Part 42 (1/2)
”A most uncertain source of income, I should say.”
”So we all think.”
They walked in silence until within a few yards of the end of the walk; and, just as they were about to turn, the priest said:
”I was talking at the Bishop's to a priest who has been put in charge of a parish in one of the poorest parts of South London. There is no school, and the people are disheartened; and he has gone to live among them, in a wretched house, in one of the worst slums of the district. He lives in one of the upper rooms, and has turned the ground floor, which used to be a greengrocer's shop, into a temporary chapel and school, and now he is looking for some nuns to help him in the work. He asked me if I could recommend any, and I thought of you all here, Sister Winifred, with your beautiful church and garden, doing, what I call, elegant piety. It has come to seem to me unbearably sad that you and I and these few here, who could do such good work, should be kept back from doing it.”
”I am afraid our habit, Father, makes that sort of work out of the question for us.” And Sister Winifred dropped her habit for a moment and let it trail gracefully.
”Long, grey habits, that a speck of dirt will stain, are very suitable to trail over green swards, but not fit to bring into the houses of the poor, for fear they should be spoiled. ”Oh,” he cried, ”I have no patience with such rules, such petty observances. I have often asked myself why the Bishop chose to put me here, where I am entirely out of sympathy, where I am useless, where there is nothing for me to do really, except to try to keep my temper. I have spoken of this matter to no one before, but, since you have come to speak to me, Sister Winifred, I, too, must speak. Ever since I've been here I've been longing for some congenial work--work which I could feel I was intended to do. It seems hard at times to feel one's life slipping away and the work one could do always withheld from one's reach. You understand?”
”Indeed, I do. It is the fate of many of us here, Father Daly.”
”Now, if you could make a new foundation--if some three or four of you--if the Bishop would send me there.”
”Of course, we might go and do good work in the district you speak of, but I doubt whether the Bishop would recognise us as a new foundation.”
”I daresay he wouldn't.” And they walked a little way in silence.
”You were telling me of your project for a school, Sister Winifred.”
Sister Winifred entered into the details. But she had unduly excited Father Daly, and he could not listen.
”My position here,” he said, interrupting her, ”is an impossible one.
The only ones here who consider my advice are the lay sisters, the admirable lay sisters who work from morning till evening, and forego their prayers lest you should want for anything. You know I'm treated very nearly with contempt by almost all the choir sisters. You think I don't know that I am spoken of as a mere secular priest? Every suggestion of mine meets with a rude answer. You have witnessed a good deal of this, Sister Winifred. I daresay you've forgotten, but I remember it all... you have come to speak to me here because the Prioress will not allow you to spend more than three minutes in the confessional, arrogating to herself the position of your spiritual adviser, only allowing to me what is to her no more than the mechanical act of absolution. In her eyes I am a mere secular priest, incapable of advising those who live in an Order! Do you think I haven't noticed her deference to the very slightest word that Father Ambrose deigns to speak to her? Her rule doesn't apply to his confessional, only to mine--a rule which I have always regarded as extremely unorthodox; I don't feel at all sure that the amateur confessional which she carries on upstairs wouldn't be suppressed were it brought under the notice of Rome; I have long been determined to resist it, and I beg of you, Sister Winifred, when you come to me to confession to stay as long as you think proper. On this matter I now see that the Prioress and I must come to an understanding.”
”But not a word. Father Daly, must we breathe to her of what I have come to tell you about. The relaxation of our Order must be referred to the Bishop, and with your support.”
They walked for some yards in silence, Father Daly reflecting on the admirable qualities of Sister Winifred, her truthfulness and her strength of character which had brought her to him; Sister Winifred congratulating herself on how successfully she had deceived Father Daly and thinking how she might introduce another subject into the conversation (a delicate one it was to introduce); so she began to talk as far away as possible from the subject which she wished to arrive at. The founders of the Orders seemed to her the point to start from; the conversation could be led round to the question of how much time was wasted on meditation; it would be easy to drop a sly hint that the meditations of the nuns were not always upon the Cross; she managed to do this so adroitly that Father Daly fell into the trap at once.
”Love of G.o.d, of course, is eternal; but each age must love G.o.d in its own fas.h.i.+on, and our religious sentiments are not those of the Middle Ages.” The exercises of St. Ignatius did not appeal in the least to Father Daly, who disapproved of letting one's thoughts brood upon h.e.l.l; far better think of heaven. Too much brooding on h.e.l.l engenders a feeling of despair, which was the cause of Sister Teresa's melancholia. Too intense a fear of h.e.l.l has caused men, so it is said, to kill themselves. It seems strange, but men kill themselves through fear of death. ”I suppose it is possible that fear of h.e.l.l might distract the mind so completely--Well, let us not talk on these subjects. We were talking of--” The nun reminded the priest they were talking of the exercises of St. Ignatius. ”Let us not speak of them. St. Ignatius's descriptions of the licking of the flames round the limbs of the d.a.m.ned may have been suitable in his time, but for us there are better things in the exercises.”
”But do you not think that the time spent in meditation might be spent more profitably, Father? I have often thought so.”
”If the meditation were really one.”
”Exactly, Father, but who can further thoughts; thought wanders, and before one is aware one finds oneself far from the subject of the meditation.”
”No doubt; no doubt.”
”It was through active work that Sister Teresa was cured.” ”If any fact has come to your knowledge, Sister, it is your duty to tell it to me, the spiritual adviser of the nuns, notwithstanding all the attempts of the Prioress to usurp my position.”
”Well, Father, if you ask me--”
”Yes, certainly I ask you.” And Sister Winifred told how, through a dream, Sister Cecilia had been unable to go down from her cell to watch before the Sacrament.
”We are not answerable for our dreams,” the priest answered.
”No; but if we pray for dreams?”
”But Cecilia could not desire such a dream?”