Postulant training was usually completed in six months but because of our youth and our frisky personalities, Mother Guirec decided that we needed a full year of cleansing before we would be allowed to proceed to the Novitiate training in Spring Valley, IL.
There were many days when all I wanted to do was call home and tell my parents to rescue me from this purgatory on earth. On other days, I was convinced that this was God’s Will for me. I still had a deep desire to share God’s love with the whole world. None of that enthusiasm had dimmed but it was no longer clear to me how many of the things that I was learning had anything to do with my hallowed dreams.
It would be many years before I realized that these dear nuns had got a few things wrong about being a Christian. In France where this community started there was a widespread heresy that taught that if you lived a good life, denied yourself of pleasure, follow prescribed rules and regulations, then you would make yourself pleasing to God. That is the way to holiness. The church finally condemned this teaching but once an error has been etched into a lifestyle, it is very hard to shake off in daily practice and thinking. There will always be some preachers that will carry on this teaching. It was ingrained in those nuns’ minds that pleasing God was a long-drawn-out feat that lead to sure discouragement. By this time I was very discouraged.
I learned that shortly after I had entered the convent, my mother had written to Mother Guirec. She had demanded that I be returned home because I was far too young to know the seriousness of the life I was embracing. Mom wrote that she had been preoccupied at the time that I insisted on leaving school for the convent. She had four sons who were in various theaters of war. Now she had realized that she should have forbidden me to make such a major decision without any kind of guidance.
Years later, Mother Guirec told me that she had replied to my mother, telling her that I was doing God’s Will and that it would be sinful to interfere with His plans for me. She used her spiritual authority as a weapon to subdue my dear mother who had been taught that nuns and priests spoke for God. Their voice came across as strong as the words of the Bible: “Thus sayeth the Lord”. She admonished mother by reminding her that if I had stayed at home, I might have become pregnant out of wedlock. In such a scenario, she assumed that mother would not have insisted that I stay at home until I grew up but would have insisted that I marry without delay. She must have cowed mother with her arguments because my mother never mentioned this correspondence between them. When I learned of it, I was chagrined. Here would have been a justifiable escape hatch. If I had known of mother’s deep concerns, I think that I would have gladly returned to civilian life. Then again, maybe not!
Finally, after almost a full year of this ironhanded training, we were to be admitted as novices in the community. We had passed the first probationary period in our formation
On January 25, 1946 at the tender age of 16, I received my new name, Sister Monica Rose, and my new attire, the formal robes of a real nun from the hands of the Bishop in a solemn ceremony. This also included the cutting of my hair to symbolize giving up the vanities of the world. All of these changes signified we were to be completely dead to our old lives as we began the next step in our formation.