Audio: Mary Rose Kreger reads.
The next morning, I arrived at my parents’ parish shortly before 9 am Mass. My heart pattered nervously in my chest. Someone I knew might recognize me here. They might remember I’d been in a convent and want to know why I had left.
I believed that coming home was the right choice. However, I wasn’t ready to defend that point to a group of near-strangers.
With this in mind, I snuck in through a side door and chose a spot on the left, not too far from the altar. Recessed lighting hung from the ceilings, but I picked a row without a spotlight. I wanted to focus on the Lord, not on how many people might be watching me.
Behind the altar, the Blessed Sacrament reposed in a golden tabernacle.
Jesus!
The church sanctuary, like the Motherhouse, smelled of incense and candle smoke. All around me, the other churchgoers were finishing their rosary before Mass: very loudly, and with all the added Catholic bells and whistles. Everything from the Memorare to the Saint Michael prayer.
I thought about the bare-bones Dominican rosary from the convent, which skipped virtually everything except the five decades. It lasted twelve, fifteen minutes tops. It was the perfect length rosary for someone like me, who was easily distracted.
I plugged my ears, cutting the noise in half. How was anyone supposed to pray privately in here?
“…Saint Michael, pray for us,” the leader said, ending the rosary just in time.
A Familiar Feast
Ding-dong!
Everyone stood for the opening hymn of Mass. I watched as Father and a host of altar boys entered the main church. Each altar boy wore long white robes, and the ones in front carried candles in ruby jars on long golden poles. The priest presiding for Mass, who was the pastor, smiled at everyone as he processed towards the altar.
I observed the opening spectacle with interest. This, at least, was a sensory feast that I was used to. How many grand processions had I made around the convent chapel for night prayer and big feast days? How many times had I watched the novices carry the candles in their jars, or even been the one to carry them myself? The incense, the music, the community worship: this was where the convent had placed all its riches.
That was the Sisters’ calling, their path to the Lord, but I was no longer one of them.
Lord, I came home like You asked me , I prayed. What do You want me to do now?
Later, the organist played a stately tune as the priest came down to receive the bread and wine. A mother and her large family offered the gifts to Father, before bowing and returning to their pew.
I had returned home to Michigan. I had a place to stay and a place to pray. I also had zero plans for my future. Until eight days ago, my future was going to be religious life. That was my plan, and I had given up everything to achieve it. Family, friends, coworkers. Clothes, car, furniture. The luxury of making my own daily schedule and routines. The great treasure of my novel and storytelling. All these things, and countless smaller ones: a cup of orange juice with my breakfast, a trip to the movie theater, dressing up with my friends for Ren Fest. I had given up everything He’d asked for, and done everything that the Sisters had asked me to do.
Now I was back in the world. Was I supposed to return to my old way of life? What would become of all the sacrifices I had made? Had I given up everything for no reason?
No Going Back
I was only one day out of the convent, but already I knew: there was no going back. My 19 months in the cloister had changed, healed, and marked me. Maybe you couldn’t see this mark, like you could my oddly cut hair and cheap new clothes. My slower speech and habitually lowered gaze hinted at it, but could not reveal its essence. No, this transformation went far deeper than physical appearances.
The truth was this: I was in love with Jesus Christ. I went to Mass this morning not to be good, but because I just had to be near Him. I went to regular Confession so I could be clean and worthy in His sight. I prayed because prayer was like breath and air and life to me, a resting place in a strange, foreign, God-less world.
And I came all the way home because He asked me to.
“Don’t cry, Sisters,” I told the other novices before leaving. “I must follow the Lamb wherever He goes, and He is telling me to go home.”
Still, they did cry, and later I did, too. We all knew we might never see each other again. And if we did, it wouldn’t be in the same way. We wouldn’t be Sisters together.
Go home and tell your family all that the Lord has done for you.
My heart, cold and sluggish with shock, was still filled to bursting with the gift that was in me. Of my healing after 12 years of back pain and self-hatred and shame. I wanted to take the whole world by storm, to tell everyone my testimony. Oh, how I longed for it!
In reality, however, I had only the courage to sneak into church for Mass. I wasn’t ready to preach anything.
A Warm Welcome
Soon it was time for communion. The pastor was on my side of the church, serving communion to kneeling parishioners with an altar boy’s assistance. When it was my turn, I knelt down and looked up at Father.
“The Body of Christ.”
I met Father’s eyes. “Amen.”
His expression changed as he recognized me. In fact, he was the priest who wrote me a letter of recommendation so that I could enter the convent.
“Welcome home, Mary,” he whispered, his voice cheerful and warm.
I smiled, received Jesus in the Eucharist, and stumbled back to my pew.
Father hadn’t seen me in 19 months, and scarcely had met me before I entered the convent. His parish had hundreds of families. And yet, upon the very first time of seeing me returned to his parish, he knew me. Although he knew nothing about why I’d left, he was warm, charitable, and kind.
As I welcomed Jesus into my heart, I knew what my next steps would be. In the convent, the Sisters knew God’s will by following the commands of their superiors. In the world, I would take my next step by talking to Father. I would explain my situation to him and ask for his counsel. Grace comes through the Church, and this parish was the Church present here for me. I would start there.
I went home, still fragile and shell-shocked, missing my old life and wondering what lay ahead. Yet I was at peace. I knew my next step forward.
“Welcome home, Mary,” he had said. He knew me.
I felt if the Lord was saying that not only with my family, but also in this parish, I had a new home.
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Thank you so much for reading! Please join me next week as I meet with Father and begin forging a new life in the world. 🙂
I always enjoy these posts and was excited to see this one come in early this morning! Thank you.