When I think of such “false prophets,” I am forcibly reminded of the words we read in 2 Timothy iii. 6:
Of these are they that creep into houses, and take captive silly women, laden with sins, led away by divers lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
I was led by Ignatius to believe that by my action I was doing God’s will, and that by leaving my home and relations I was but obeying the command of Christ to “leave all and follow Him.” Was there ever such an absurdity as this? I was not called to go on a mission to the teeming millions living in heathen darkness, and take to them the Gospel of God’s grace; nor yet to work amongst the heathen in our own large towns; but positively to make myself a prisoner in one particular house, to be shut up where I could engage in no Christian or even philanthropic labour, and in such an isolated position I was told over and over again that I could live the highest, the holiest, and the happiest life on earth, and withal, bring down to the world around me blessings and health through the merits of “holy obedience.” I was taught that I could bless, and be made a blessing to others, by “telling the beads,” “invoking the saints,” “confessing sins to man,” by “hearing mass,” and by “reciting various offices.” What incredible folly!
On looking back, I find how great was my delusion, and I do heartily trust that my experience of this folly may be the means of saving girls and boys, men and women, from wasting so much precious and God-given time, which it was my sad lot to lose. I sowed the seed of blind enthusiasm, and reaped the harvest of untold misery, and blighted hopes. All the high-flown promises (which I so greedily swallowed) of the joy, the glory, the peace, the happiness of the nun’s life, are false promises and vain delusions. Certainly at one of the three convents in which I resided it was (as some of the sisters have said) “like living in a bear-garden.”
I do from the depths of my heart thank God for delivering me out of the “bear-garden,” and I pray that He will deliver others, and give them courage to “come out.”
It needs some courage to enter, but a hundred times as much to leave. I fear in many convents, humanly speaking, it is, after full profession, almost an impossibility to do so, for, as I have said, the moral bolts and bars are even more difficult to break through than the material ones; and these latter are, especially in Roman Catholic convents, not few or easily to be broken through. During all the years spent by me in nunneries I cannot look back to one sister, and say I know she is happy, that she has found true peace and satisfaction; but I can recollect the many who were disappointed at finding the life so utterly different from what they had been led to expect.
Alas! alas! When once we have taken up the “golden plough,” there is virtually no “looking back.” When once we have made our choice, we must abide by it. Many I know bitterly regret that they ever put their hands to this golden or, rather, this gilded plough.
If nuns were only free, and not conscience-bound, they would tell the self-same, true story which I do. But alas! they dare not speak, they even scarcely dare to think for themselves. Their reason has been given up to their Superiors (do remember this), and they have no right to think anything but what their Superiors think.
It is not your place to think, but to obey.
These words were often spoken to us. And again: