MINI-STORIES FOR THE YOUNG AND NOT SO YOUNG Mother Elena was head of a cloister of discalced nuns in South America. She had filled the post for nearly twenty years. The order was strict. The nuns never left the cloister, grew their own food including dairy stock and flowers for their chapel and contemplation garden. They had no need to venture from their quiet mountain home with its rhythm of worship, work, study and plainsong. All this lasted without the least interruption until the drug-lord armies came into the territory. Without warning, they tore into the cloister, pillaging and raping. They killed two sisters who resisted rape, left fifteen others raped and wounded. They held Mother Elena at gun-point while they left, taking all the valuables and food supplies. After their departure Mother Elena threw herself on her knees and prayed as she had never prayed before. She was angry with a holy anger and a most forceful desolation. Then, pressing her lips together, she went to direct the burial of the two lost sisters and the tending of those ravaged. She was, as she always had been, a pillar to the ones devastated or distressed. In the middle of the night, when all had been attended to, she called her flock of fifty seven nuns remaining and addressed them: " My dear Sisters in Christ. I have prayed for guidance in the tragic calamity that has overtaken our community today and I received no answer to my prayer. From this I came to the conclusion that all my life I have been wrong. God does not want us to spend our time in adoration of him when there is so much need in the world. Instead he calls us to work for all men, saving them from cataclysm and error. Most of the bandits that were here were barely seventeen years old. Only the Almighty knows what lives of abuse, deprivation and other kinds of inhumanity led them to be estranged from him and man. Very likely they were impressed into armed criminality by force as boys. We must go among people and serve their real wants, and in that way praise God , giving him thanks for the capacities he blessed us with. If most of you feel as I do, I will apply to the bishop for release of our cloister vows and the rest of you can join other cloister communities." At first there was a painful silence. Then Sister Margharita, a senior nun, stood up and said, "Mother, I am ready, and I would urge all my Sisters to decide likewise." Slowly, by degrees other sisters stood up to join her. There were, as given, 72 sisters in the cloister. When the number in favor of the change rose to 36, Mother Elena went to the infirmary to tell the ones who had been attacked about the developments. She led them in prayer for divine inspiration. All wept in great, healing gasps of relief, then grew calm, appearing comforted. They agreed to go on with her in Christ's name. Ultimately, only four sisters left the new community led by Mother Elena. (Three of them had obviously serious health problems). The rest stayed as ordinary nuns. The bishop, himself a fire-brand of social action, was only too happy to acquiesce to the idea. He replenished the convent's food trove and gave it modest fittings of décor for the chapel. Mother Elena and her flock set up a thriving mission which tended to the needs of disadvantaged adolescents and their families. They held orphans and abandoned children in especially loving care. |