The Secret of the Blue Trunk by Lise Dion Read Free Book Online Page A

for a long time. It was the only way of life I knew.
    Then the priest spoke in our name and repeated one by one the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience we were to profess. At the end of the ceremony, the congregation gave a great banquet in the garden, at the back of the house. It was an unforgettable day.

    During the two years of my novitiate, I applied myself to the tasks assigned to me, and sewed in my free time.
    In the summer after I arrived, I was asked to look after eight children in the country while their parents worked. There were at least eight children in nearly every island family. All the parents were fishermen and farmers. About the people living on Guernsey, Victor Hugo once said: “The same man farms the land and the sea.” I adored my experience with the children. I remembered my childhood in the company of my brothers, so it did me a lot of good to be in contact with them.
    After the holidays, when the new school year began, I went back to the convent and resumed my work in the kitchens. But living with a family for a few weeks had made me aware of my loneliness. As time passed, I had felt more and more isolated on Guernsey; news from the outside was slow to reach us. We rarely saw new faces. We were at the mercy of ships and the weather. When the sea raged, we didn’t receive anything. Deep inside, I felt abandoned, too.
    I cheered myself up with the thought that I only had to spend one more winter on this remote island, and on July 5, 1933, my novitiate would be completed. I would go back to Rennes then, to the mother house.

Second Notebook

My Vows and the War
    A fter a nearly two-year stay on the island of Guernsey, I went back to the congregation’s mother house at Rennes. The time had come to prepare myself for the perpetual vows I was to take at the end of the last year of my novitiate.
    In the course of that year, I continued my religious training by attending classes in natural theology and dogmatic theology. I seriously believed I was incapable of absorbing this teaching. I had doubts as to my ability to master this science which, I thought, was only intended for great thinkers. The nuns were quick to reassure me. Studying theology, they explained, meant primarily concerning oneself with God. Natural theology spoke of the existence of God, demonstrated His divine attributes as well as His eternity, perfection, goodness, and omnipotence. Theology of the religious life initiated us to prayer, taught us how to live the liturgy in the community, how to keep God’s Word in our hearts and embody it afterwards in the world.
    We novices had a very full morning program. We got up at five and attended Dawn Prayer and Matins. This was the shortest of the day’s five services. Next, we had breakfast while listening to a spiritual reading. Then we went into class. After that, we went to the service of the Liturgy of the Hours, and then came the midday meal. Once the meal was over, we attended another service of the Liturgy of the Hours before going back into class. In the late afternoon, we attended one more service of the liturgy, before the evening meal. Vespers came next, right after supper, followed, believe it or not, by obligatory recreation. May I point out that I would have taken part in it even if I hadn’t been obliged to?
    At half past seven, while going to bed, we had to observe total silence.
    On Sundays, after High Mass, we finally had a bit of free time to take care of personal matters. It was the only free time we had.
    In that last year of my novitiate, I became friends with a girl whose real name I didn’t know. We had to remain anonymous. When the day came to take her perpetual vows, this friend wanted to choose the name Marie-Louise, in honour of Mademoiselle Louise Lemarchand, one of our community’s founders. That’s what I called her.
    We had developed a close bond, mainly through our common passion for sewing. She was born in Rennes, into a family of working people. Her