Monasticism And Catholic Religious Life - Part 2

[The following article of mine was published in two parts in 'Snehasandesham', an e-publication by Alex Kaniamparambil  from UK in the early part of the decade. Both Alex and I are from Kaipuzha.] 

Brides of Christ - Part 1

The person I admire most in this world is a Catholic nun – Mother Theresa. Her dedication to bring succor to the poorest of the poor is without parallel.

As a Catholic child growing up in rural Kaipuzha, my life was influenced by the good nuns, be it in the catechism class or at school. Nuns are sometimes referred to as ‘brides of Christ’ since they are spiritually married to Christ at the time of their religious profession.

As the vagaries of life forced me into the big bad world, I became more and more aware of the excellent work done by the different congregations of nuns. They run orphanages, hospitals, and educational institutions; they take care of the handicapped, the abandoned, the sick, the dying. In South Africa where one person in three is a victim of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, I have seen nuns cleaning, feeding and being there even when their near and dear ones have abandoned them. The sight is so heart-renting, the stench so unbearable and deaths so frequent that one sister told me: “James sir, we cannot work like this for more than six months; we need to go away from this environment for the next six months to get our sanity back.”

There is no doubt that nuns all over are a force for good in the world. The question is: what goes on in the hearts and minds of these individuals who always wear a happy-go-lucky attitude on their veils? Is this a mask to hide the rumblings of a storm within? Does the look of contentment exist within the high walls of the convent?

Up until recently, the little lambs in the Catholic Church were not privy to life within convents. There is very little in Malayalam literature dealing with the inner workings of a nun’s mind; much less regarding what goes on within the four walls of a convent. Joseph Mattom (Lokam, Pisasu,Sareeram) and Pathrose Ayyaneth (Thiruseshippu, Yahoodayude Paramparyam) are two authors who did make the effort. In some sense, it was Sr. Abhaya’s murder that changed the status quo. The door was slightly opened with the publication of the details of her murder investigations. What the lambs saw within was not very edifying. These negative perceptions were confirmed by personal evidence when Sr. Jesme brought out her sensational autobiography Amen. An avalanche of skeletons fell out of convent cupboards. More than the salacious details, what shocked me was her revelation about efforts made by her own sisters and superiors to silence her by shutting her up in a mental asylum!

Why should the little lambs be interested in nuns of all people? Some would like to leave them alone to sort out their problems, whether they are personal or social, private or public. However, the fact remains that they are our daughters and sisters and nieces and aunts and above all, members of the Catholic community. What happens to them impacts us in one way or another.

A little digression at this point might spice up the discussion. One title in Ayyaneth’s short story collection Yahoodayude Paramparyam (Tradition of Judah) is Deiva vili (vocation/God’s call). Prasad, a government contractor, and George, a Math teacher, meet up in a bar after a long gap. Over a couple of drinks, they update the events in their lives after they left college. George is the protagonist with more colorful life. As a bachelor working in a rural school, he accidentally comes across the beautiful seventeen-year-old Selinamma bathing semi-nude in a small pond. He falls madly in love with her and asks her father for her hand in marriage. Selinamma, mesmerized as she is with the lives of nuns in the convent hostel where she boarded as a student, refuses. Instead, she insists on becoming a nun. Her Deiva vili came on a Good Friday during the Way of the Cross when she felt she heard Jesus pleading for help in carrying his cross. George in course of time gets over his disappointment and marries Nazeema, a colleague. But Selinamma has not disappeared from his life.

She becomes Sr. Paul.

A few years down the line people wake up one morning to the tragic news that young Sr. Paul has died of a heart attack. But George tells Prasad that it was a suicide. He is sure since he received a letter from Sr. Paul written a day before her death. She tells him that by the time he receives her letter, she would have escaped from this world. She is certain she is going neither to heaven nor to hell; she does not believe in heaven or hell or that she has a soul. It is a disbelief that has come quite late in her life.

As a seventeen-year-old, she was caught up in the emotional whirlpool of religious madness. But as she tried to get closer to God as a nun, her religious fervor turned cold and she became an atheist.

She falls in love with Dr. Latif, a surgeon in the hospital where she works as a nurse. Latif wants her to convert to Islam, an act that would totally shatter her God-fearing Catholic family. So, if she cannot marry and find happiness with Latif, it is meaningless to live life in a state of hypocrisy. The only option left is to take her own life. She asks George for forgiveness for refusing his marriage proposal, suffering as she was at that time from an intense bout of spiritual madness.

The story ends with George stating that he has not gone to church after this incident. He is not willing to face Jesus who is locked up in the tabernacle.

The above story may be a figment of the author’s fertile imagination. One must remember that imagination is a faculty that takes its raw materials from reality. The fact, however, is that there have been at least 14 cases of suicides by nuns in the recent past. The skeptic might argue that this reflects what is happening in society at large. But society at large does not live in such a close relationship with God as those in a convent. Contentment and happiness are assumed to be natural by-products of this closeness. So, what went wrong?

According to a survey conducted by the weekly Sathyadeepam among nuns, it was found that 25% of them are discontent. The actual figure maybe 75% if we are to believe ex-nun Prof Dr. Regina Valiaveettil. According to her, the convent environment is short on mutual love and care and long on legalese. What are the root causes of this dissatisfaction?

An understanding of the historical rationale of ascetic monasticism is of help in analyzing the problems faced by modern-day nuns living in high-walled communities. Monasticism is the idea that full spirituality is best achieved by renouncing the world and its pleasures. This renouncement implies the three ‘evangelical counsels’ of poverty, chastity, and obedience. One must detach oneself from all material possessions, abstain from sexual emotions, relations, and acts, and subdue one’s will through obedience. These three ‘counsels’ are now taken as vows for life by the religious including nuns at the time of their profession.

It is easy to trace some of the problems faced by nuns these days to the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience that they profess for life. Others can be traced to the rules and regulations by which they are to live as a group under one roof. Still, others are due to loss of faith in general, the rapid secularization in thinking, the emphasis on individuality and the value system taking a nose-dive towards pure utilitarianism. I hope to muse on these problems in the next issue.

[Published in the February2011 issue of 'Snehasandesham']