One of the surprising joys during our visit to the Monastery was how happy Rebecca Rose was there. Beginning during Friday evening Vespers, the nuns began asking her to read the Trisagion prayers. She read them almost every service after that until Monday evening before we left. She loved standing in the nun section and sometimes carrying the candle during processions. Father Hopko served (I hesitate to say "presided" because it is an interesting relationship between the Priest who performs Liturgy or leads the Vespers services in a female monastery where the Abbess is technically "in charge") during Thursday night Vespers, Saturday night Vigil, Sunday Divine Liturgy, and Sunday night Vespers. It was so wonderful for me to hear Rebecca respond, I thought on pitch, with "Amen" when he said "For Thine is the Kingdom..." at the end of the Lord's Prayer. He even said before the homily that she did a good job, not that he wouldn't have said that if she hadn't.
She just bubbled with happiness while she was there and entered in whole-heartedly whether she was "helping the nuns" during the services or at other tasks during the day. By the way, I received permission from Mother Christophora to take pictures of the nuns and share some of them on my blog. The nun with Father Hopko is Sister Viki who is Lori's friend that she met before she became a nun, in Guatemala on a mission trip to an orphanage there a few years ago. In the next picture is Mother Magdelena who runs the bookstore.
Switching gears a little bit, I'm pondering the tension between being in the world, and being in a monastery. St. Paul says that it is better to not be married because of the cares of the world. It divides our attention. Every decision and activity in engaging or not engaging the world affects your husband and your kids. I think monastic life would be very natural for me. By the way I read the Hours and other services and the expanded Lenten Kathisma schedule alone yesterday and now I'm wondering how much of it to suggest to my kids to do. It takes hours which I found surprisingly engaging. But I don't know how much would be healthy for them. For one thing they are busier than I.
I read a while back some advice, maybe from the Monastery of the Transfiguration, that you should not try to wear a nun's habit or lose your focus as a wife and mother. This is a temptation for me. I started wearing head coverings after my last visit to the Monastery two years ago, but as I wrote in my second most viewed post, after the one on praying for infants who have died, on head coverings and male/female segregation, it became uncomfortable to the point of distraction, so I eventually stopped. And now, after this visit to the Monastery, I see constant head coverings, and wearing long skirts and long sleeves more as a compromise. Sort of a nun, but not exactly. And that feels forced, and why it's an uncomfortable standard for me I can't justify. Yet I'd rather wear total, obscuring black. But I can't. So I might as well wear jeans (skirt at Church) and hair au naturale. Btw, someone told me our Bishop said headcoverings were a cultural thing that isn't current anymore.
But now, all I want to read is the prayers, the lectionary Bible readings, and the Kathismas. And blogs. I'm having trouble finding motivation to read other books. I think it's because prayers and blogs are more relational and conversational than reading about some impersonal fact or some imaginary things that didn't really happen. Okay, my consistency alarm just went off and I feel I have to say that I have watched, or tried to watch, some movies since coming home. I found The Little Prince to be engaging because of the open-hearted yearnings portrayed, but some of the characters were pretty disturbing and we fast-forwarded a lot of those parts. The kids had watched Flyboys while George and I were out to dinner and I tried to watch that last night before we send it back today and the stereotypes were so annoying that I turned it off pretty early on. And I found Robin Hood with Errol Flynn completely a dozer with it's canned romanticism that I sufferred through until the kids agreed to fast-forward parts and then I read the much better written and enter-into-able Kathisma during the end. Then I read the Vigil services until after midnight, when the Bridegroom comes...
And who knows, maybe some day Rebecca or Rachel will become a nun (hopefully through no pressure from me).
This was taken before Sunday Divine Liturgy in the Guest House living room. Her head covering did not last very long. Not many lay-women wear them there, but the nuns do ask that you wear a skirt. Another little Rebecca story. As I wrote previously, Rachel was too shy to read during the services. Lori told me that she heard Rebecca trying to encourage her saying, "You don't have to be scared, they're just nuns!" When Lori laughingly told Mother Christophora about it, she said, "I know we'll have arrived when we're just 'girls'." If I may sound like a teenager, not that I ever don't, Mother Christophora is awesome!
And speaking of the dear Abess, I've listened to the first of three of her Lenten talks given in Montreal on Repentance now available on Ancient Faith Radio (!). So far so great.
Oh and while we were there Ancient Faith radio recorded Father Hopko's homily on St. John of the Ladder, so maybe it will be available soon.
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