After reporting Sister Christine's indescretions, Sister Felicity had gone to Sister Christine and had reported my insolence. Slowly, they began to make my life hell. It took them a little while to cook up the perfect punishment. In the meantime, life continued as normal. . . which means anything but normal. We were all living in a cracker factory. That can really warp one's sense of reality. Those of us trapped in Formation, knowing that things weren't right began acting out.
The Rosary Wars symbolize everything that was wrong with Formation. When you treat young women like children, they'll act like children. Even at the time, there was a small part of me that knew that what we were doing was ridiculous. That did not stop the Rosary Wars.
One of the Formation's tasks on our lengthy horariums, was to gather together after lunch in the chapel and recite the Rosary together. Reciting this rosary made the tensions within Formation palpable. Sides and alliances were formed faster than on an episode of Survivor.
(Rosary: The Rosary is a traditional Catholic devotional prayer. Specific prayers are said corresponding to specific beads on a Rosary. It is considered a devotion to the Blessed Mother but focuses mainly on keep events in the life of Christ. There are differing views as to its exact origin, often attributed to St. Dominic. Prayer beads are a very old form of devotion in other religious traditions as well. Saints and popes have emphasized the meditative aspects of the rosary and encourage its use in a respectful and reverent manner.)
Memory fails me as to which camp each of us fell into. The camps matter little. The fact that we were so polarized within convent walls is still rather surprising to me, considering why each of us had entered in the first place. One camp was lead by Sister Emily Marie who was the focus of Sister Christine's affections. The other camp quickly formed in opposition. One wanted to say the Rosary quickly and get out of the chapel and on to other things. The opposing camp wanted to say the Rosary slowly and with devotion. Well, in this case it would have been mock devotion. Everyone was too mad at the other side to be capable of devotion or even prayer. We were engaged in a war with words, the words of the Rosary.
One person or group lead the prayer and the remaining people respond by concluding the prayer. One group would start out fast or slow depending on the camp with which they were aligned. The opposing camp would finish the prayer in the opposite way. The changes in speed were enough to make a listener or participant motion sick. We lurched through the Rosary like crazy nuns and I think we probably all were.
We had no power. That point was driven home daily. Our world was upside down. Schedules and rules were of primary importance. What those schedules and rules sought to protect seemed to lie forgotten. I'd like to think that at this point, I began to suffer from the "Stockholm Syndrome." After Patty Hearst was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, she seemed to adapt to the situation by taking on the cause of her captors.
Here's how Wikipedia defines this Stockholm Syndrome:
Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness
Now, we weren't under threat of our physical life. No guns were pointed at our heads but I firmed believe that we were engaged in a fight to save our souls and psyches from further damage. Building up a young Sister's self-esteem with positive praise and encouragement was unheard of. We were constantly reminded of our failures, our weaknesses in a concerted effort by the hierarchy to break us down and then rebuild us as good little nuns. In the meantime, I think that all of us walked those halls with damaged and badly battered psyches. This wasn't a job to us, this was our life. To be doing a poor job of living it was emotionally devastating.
Sanity would occasionally insert itself but for the most part we were all compliant in maintaining a high level of crazy. We went along with the program even when we knew in our hearts that the program was wrong or deviating from its original intent. When I entered, I was probably more damaged than some of my colleagues who seemed to have developed varying degrees of denial, etc. to adjust to life within the convent. Depression began to blossom within me as I struggled to become what I believed I'd been called to be while still knowing that sometimes, well most of the time, we were completely at the mercy of a system gone mad. I desperately, struggled to find something, or some one to hold on to, something that would anchor me in the insane maelstrom of swirling whack.
Quiet prayer time in the chapel was a comfort. God was still the sanest one in the building. Time spent alone with this God was reassuring. Even then, I knew that I might be kidding myself as to what or who this God was and what he was communicating to me, but if it was an illusion, it was a good one to hang on to.
I also had a couple of good friends among the young Sisters. We would often secretly meet and share horror stories. We would often laugh and make jokes at the sake of our captors. It was a survival mechanism but not a bad one under the circumstances. That friendship became a lifeline and kept me alive. In time, that friendship also because too enmeshed, too unhealthy. No, it never got sexual as did some of these close friendships within the convent but I think we all knew that we were losing our perspective at some point. Our balance in life was off. We stumbled around in a dizzy hazy trying to find something to believe, trying to find ourselves.
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