasingly seen as disposable and babies most definitely disposable, the idea of stability, of sacrifice as roads to peace seem most counter cultural. Yet what Godden demonstrates in the novel is that it is in the midst of the struggle that peace is found.
Glad you finally got around to reading this one. I’m also glad that it inspired me to read it again.
I am going to get a copy of this book! I can’t wait to read it. My eldest daughter spent two years with the Benedictines. Eventually she decided her calling wasn’t to the religious life, despite her willingness to give up her life in the world. Just recently, she became engaged and so it looks like she is embracing the equally challenging vocation of marriage.