In the first half of 1939 the world was stumbling toward war. Having conquered Austria in 1938, in March of 39 Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had a larger and better equipped military but they were accustomed to occupation from 300 years of domination by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So they gave up without a fight. The Allies, in a paroxysm of wishful optimism, hoped that the Czech bone would satisfy the German war dogs. But, of course, it did not. The reputation of Germany‘s brutally efficient Prussian military past and Hitler’s charismatic fanaticism paralyzed Europe into a numbed state of fear and loathing. As spring blended into summer, Europe and the rest of the world, held its breath while Hitler‘s Wehrmacht threatened Poland. It was the general consensus that an invasion of Poland by Germany would cause England to declare war and thereby plunge Europe and possibly the whole world into that most destructive, painful and death dealing of human undertakings: War.

In Northern Ontario, Canada, the summer of 1939 was unusually hot and dry. During the preceding winter, the rugged, rocky and pine forested terrain had been blanketed in snow and ice, suffering temperatures which together with wind chill factor rarely rose above freezing. Throughout the months of June, July and August the rough hinterland had sweltered through stifling heat. It was as if, during the brief Northern Ontario summer, Nature had to hurriedly make amends for the pain and suffering inflicted by the desperate cold of the preceding lengthy and frigid winter.

However, when the first rays of morning sunshine struck the large redbrick Mother house of the Sisters of St. Joseph on the shores of Lake Nippissing in North Bay Ontario on August 27, there was a delicate chill in the air. A subtle reminder of the winter past and ominous forecast of the one to come.

By sunrise, Novice Mary Mulligan had already been up two hours. At three a.m., careful not to disturb her roommate, the twenty-year-old had quietly, in utter darkness, arose from her mattressless bed. She pulled the thin mattress out from under her bed where she had stored it while she slept on the bare plywood base. She then carefully replaced it on the wooden base. The slender, almost skinny blond slipped out her coarse sackcloth pajamas and hid them under the mattress. Then, shivering in the dark by the bedroom sink, she hastily performed a sponge bath with cold water and lye soap.

After donning her plain black novice’s uniform she walked on bare tiptoes down the chilly concrete back stairwell five floors to the basement Chapel of St. Joseph. There, alone for two hours Mary could pray the way she wanted and needed to pray. She did not have to worry about the nervousness of the older nuns or the jealousies of other young novices and postulates. The other novices already resented her excellent grades in school and scrupulous devotion to her life of prayer and self-denial. If they found out about her early morning prayer sessions, they would accuse her of “showing off.”

In the chapel she knelt on bare knees on the cold marble floor in front of a larger-than-life size statue of Christ on the Crucifix. For as long as she could stand it Mary stretched her arms out from her sides in imitation. After an hour, her outstretched arms became heavy and then numb. Eventually, they fell lifeless to her side.

Meanwhile, Mary talked to her God . . . “Thank you for saving me when mother died. I took her so much for granted and had no idea how much I loved her and needed her. Then one day I woke up and she was gone forever. It was like someone tore out my heart. I felt so lonely, empty and hopeless. Sometimes I just wanted to die. If had not found You and St. Therese I think I would have died just so I could be with mother in heaven.”

And God talked back to her . . . “What you went through was normal. It would have been abnormal not to be depressed. You were saved because you wanted to be saved and because you had too much love to give the world to die at the age of twelve.” was God‘s simple reply.

Eight years earlier Mary’s mother had died of an undiagnosed degenerative physical and mental disorder that befell her at the time of the birth to her sixth child D‘arcy. After her mother‘s death Mary suffered from severe despair and depression until one day, while going through her mother’s things, as she often did, she found and old dog-eared copy of the “The Lives of the Saints.” It had been book-marked at the chapter on the Life of St. Thérèse of the Little Flower who also lost her mother at an early age and who dedicated her short live to Christ as a nun in the convent. From the moment she read about St. Teresa God, began to fill the void inside her. He filled that void with love for Jesus Christ and he gave her a reason to live.

Kneeling on the chapel floor, gazing at the bruised face of Christ with blood streaming from down the crown of thorns, Mary thanked God once again for getting her through the difficult period following the death of her mother. She had been a twelve-year-old girl entering womanhood. It was the time when she needed her mother the most. Poor Mary was not only without her mother but she had to shoulder many of the responsibilities of motherhood for her younger siblings. Christ and the Little Flower got Mary through the crisis. So it was only natural that Mary, at age fifteen would decide to follow the example of St. Thérèse and dedicate her life to the service of Christ in the convent. Three years later in the fall of 1937 she left her father, her stepmother and her brothers and sisters in Sudbury and moved eighty miles to the east to North Bay to enter the novitiate of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s.

Out loud to the Crucified Christ Mary said “Thank you for showing to me my true vocation as a nun.”

“My dear Mary,” protested God, “I never told you to be a nun. You made that decision on your own.”

“But when I was at my lowest low you let me find mothers’ copy of the “Lives of the Saints” with the book mark at the Life of St. Thérèse. Thérèse’s mother also died when Thérèse was young and she became one of the most famous nuns ever. Surely that was a sign that I was meant I was to be a nun.”

“St. Thérèse was meant to be a nun. You were meant to be Mary Mulligan. If that includes being a nun then that is what you will be. If not, then you will find another way to fulfill your purpose on earth.”

“But I must be a nun” declared Mary tempestuously. “If I am not a nun who will feed, cloth and convert all those starving black children in Africa?”

“Mary, it is not for you to tell Me what must be done or what must not be done. Your job is to use all of you skills, intelligence and intuition to find out what is your purpose in My overall plan and then to do your best to realize that purpose.”

“Okay. In the future I will try not to be so head strong but the African Mission has already been settled. I even wrote about it to Sister St. Rose.”

God sighed with sad patience and said: “Mary, eventually you will learn not to be head strong but I am sorely afraid that it will be a painful learning experience. Now I think your knees have had enough of that cold marble floor and you should go to your room and get ready for breakfast.”

That morning in the convent cafeteria, Mary sat down across from her roommate Marjorie at the novices’ breakfast table. In front of Mary was her breakfast of whole-wheat porridge and bowl of fresh blueberries with milk. In front of Marg was an empty bowl. Quikly glancing around around to make sure she was not noticed and without saying a word, Mary deftly took the full bowl of whole wheat porridge from her place setting and exchanged it for the empty one sitting in front of Marjorie.

Marjorie, horrified that one of the sisters would notice, immediately pushed the full bowl back toward Mary. “ Mary” she whispered, “this is the third day this week you have asked me to eat your porridge, and if Sister St. Rose finds out we are going to be in for a heap of trouble. You simply cannot keep this up. You have lost fifteen pounds since coming here. The sisters won’t stand for it.”

“Marjorie, you have to help me,” Mary pleaded. “I promised God that I would give up my breakfast porridge for three weeks if He would help me set up an African mission to feed the starving children. Do you know how many African children go to sleep hungry every night?”

“Mary, you can’t be making bargains with God. It’s not right. He has his own plans and you can’t change them by making promises and giving up food. Besides if I keep eating two portions of porridge every morning I am going to get fat and the sisters will start asking why.”

“I already know what God has planned for me. He has told me Mary defensively prevaricated. “I am just trying to get him to hurry up a bit. I have a meeting with Sister St. Rose today at noon. I think she wants to talk to me about my idea to establish an African mission.”

“Mary, how can you be so sure what God wants for you?” asked Marjorie, not able to disguise the profound worry in her voice for the welfare of her best friend.

Mary firmly pushed the full bowl of porridge back in front of Marg. Irritated by her friends lack of understanding and enthusiasm for her plans, she pronounced in a huffy voice “I talk to God every day in the morning while you are sleeping and He talks to me. We have an understanding. I am going to go and establish an African Mission where I will feed, teach and convert to Christianity African Negro children.”

“Was this African Mission idea yours or Gods?” Asked Marjorie as she gingerly and with resignation dipped her spoon into Mary’s porridge.

“Well, we kind of developed it together” answered Mary, extending her earlier prevarication. “I asked him who were the poorest people on earth and he said they were in Africa. I said that I wanted to help them and suggested that the Sister’s of St. Joseph could open a mission there. He said the African children certainly needed help and that my idea was not a bad one. So I wrote a long letter to Sister St. Rose explaining the whole idea and gave it to her last week. I hope that is what she wants to see me about today.”

“Mary, I heard on the radio that Europe is about to go to war. If the world goes to war, I don’t think there is much chance of us opening Mission’s in Africa or anywhere.”

“Marg, as a Christian and a future nun, you should know that if God is behind a project even a world war can’t stop it. Do you want the rest of my blueberries?”

At noon Mary knocked on Sister St. Rose the Novice Director‘s office door.

“Come in Novice Mary” she heard from the other side of the door.

Mary opened the door and walked to the straight-backed wooden chair in front of Sister St. Rose‘s large oak desk. She surreptitiously scanned the desk for her African Mission letter but saw no sign of it.

“Sit down Mary,” said middle-aged Sister St. Rose whose twinkling eyes and cherubic rosy cheeks belied a serious and disciplined approached to life. Mary had always got along well with St. Rose. She trusted her and thought that in her she had a true ally. It was because of this trust that she had written to St. Rose about the African Mission project. ”You have lost more weight and your colour is not good.”

Sister St. Rose was even more serious than normal and this made Mary nervous. ”Sister St. Saint Rose, I feel excellent. I guess I am just a naturally thin person. As far as my colour goes, I am never sick and I have lots of energy. I promise to go for more walks and eat more vegetables. Did you want to talk to me about the African Mission project?”

”Well actually Mary, I wanted to talk to you about something completely different. This is not something that is going to make you happy. It is about your application to be accepted as a candidate for the postulancy” St. Rose’s tone had become so serious that it sent a shiver of fear through Mary’s spine. ”I am truly sorry to inform you that Sister Superior has asked me to tell you that you will not be invited to take your second vows in September. She and the rest of the nuns on the Postulancy Committee have concluded that because of the frailty of your health and the rigors of convent life you should not continue your novitiate and that you should go home as soon as possible. We know that this will be a great disappointment for you but it is generally felt amongst the Committee that it would be the best thing for your long term well being.”

It was as if Mary had been hit on the head with a sledgehammer. She suddenly was spit into two persons. One Mary remained sitting in the chair in front of Sister St. Rose arguing, protesting and crying while the second Mary stood back and watched the first Mary react to news that was so shocking and devastating that it had the impact of a physical blow. With one sentence Sister St. Rose had destroyed five years of dedicated planning and a career that would have lasted for the rest of Mary’s life. The delicate house of cards that had been Mary’s future in the convent as Christ’s bride had been demolished. Mary number two felt profound pity as she saw and heard the first Mary protest that there was nothing wrong with her health or her well being.

The first Mary continued to argue, protest and plead for a half an hour but within five minutes the second Mary had realized several significant and immutable realities. The first reality was that St. Rose was not telling the truth about why Mary was being sent home. There was some other reason that St. Rose would not reveal, probably related to the internal community economics and/or politics. Mary had been so immersed in her life of prayer and self-denial and in planning for her future in Africa that she had been oblivious to the internal communal politics and economics. She regarded such matters as trivial and incidental. The second reality was that, although Sister St. Rose did not agree with the decision, there was absolutely no chance that it was going to be changed. It was out of her hands. The finality of the decision was apparent in the soft tone of St. Rose’s voice and the sadness in her eyes. All of Mary’s arguing, crying, begging and pleading were of no avail.

At the end of the half-hour Mary left St. Roses office, tears still streaming down her cheeks in a state of anesthetized shock. The full enormity of the decision and its effect on her life had not yet fully sunk in. Without thinking she started to walk in the direction of St. Josephs Chapel. Every day for two years Mary had taken advantage of a thirty-minute lull in organized activities before lunch to go for a short private prayer in the chapel while the other novices prepared for lunch. It was one her favorite parts of the day. But today she felt such a storm of rage and resentment against Christ brewing in the pit of her stomach that she was ashamed to bring such unworthy feelings into the House of God. She felt as if God had rejected her. Mary had offered him her life and he had turned her down. She could not bear to face him and swerved off the route to the chapel.

Instead of the chapel, Mary walked down to the lake and wandered along the forested shoreline. She lost track of time and space and walked aimlessly for hours while frantically trying to come to terms with what has happened to her. At first she refused to accept the finality of the decision and thought about fighting it. Her father was an influential lawyer. Mary would get him to sue the Sisters and force them to accept her. Then she thought, “Why should I try to force people who obviously don’t want me to accept me. Ever if I succeed, they will only try to get revenge on me and make my life a living hell” Slowly she became resigned to the fact that the life she had planned on in the convent was not going to happen.

With the acceptance of her fate, the old feelings of hopeless desperation and abandonment that Mary had felt after her mother’s death returned. Now it was worse because this time she had been abandoned by her greatest and last hope, Jesus Christ. Mary had not planned for and did not want any other life but a life as a nun in the convent. She felt immense failure and wondered how she was going to explain this failure to her father who had supported her entrance to the convent and the rest of her family and friends back in Sudbury. Panic gripped her heart and she felt lost.

After five hours of wandering, Mary ended up standing on a secluded beach staring out at the choppy blue waters of Lake Nippissing. She was vaguely wondering what it would be like to just walk into the water and start swimming toward the faint shore line on the other side of the lake. She was a good swimmer but the distance of at least twenty-five miles was plainly beyond her capacities. She wondered how long she could swim and how far she would get until exhaustion overcame her, cramps seized her muscles and she drifted quietly to the bottom of the Lake. Mary knew that at least the act of swimming would take away some of the sad aching hollowness in her heart.

Mary was not contemplating suicide, (it was a mortal sin and not really in the realm of the possible) as much as she was objectively wondering what it would be like, when she heard a familiar voice inside her head. “I missed you in the Chapel before lunch.”

Without thinking Mary blurted out “I am not talking to You. You let me down. You misled me. You broke your promise. You lead me down the wrong path. I wasted five years of my life for you and now I have no future.”

God was conciliatory, “Mary, I never made any promises. You led yourself down that path. You will find that life is full of lengthy detours.”

Mary was still furious, “But You are letting them kick me out for bogus reasons. I am not “frail” and everyone knows it.”

“Their reasons are their reasons and My reasons are My reasons”

Frustrated at not being any further along the path to understanding this horrendous life shattering event Mary cried, “Now You have lost me completely.”

“Mary, you were already lost in this Convent. Now you at least have a chance to find your true self. Take that chance.”

“I don’t understand You. Leave me alone. I have to figure out what I am going to tell my dad about all this mess and then I have to figure out what I am supposed to do for the rest of my life.”

“Well, when you are ready to talk again, you know where to find me.” And He was gone.

At dusk, more desperate and depressed than ever, Mary sat down on a bench someone had built from a log that had washed up on the beach. As she continued to stare into the distance, she saw the setting sun turn a cluster of dark rain clouds on the horizon an explosive tangerine orange. As the sun sank below the skyline the clouds became blood red and finally, when the sun had totally disappeared, they were a tragic bruised purple.

At first Mary gazed into the distance totally wrapped into her thoughts and feelings of abandonment and despair. Then she began to absentmindedly watch a mother duck on the shore teaching her brood of nine ducklings how to fly. The mother was preparing them for their first winter migration south. Mary watched as the mother duck demonstrated for her family the mechanics of flight. Over and over again, as the ducklings watched, the mother powerfully launched herself from the water surface into graceful flight. Mary continued to watch, with ever increasing interest, as each duckling awkwardly flapped and splashed in the water until finally it struggled into the air. When all of the ducklings appeared to have learned how to fly, the mother duck, followed by all the baby ducks, took off and started flying south. But just as the duck family was taking off Mary noticed that one of the ducklings had faltered and had fallen back into the water. The duckling had forgotten the flying lesson it had just received and could not follow the rest into the air. Mother and the rest of the brood did not appear to notice and continued to gain altitude and to fly in a southerly direction. The family was rapidly disappearing from view and Mary was beginning to wonder how she was going to do to help the poor abandoned duckling helplessly flapping around in the water. Just as the mother was about to disappear beyond the horizon, Mary saw her make an abrupt turn to the left. She then began a broad sweeping U-turn that eventually brought her and eight of her brood back to the lake shore where Mary and the flapping abandoned duckling were waiting. Mary then oversaw the resumption and continuation of the lost duckling flying lessons until it permanently learned how to fly. The mother was then finally able to lead the whole of her family on the migratory flight south.

Mary was so captivated by this drama of nature that not once during its entire two-hour duration did she think about the life shattering events of earlier in the day. Afterwards, whenever Mary thought about this incident she wondered how the mother knew that one of her brood was missing. Could she really distinguish the sounds of eight little ducklings quacking from nine little ducklings quacking? That evening, as she walked along the beach back to the convent, worries about her now completely uncertain future crowded back into her mind. But, miraculously, that sad aching hollowness in her heart was gone.

Within five days of the fictionalized events described above, on September 1, 1939, to be precise, Hitler‘s Wehrmacht marched into Poland and two days later England declared the start of the Second World War which over the course of the following six years killed 40 million humans.

Within two years of the fictionalized events described above Mary Mulligan met and married Tom Kierans and within twenty years the “frail” Mary Mulligan gave birth to nine children including myself.

Within twenty years of the fictionalized events described above Mary’s eldest daughter and my eldest sister Mae entered the convent of the Sister’s of St. Joseph at North Bay and within thirty years she was appointed Novice Director at the Mother house in North Bay. Thanks to a little bit of detective work on her part she found out that my mother’s ejection from the convent (and, I suppose, also the fact of my existence) was indeed the result of an intra communal political and economical intrigue. A Bishop, on an economy drive separated the North Bay Sisters of St. Joseph's from the rest of the community which had been based in Peterborough Ontario. This created a financial crisis for the North Bay St. Josephs and they were forced to cut back on recruitment. My mother was a victim of the cut backs. There is no doubt that my mother was the victim of an unfair intrigue and would have made an excellent nun. Most certainly today there would be fewer starving children in Africa. But, speaking as one of the principal beneficiaries of that unfair intrigue, I am in no position to complain.

Happy Birthday Mom!!