Yes, Kate thought, this, too, is what she would learn: to give up everything for Christ, to be stripped of her old self in order to be reborn. As she headed to chapel that Sunday afternoon, she knew that her journey had begun in earnest.
Eleven months later, on July 25, the feast of St. James, Kate awakened to the sound of the novices singing, “Behold the bridegroom cometh.” It was the day she and her classmates would receive the full habit of the Dominican sisters, but with the white veil of a novice instead of the black veil of the professed sisters, those who had taken vows. Drenched in sweat on this summer morning, Kate stripped to her waist and sponged off her body, the water cool and delicious on her skin. She touched her short hair—hair that had been cut yesterday in preparation for the veil she would receive today. Some of the girls had wept to see the long blond and brown waves drift to the floor as old Sister Madeline, the convent barber, wielded her sharp scissors. The nun, bent and worn, clucked and hissed at them to be still, insisting that God would be pleased with the sacrifice of their beauty.
Kate stood next to her good friend Cookie, and they laughed at the drama taking place before them. Neither had long hair, so the short cut would not be much different from their usual style. Kate couldn’t wait to receive the habit and finally begin to feel like a real nun.
After breakfast, the girls gathered in the community room, where they dressed in long white gowns and veils for the ceremony. From somewhere boxes of powder had appeared mysteriously, with names like My Sin, Arpege, and Je Reviens embossed in gold. Kate stood very still in her underwear as her guardian angel, Sister Gabriela, dusted her with the powder; soon she saw clouds of it floating around the room, and the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle rose in the heat.
“This is so you don’t sweat all over the gown,” Sister Gabriela whispered. “They use these gowns every year, you know, and they have to be sent to the cleaners in town.” Then she slipped the gown over Kate’s head and tied the wide sash tightly around her waist.
All the postulants had been badly disappointed when they saw their gowns, which were nothing like the wedding gowns they were supposed to suggest. More like angel costumes from a school play, the gowns were made of cheap imitation satin belted at the waist, with wide butterfly sleeves. The tall, thin girls looked fairly graceful, but short, chubby Marilyn Becker looked more like a Kewpie doll. Oh well, they weren’t supposed to be vain anymore, so what did it matter? Finally the long net veil was secured to her hair with bobby pins, and a wreath of real carnations and baby’s breath crowned the veil.
The heavy, spicy odor of the carnations made Kate think suddenly of her senior prom and how it felt to be dancing with Eddie Macon as he held her too close, his body pressing against her.
She shook off the thought as they all lined up and filed slowly into the chapel. Kate knew that her parents, along with Dan and Maggie and even some of her girlfriends, were somewhere in the church, but the whole scene swam before her eyes as the postulants glided to the altar past their families, past the professed nuns, the novices, and up into the sanctuary, crowded with priests, where the towering wide figure of Cardinal Cody himself, dressed in gold vestments, his miter gleaming in the lights, waited for them.
After reciting together the ritual request for the habit of the order, the postulants filed out a side door into the long hall off the kitchen leading to the chapel. Chairs had been placed for each of them with their new white habits and veils carefully folded over the backs. Kate’s hands trembled as she took off the bridal veil, the gown, and the long slip. As she pulled the long white habit of the Dominicans over her head she tried to remember the prayer she was supposed to say. Standing by a window that looked out into the courtyard garden, she watched a few sparrows splashing with abandon in the bird bath, and it seemed suddenly that time stood still and that she could never move on from this point. Soon unseen hands were helping her fasten the starchy white wimple that covered her hair, and pin the fine white wool veil to her headdress.
When Kate looked around she was startled. All the girls had disappeared; in their place was a row of look-alike, somber young nuns, their hands tucked beneath their scapulars, their eyes shining with wonder at the enormity of their transformation.
Later when the families gathered in the shade of giant elm trees out on the lawn, the new novices chattered and laughed as they opened their presents. When her father and Dan decided to find a spot for a smoke, Kate found a moment to look at her mother, pretty and young in her flowered summer dress.
She smiled into Kate’s eyes and took her hand, surprising Kate, for her mother was usually cool, reserved. “Well, Katie, you’re finally the nun you’ve been longing to be. I must confess, though, that when we saw all of you coming down the aisle you looked more like ghosts than brides. I wanted to cry!”
Kate laughed and then realized that she felt like crying, too. Somehow the play-acting days were done, she knew, and these next two years would be the real test of her grit, her determination to stick it out.
That first year of
