CHAPTER III
NOVITIATE
The novitiate is an episode in the training of the monastic, not of the secular, clergy: it is a period of probation imposed upon all aspirants to the monastic life. Religious of every order and congregation,[1] both men and women, must spend at least one year as ‘novices’ before they are permitted to bind themselves by the solemnity of the vows. During that period they experience the full severity and asceticism of the life to which they aspire, and they in turn are minutely observed and tested by their superiors. It is a wise provision: the least that can be done to palliate the gravity of taking such an irrevocable step. Since no formal study is permitted during its course, it necessitates an interruption of the ‘humanities’ of monastic clerics.
In the original intention of the founders of the monastic orders there was no distinction between clerics and lay members. Francis of Assisi, who was not a priest himself, simply drew up a rule of life, a modified version of his own extraordinary life, and allowed his followers, after due probation, to bind themselves by vow to its fulfilment. In it he naively proscribes study: ‘Let those who know not letters not seek to learn them.’ However, although a plenary inspiration is claimed for him in his first composition of the rule, he soon recognised the necessity of a different treatment of his clerical brethren: Antony of Padua was appointed by him ‘to teach theology to the brethren.’ He had not been many years in his grave—his premature death was not unassisted by his grief at the growing corruption of his order (the saintly Antony of Padua had already been publicly flogged in the convent of Aracæli at Rome for his dogged resistance to the corruptors)—when the intellectual fever of the thirteenth century completely mastered the fraternity. Many friars still held to the policy of holy ignorance, and Roger Bacon was imprisoned in England and Duns Scotus was buried alive by his brethren at Cologne (according to their amiable rivals—the Dominicans): however, the friars were to be found in hundreds in all the great universities, even in the professorial chairs at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne. Gradually the lay-brothers became the mere servants of the priests; the studies of the clerics were duly organised.
At that time and until the present century the neophytes were men of a more advanced age. After twelve months of trial, prayer, and reflection they were permitted to make their vows or ‘profession’ from which there was no dispensation. In recent years, however, the practice of taking aspirants at an earlier age has developed so rapidly that one feels apprehensive of a revival of the old Benedictine custom of accepting children of tender years whose parents were determined that they should be monks, for financial or political reasons. Pius IX. effected an important change in this direction. ‘Attenta raritate vocationum—seeing the fewness of vocations,’ as he naïvely confessed (the confessions which Popes have made in their Latin encyclicals from time immemorial are not sufficiently appreciated), he decreed that there should be two sets of vows. It would be too serious an outrage on human nature to allow boys of sixteen to contract an utterly irrevocable[2] obligation of so grave a character; at the same time it was clearly imperative to secure boys at that age if the religious orders were not to die of inanition. So a compromise was effected: boys should be admitted to the monastic life at the age of fifteen for their novitiate, and should make what are called ‘simple’ vows at the age of sixteen. From the simple vows the Pope was prepared to grant a dispensation, and the General of the Order could annul them (on the part of the order) if the neophyte turned out unsatisfactory. The ‘solemn’ or indispensable vows would be taken at nineteen, leaving three years as a kind of secondary novitiate.
Thus the criticism of the enemies of monasticism was thought to be averted, and at the same time boys were practically secured at an early age; for it will be readily imagined that few boys would care to make an application to Rome for a dispensation and return to disturb the peaceful content of their families—having, moreover, had twelve months’ probation besides two or three years in a monastic college. It was a clever, a thoroughly Roman, coup. In justice to the monks I must add that I have never known a case in which difficulties have been put in the way of one who desired a dispensation: certainly the accusation of physical detention in monasteries or convents is without foundation. If the student was promising, their advice to him to reconsider his position would, no doubt, take a very urgent and solemn character; if he persisted, I feel sure they would conscientiously procure his dispensation. However, in my personal experience I have only known one instance; he had entered under the influence of relatives and endured the strain for two years, but wisely revolted at length, sought a dispensation, and took to the stage.
It is thus explained how the monastic career usually commences at such an early age. A visitor to the novitiate of any order (a privilege which is rarely granted) cannot fail to notice the extreme youth of most of those who are engaged in weighing the tremendous problem of an irrevocable choice. They have, as a rule, entered the preliminary college at the age of thirteen, and have been called upon to come to a decision, fraught with such momentous consequences, at the age of fifteen or sixteen.
The novitiate, as the convent is called in which the novices are incarcerated, is normally a distinct monastery: economy of space, however, frequently compels the monks merely to separate the wing of some existing monastery for that purpose. In either case the regulations for its complete isolation are very severe. The novices are never allowed to leave the monastery during that year for any pretext whatever, and they are permitted to receive but few visitors and to have little correspondence (which is carefully examined) with the outside world. The natural result is that their comparison of monastic and secular life is conspicuously onesided.
For the novitiate of the Franciscan Order a portion of their friary[3] at Killarney had been set aside. Though there is a distinct Irish branch of the order (which, with truly Celtic bonhomie, has adopted a more humane modification of the Franciscan rule) the English province has had a friary at Killarney for many years. The three enterprising Belgian friars who invaded England forty or fifty years ago had the misfortune to pitch their tent at Sclerder in Cornwall. After a few years of barren struggle and discomfort they sailed over to the more hospitable sister isle and settled at Gorey in the County Wicklow, whence they were soon invited to the cathedral city of Killarney. Warmly welcomed by Bishop Moriarty and generously assisted by the people, they soon erected the plain but substantial building of rough limestone which catches the eye of the tourist on issuing from the station. The friary enjoyed an uninterrupted prosperity from its foundation, with the inevitable consequence that its inner life soon became much more remarkable for comfort than for asceticism. However, one or two small scandals, the advent of a hostile bishop, the impoverishment of the country, and frequent visits from authorities brought about a curtailment of the friars’ little amenities. And when the place was finally chosen as convent of the novitiate the good friars put their house in order, tightened their girdles, and resigned themselves to a more or less regular discipline; for one of their most sacred principles is that novices must not be scandalized.
The first impression which the place produced upon me when I entered it at the end of May 1885 was one of profound melancholy and discontent. There was an extensive and well-cultivated garden attached, and before us was ever outstretched the lovely and changeful panorama of the mountains. But the interior of the monastery with its chill, gloomy cloisters, its solemn and silent inmates, conveyed at once a deep impression of solitude and isolation. When we sat down to supper at the bare wooden tables on the evening of our arrival—my first community meal—widely separated from each other, eating in profound silence, and with a most depressing gravity, I felt that my monastic career would be a short one. A young friend had entered their novitiate the previous year and had ignominiously taken flight two days after his arrival: I found myself warmly sympathising with him.
However, since we were not to receive the monastic garb for a week or more, we were allowed a good deal of liberty, and my depression gradually wore off. It happened, too, that I was already acquainted with three of the friars, and soon became attached to the community. The first friar whom we had met, a lay-brother, rather increased our trouble: he was already far advanced in religious mania and ascetical consumption, and did, in fact, die a year afterwards in the local asylum. The second we met, also a lay-brother, did not help to remove the unfavourable impression. His jovial and effusive disposition only accentuated his curious deformity of structure: his hands and bare toes diverged conspicuously from the central axis, one shoulder largely preponderated over its fellow, his nose was a pronounced specimen of the Socratic type, and a touch of rheumatism imparted a shuffling gait to the entire composition. Happily we found that the teratological department of the convent ended with these two.
Our novice-master or ‘Instructor’ at that time was an excellent and much esteemed friar of six-and-twenty years; we were soon convinced of his kindness, consideration, and religious sincerity, and accepted willingly the intimate relations with him in which our position placed us. The superior of the monastery likewise had no difficulty in securing our esteem. He was a kindly, generous, and upright man, but without a touch of asceticism. Tall and very stout, with dark twinkling eyes and full features, he was a real ‘Friar of Orders Grey’ of the good old times. He was a Belgian, but he had attained wide popularity in Kerry by acquiring a good Flemish parody of an Irish brogue, and constructing a genealogical tree in which some safely remote ancestor was shown to be Irish. His ideal of life was not heroic, but he acted up to it conscientiously; he was genuinely pious in church, fulminatory in pulpit and confessional, kind and familiar with the poor and sick, generous and a moderate disciplinarian in his convent.
A few lay-brothers and four other priests made up the rest of the community. There was a cultured and refined young friar, who, after a few years of perverse misunderstanding and petty persecution from his less sympathetic brethren, was happily rescued from his position by the hand of death. A second, a tall, eccentric friar, ultimately became a stumbling-block to his fraternity; another, a little, stout Lancashireman of earnest and spotless life and of a deeply humane and affectionate disposition, fell a victim, a year later, to typhus. Last, but not least, was a little rotund and rubicund Irishman of enthusiastic, unreasoning piety; kind, ascetical, hardworking, studious (for he studied everything, except religious evidences), he was a much respected figure in Irish missionary circles. The one rule he confided to young missionaries was said to be: ‘Throw the fire of hell at them,’ and with his own stentorian voice (though he told you he was consumptive, and that one lung had decayed already) he threw it with prodigious effect amongst the peasantry.
A few days afterwards we were duly clothed with the monastic garb. The ‘clothing’ has developed into an impressive religious ceremony, and, as there were six of us to be clothed on this occasion, and it was the inauguration of a new novitiate, the event was celebrated with much solemnity. The six tunics, ‘habits’ as they are called, of rough brown cloth with their knotted cords, were blessed and sprinkled with holy water in the sanctuary, and, after an eloquent sermon by the Dominican Prior from Tralee, we were enrobed with the consecrated garments, amidst much prayer and psalm singing and the audible groans of the impressionable peasantry.
Our heads had been shaven in advance, leaving a bald uncomfortable patch on the vertex about the size of a cheeseplate, a symbol, it is said, of the crown of thorns of Christ’s passion. The brown tunic is also symbolical of the passion, for it is made in the form of a cross, the body being of the same width from neck to foot, and the wide sleeves branching out at right angles. However, the symbolism is an outgrowth of more modern piety. Francis of Assisi made no fantastic choice of a costume; casting aside his rich garments at his conversion he merely adopted the costume of the Italian beggar of his time a rough tunic and hood, girded with a knotted cord, and sandals to his feet. The habit which excites so much comment on the modern friar is thus merely an Italian beggar’s costume of the thirteenth century; substantially, at least, for it has fallen under the iron law of evolution. In fact the point of vital importance on which the two great branches of the Franciscan Order diverge is the sartorial question, what was the original form of the habit of St. Francis? The Capuchins hold that his hood (or ‘capuce’) was long and pointed, and that he cultivated (or rather, neglected) a beard; their rivals—the Observantes, Recollecti, and Reformati—dissent, and their age-long and unfraternal strife on the subject became as fierce and alarming as the historical controversy of the Dominicans and Jesuits of the sixteenth century on the nature of grace. The Roman authorities had to intervene and stop the flow of literature and untheological language by declaring all further publications on the subject to be on the ‘Index Expurgatorius’ ipso facto.
The costume is still uncomfortable and insanitary: in summer the heavy robe and the rough woollen underclothing are intolerable; in winter the looseness and width of the tunic promotes an undesirable ventilation, and, with due respect to Edward Carpenter, sandalled feet are decidedly unhealthy. Their rule prescribes that the costume consist of ‘two tunics, a hood, girdle, and drawers,’ but the inner tunic is interpreted in England to be an ordinary woollen shirt; on the Continent it is a second tight-fitting tunic of the same brown material. A mantle of the same colour is usually worn out of doors, and is considered part of the costume during the winter.
The name of the novice is also changed when he enters the monastery, as a sign that he is henceforth dead to the world. The surname is entirely dropped, and the Christian name is changed into that of some saint of the Order who is adopted as patron; thus my own name was changed into Antony. We were now, therefore, fully fledged friars, and we entered at once upon the dull routine of the monastic life. The character of the life will be best understood by a detailed description of an ordinary monastic day.
At a quarter to five every morning one of the friars was awakened by his alarm clock, and proceeded at once to arouse the community. We novices, with the eye of our instructor constantly upon us, shot out of our rooms at lightning speed, but in most cases the process was not so simple. There were friars of all stages of somnolency: some, of extremely nervous temperament, heard the alarm themselves and perhaps rushed upstairs for a cold bath; the majority were aroused by a vigorous tap of the wooden hammer at their door accompanied by the pious salutation, ‘Laudetur Jesus Christus,’ to which they sleepily responded ‘Amen’ (so, at least, the sound was piously interpreted, though in point of fact the response had many variations from the half awakened friars, from ‘Come in’ to much more profane expressions); some slept so profoundly that the knocker-up had to enter their rooms and shake them violently every morning. When the round was completed (all the bedrooms opening into a wide central corridor) the large bell sent a deafening clangour through the dormitories, and we quickly prepared for chapel.
A quarter of an hour was allowed for the purpose, but, as our toilet was simplicity itself, most of the friars who had got beyond the stage of primitive innocence continued their slumbers for five or ten minutes. We were directed by the constitutions to retain all our underclothing during the night, so nothing remained but to throw on the rough brown robe and gird it with the knotted cord; then towel in hand we raced to our common lavatory, for our simple cells of twelve feet square were not encumbered with washstands and toilet tables. In the lavatory a long narrow zinc trough with a few metal basins and a row of taps overhead was provided for our ablutions; I afterwards discovered that, crude as it was, this arrangement was rather luxurious for a friary.
At the end of the quarter the bell rang out its second warning, and all were supposed to be kneeling in their stalls in the choir by that time. The superior’s eye wandered over the room to see if all were present, and any unfortunate delinquent was at once sent for, and would have to do public penance for his fault at dinner. At five the religious exercises began and continued, with half an hour’s interval, until eight o’clock.
The ancient monastic custom of rising at midnight for the purpose of chanting the ‘Office’ finds little favour with modern monks; and even from a religious point of view they are wise. I was enabled to make observations on the custom some years later on the Continent, and I found little to be enthusiastic over, as Roman Catholic writers (usually those who have never tried it) frequently are. A few neurotic devotees enter into the service with their usual fervour, but the vast majority, to whom a religious concentration of thought during an hour’s service is an impossibility even in their most lucid hours, are fatally oppressed with sleep and weariness. In summer they fall asleep in their stalls; in winter the night’s repose is lost, and many constitutions are ruined by the hour or hour and a half spent in the icy-cold chapel at midnight. From no point of view is there occasion for sympathy and admiration.
The Office which is thus chanted in choir is a collection of Latin psalms, hymns, and lessons from Scripture which every priest is bound to recite every day. The monks chant it, or rather ‘psalmody’ it, in a monotone in their chapel at various hours of the day: the principal section, ‘Matins and Lauds,’ are the opening ceremony in the morning. It lasts about an hour, and is followed by a half-hour of silent meditation—broken only by the slumbers of the somnolent and the elderly brethren. A facetious London priest, who once endeavoured to pass through the novitiate of a monastery, maintains that he was discharged because he snored so loudly during meditation as to disturb the slumbers of the elderly brethren. Mass followed, and then breakfast was taken in profound silence. It was a simple meal, consisting only of coffee (taken in bowls and without sugar except on fast-days) and bread and butter: during its progress a few pages of the ‘Imitation of Christ’ were read aloud. After breakfast a further section of the Office was chanted, and we were dismissed to arrange our rooms: for every friar, even the highest superior, is his own chamber-maid.
Afterwards we were allowed a quarter of an hour in the garden in strict silence, and then our semi-religious studies and classes commenced. During the novitiate profane study is prohibited (the perusal of a Greek grammar one day brought me as severe a reprimand as if it had been a French novel) and the time is occupied with religious exercises, of which we had seven or eight hours daily, and the study of our rule and constitutions, of ritual, and of ascetical literature. At half-past eleven another section of the Office was chanted, at twelve there was a second halfhour of silent contemplation (an injudicious custom—St. Teresa rightly maintained that one cannot meditate fasting), and at 12.30 the welcome dinner bell was heard. Growling, rather than reciting, a ‘De Profundis’ for departed benefactors, we walked in silent procession to the refectory, where, standing face to face in two long rows down the room, we chanted a long and curiously intonated grace.
Dinner was dispatched in strict silence: two friars read aloud, in Latin and English alternately, from Scripture or some ascetical work, and the superior gave the necessary signals with a small bell that hung before him. There were no table-cloths (for monks are forbidden the use of linen) but our pine tables were as smooth as marble and scrupulously clean. The friars only sit on one side of the table, on benches fixed into the wall, so that the long narrow tables run round the sides of the room. The windows were frosted, for we were overlooked by the police-barracks, whose English and Orange inmates were provokingly interested in our proceedings. The dinner itself was frugal but substantial enough: it usually consisted of soup, two courses of meat and two vegetables, and fruit—with a pint of beer to each friar. Many of us had hardly reached the age of strong drinks, but we were obliged to take our two pints daily (at dinner and supper) with the rest, and frequently a few glasses of wine in addition.
After dinner tongues are loosened at last, and recreation is indulged in until 2.30. There is a curious custom for two of the friars (a priest and a student) to wash the dishes after dinner. A large tank of hot water containing the dishes is suitably mounted in the kitchen, and the two friars, armed with cloths tied to the end of sticks, hurry through their task, chanting meanwhile alternate verses of the ‘Miserere’ in Latin, freely interspersed with ejaculatory comments on the temperature of the water.
The recreation is, in all monasteries, a very desultory episode, and usually resolves itself into a walk round the garden, chatting or disputing together. We were allowed cricket at the commencement of our term, but it was quickly vetoed by a foreign authority as contrary to religious modesty. Tennis and handball are also indulged in by the students. The lay-brothers play dominoes and the priests often follow their example, but the three sections—priests, students, and lay-brothers may never intermingle; they are never even permitted to speak to each other without necessity. Cards are expressly forbidden; bagatelle is popular; and I have known the priests of a London monastery to occupy their recreation with marbles for many months. It was quite startling to hear such problems as Predestination or Neo-Malthusianism discussed over a game of marbles.
At 2.30 the bell summons them to choir for Vespers, the last section of the Office, and shortly afterwards tea is announced by the same medium. Nothing is eaten, but each friar receives a large bowl of tea; many of the older friars take another pint of beer instead, for tea is a comparatively recent innovation. The Belgian friars and the early English missionaries always take beer. Silence is not enforced during the quarter of an hour which is allowed for tea, but at its termination the strictest silence is supposed to be observed until recreation on the following day. In point of fact, however, the law of monastic silence is only observed with any degree of fidelity by novices and students, and by these only so long as the superior is within earshot. ‘Charity,’ they would plead in justification, ‘is the greatest of all commandments.’ Still, such as it is, the practice engenders a marked neglect of the commonest forms of politeness.
After an hour of prayer and spiritual reading we continued our pious studies until 6.30, when a third half-hour of silent contemplation had to be accomplished. It was pitiful, sometimes, to see young students endeavouring to keep their attention screwed upon the abstract doctrines of Christianity for so long a time—to see them nervously tightening their lips against the assaults of the evil one. For our monastic literature, never entertaining for a moment the idea that such a performance was beyond the powers of the average normally-constituted individual, taught us to see in spirit myriads of ugly little demons (why the devil should always choose or make an ugly body to appear in is problematical—the modern conception of him, à la Marie Corelli, is much more plausible) with pointed ears and forked tails, sitting on our shoulders and on the arms of our stalls and filling our minds with irrelevant thoughts. In fact, our worthy novice-master (and several respectable authors) assured us that the imps had been seen on more than one occasion by particularly pious elder brethren—that on one dreadful occasion, happily long ago, a full-sized demon had entered the choir with a basket and orthodox trident, discovered a young friar who was distracted in his prayers, and promptly disappeared with him in his basket. All of which we were obliged to listen to with the utmost gravity and concern if we set any value upon our sojourn in the monastery.
So a series of mental apparatus, called methods of meditation, had been invented for the purpose of aiding the wayward human mind to fix its gaze on the things of the spirit without interruption. Unfortunately they were often so complicated as to make confusion worse confounded. The method which our instructor selected for us was quite an elaborate treatise in itself. I remember one of our novices confiding to me the trouble it occasioned him. The method was, of course, merely an abstract form of thought to be filled in with the subject one chose to meditate about. But my comrade, a clever ex-solicitor, had by some incomprehensible confusion actually mistaken it for the subject of meditation, and complained that the bell usually rang before he had got through the scheme, and that he had no time left to tackle the particular virtue or vice he had wished to meditate upon. On the whole, it will be readily understood that of the seven hours of prayer which were imposed upon us at that period six at least were a pure waste of time.
At seven we were summoned to supper—a simple meal of eggs or cold meat, potatoes and beer. Afterwards, on three evenings per week, we took the discipline or self-scourging. Each friar repaired to his cell for the purpose and flogged himself (at his own discretion) across the shoulders with a knotted cord, whilst the superior, kneeling in the middle of the corridor, recited the ‘Miserere’ aloud. Knowing that our instructor used to listen at our doors during the performance, we frequently gave him an exaggerated impression of our fervour by religiously flogging the desk or any other resonant surface. However, our instruments of torture were guaranteed to be perfectly harmless, even in the hands of a fanatic. I remember what mental threats we uttered against a bloodthirsty little Portuguese friar who told us tales (with the suggestion to imitate) of the way they took discipline; but before the end of the novitiate we had learned the true value of the edifying tales with which visitors invariably entertained the novices.
The remainder of the evening was spent in private devotions or spiritual reading, and at 9.30 we were obliged to retire. Our beds were quite in harmony with the rest of the establishment; straw mattresses with a few blankets were all that we received. Besides the bed a wooden chair and a plain desk with half-a-dozen necessary books completed the furniture of the cell; a small plaster crucifix was the only effort at mural decoration. Our dormitory was cut off from the others by a special partition which was locked every evening, for the regulations for our isolation were very stringent. Even the superior of the monastery was not allowed to enter our department except in the company of one of the older friars.
Such was the ordinary tenor of our lives throughout the year of the novitiate, and indeed it had few variations. Feast-days were the principal events we looked forward to, and it would be safe to assert that few boys would persevere in their condition if the feast-days were abolished. A score of festivals were indicated in the constitutions on which the superior was directed to allow conversation at dinner, and to give wine to the brethren: ‘half a bottle to each’ was the generous allowance of the constitutions. In ordinary monasteries, festivals are much more frequent, and conversation is indulged at dinner on the slightest pretext. In the novitiate, where a stricter discipline prevailed, we had usually two or three every month, and on the more important feasts the midday dinner assumed enormous proportions. At Christmas the quantity of fowl and other seasonable food which was sent in occupied our strenuous attention during a full week: in fact, all our convents had the custom of celebrating the entire octave of Christmas with full gastronomic honours. So many friends conceived the happy idea of sending a gift to the ‘poor friars’ that the larder became quite a magazine of Christmas fare.
The greatest event of the year, however, was the patronal feast of the superior of the monastery. He was a warm favourite in Killarney, and there were enough comestibles (and potables) sent in to store a ship, the two neighbouring nunneries, especially, and a host of friends, vying with each other in the profusion and excellence of gifts to honour his festival. Even when a feast-day coincided with a fast-day, the restriction in solids was usually compensated by a greater generosity in fluids; we young novices were more than exhilarated on one or two occasions when dinner had been opened with a strong claret soup, accompanied by the usual pint of beer and a glass of sherry, and followed by two or three glasses of excellent port—sometimes even champagne. The restriction to fish is not felt very acutely, either, in Killarney, where the lakes produce magnificent salmon, and where, by a most ingenious process of theological reasoning, water-fowl are included under the title of fish.
At the same time the monotony was equally disturbed by the occurrence of the fasts. Besides the ordinary fasts of the Church, the friars observe several which are peculiar to their rule, especially a long fast from the first of November until Christmas. However, there are few who really fast—that is, content themselves with one full meal per day—in this degenerate age, even in monasteries; abstinence from flesh-meat is the usual limit of their mortification. On the Continent, fasting, in the strict sense of the word, is much more frequently practised in monasteries, but an intensification of their usual idleness is the necessary consequence; in England, it is to the credit of the monks, and clergy generally, that they prefer industry to fasting, though it is hardly to their credit that they still make a profession of fasting. The Passionists are the only English congregation who cling to the practice with any fidelity, and their statistics of premature mortality are an eloquent commentary on the stupidity of the Italian authorities who are responsible for it.
And even the ‘fasting’ of modern times departs not a little from the primitive model. I have seen the ‘one full meal’ which is allowed at midday protracted until four o’clock, and a partial meal has been introduced in the evening. Drink, of course, does not break the fast, except strong soup, chocolate, and a few other questionable fluids, a list of which is duly drawn up by casuists; any amount of beer or wine may be taken. And since it is, or may be, injurious to drink much without eating, a certain quantity of bread is allowed with the morning coffee; at night (or in the morning if preferred), eight or ten ounces of solid food are permitted. The Franciscans are much reproved by rival schools of theologians for their laxity in this regard, and the strained interpretation they put upon admitted principles. At one time a caricature was brought out in Rome depicting a Franciscan friar complacently attacking a huge flagon of ale and a generous allowance of bread and cheese in the middle of his fast. To the ale was attached the sound theological aphorism ‘Potus non frangit jejunium—drink does not break the fast’; the huge chunk of bread was justified by the received principle ‘Ne potus noceat—in order that the drink may do no harm,’ and the cheese was added in virtue of the well-known saying, ‘Parum pro nihilo reputatur—a little counts as nothing.’
Since there was no parish attached to the monastery at Killarney (which is the correct canonical status of a monastery), a few words must be said of the life of the priests. At that time it was a hopeless mystery to me, and it is principally from later observation and information that I am able to describe it. That it was far from a life of industry will be readily understood; occasional visits to the sick poor and the rendering of services to the secular clergy of the diocese constituted the whole of their external work. In our own church there was only one sermon per week, and there were six friars to share the work. Hence the greater portion of the day was at the personal disposal of the priest; and, as manual labour was considered beneath the dignity of the priest, and their irregular education had left them, with few exceptions, little or no taste for study, they were always eager for distractions to occupy their time. They were frequently to be met rowing or sailing on the lakes (always in their brown habits), or driving on side-cars through the loveliest parts of Kerry; and, in return, the parish priests whom they visited or assisted, paid frequent visits to the friary and helped them to fill up an idle hour with a cigar and a glass of whisky. A few years later, indeed, a large-minded superior transformed a conservatory in the centre of the garden into a cosy smoking-room, and his generosity was warmly and practically appreciated.
In point of fact, both whisky and tobacco were forbidden in our constitutions, but I have never yet seen a constitution in which a theologian could not find a loophole and pass through it with unruffled dignity. The tale of the old lady at Glasgow who lost her purse and prayed that it might not fall into the hands of a theologian is very shrewd. The conviviality of the priests, in our days, was confined to a small room at a safe distance from our wing of the house, but we frequently met one of the juniors moving stealthily along the corridor with the neck of a bottle peeping out from his mantle, and often, as we lay awake at midnight, we caught the faint echo from the distant room of ‘Killarney’ or ‘The Dear Little Shamrock.’
The penances, too, were an interesting feature of the life, when observed in the case of one’s companions. The common form of public penance is to kneel in the centre of the refectory during dinner, praying silently with arms outstretched until the superior gives permission to rise. The next in point of severity is to kneel without the hood, or with an inscription stating one’s crime, or with the fragments of anything one has broken. For graver faults, especially of insubordination, a culprit is condemned to eat his dinner on the floor in the centre, the observed of all observers, for one or more days; and for an exaggerated offence his diet is restricted to bread and water. Confinement to the monastery for a long period, suspension from sacerdotal functions, and, ultimately, expulsion from the order, are the more grievous forms of punishment. Though monastic constitutions still direct that each monastery must have its ‘prison’ I do not think that formal incarceration is now practised in any part of the world. Apart, however, from these penances the whole scheme of discipline is crushing and degrading. For speaking a word in time of silence a novice would be forced to carry a stick in his mouth during recreation: he would be called upon at any time, for no fault whatever, to stand against the wall or in a corner of the room and make a fool of himself in the most idiotic fashion. Everything is done to crush the last particle of self-respect, to distort and pervert character to monastic purposes.
I remember once nearly bringing my monastic life to a premature close by an act which any English schoolboy would feel bound in honour to do. A companion had playfully scattered a few blades of grass on me in the garden, and our instructor, inferring that I had been romping with him (a sin of the utmost gravity), asked me who was responsible for the presence of the grass on my habit. As the boy himself sat beside me on the bench I declined to speak, and the instructor departed without a word. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I was seized with a religious scruple immediately afterwards, and hastened to apologise. I found the instructor holding a grave tête-à-tête with the superior on the matter, and had I not apologised in a public and humiliating manner for my ‘fault,’ I should have been forthwith expelled from the monastery. Certain characteristics of the Catholic clergy are only understood in the light of such an education.
Thus the twelve months passed smoothly by, and the time approached for us to take the ‘simple vows.’ The votes of the community are taken every three months on the merits of candidates for the order. The community is assembled for the purpose in the chapter room (a room in which the superior assembles his religious three times per week for prayer, exhortation, and public confession of their minor faults—breaking utensils, oversleeping, &c.) and the superior invites a discussion on the merits or demerits of the novice. He then produces a bag of white and black marbles, of which he gives a pair to each voter: they are collected with great secrecy in two bags, and if the novice does not obtain a majority of ‘white balls’ he is significantly invited to abandon his intention. If it is probable that he will be ‘blackballed,’ he is usually warned in advance: hence it very rarely happens.
Our votes having been satisfactorily obtained we prepared to make our religious profession at the completion of our year of probation. The profession, an impressive religious ceremony, consists essentially of a vow to observe the rule of St. Francis and to ‘live in poverty, chastity,[4] and obedience for the whole time of our lives.’ When the morning arrived a large and sympathetic congregation had gathered in the little church, and the sight of the six young friars—mere boys we all were—solemnly casting off every earthly hope with all the energy of aged Stoics, moved them deeply. The purport of the vow was explained to them in the exhortation of our superior, and they at least keenly felt the awful extent of our sacrifice. We, too, were convinced that we fully realised the gravity of our step: true, our thoughts were rather turned towards the glamour of the position we coveted and its many advantages, yet we were not insensible of the price we were asked to pay. But it was many a long year before the true gravity of the step could be realised, long after we had solemnly and irrevocably ratified our vows.
What are the world and the flesh to a boy of sixteen, or even to a boy of nineteen (at which age the final, irrevocable step is taken) who has been confined in an ecclesiastical institution from his thirteenth year? He knows little more of the life which he cuts off so lightly by his vow of poverty than he does of the life of Mars; and he is absolutely ignorant, when he makes his vow of celibacy, of that profound passion which will one day throb so powerfully in every fibre of his being and transform the world beyond conception. Yet he is permitted, nay invited, to make that blind sacrifice and place himself in life-long antagonism to the deepest forces of his being before he can have the faintest idea of his moral strength. If it be true that monastic life is ever sinking into corruption, we should feel more inclined to pity than to blame the monks.
The secular clergy make no vow of poverty or obedience, and it may be urged that even their vow of celibacy is more defensible. The seminary student makes his vow when he is admitted to the subdiaconate, the first of the holy orders, and the canonical and usual age of the subdeacon is twenty-one. The average youth of twenty-one may be admitted to be capable, in ordinary circumstances, of forming an opinion on such matters, but we must remember that the ecclesiastical student has had an abnormal training. Every precaution has been taken to keep him in blank ignorance of sexual matters, and to defer the development of that faculty of which he is asked to make a life-long sacrifice. He has never come in contact with the complementary sex, for even during his vacation the fear of scandal hangs like a mill-stone about him; he has never read a line concerning the most elementary facts and forces of life—his classics, his history, his very fiction have been rigidly expurgated; the weekly minute confession of his thoughts, the incessant supervision of his superiors, the constant presence of innumerable ethico-theological scarecrows, all have combined to postpone the unfolding of Nature’s most wondrous gift until he shall have blindly abdicated it for ever. In the confessional I have known students of a much more advanced age who were still unconscious of its power. In fact the Church knows that they are unconscious, and expects them to be unconscious; for if she awaited the full development of mind and body in her candidates her clergy would never be sufficiently recruited.
The proportion of nuns who take the vow of chastity at an early age is smaller, as I have said but the sin is more grievous. The life of the nun who finds in later life that she has made a mistake is infinitely more wretched; the priest is in the world and frequently of it, the nun is jealously imprisoned in the walls of her convent. No doubt her vow is usually only a ‘simple’ vow and theoretically dispensable; but who ever knew a nun to write to Rome for a dispensation? No woman would dare to face the practical ignominy of such a step.
I have never been able to witness without a shudder the ceremony of a young girl making her vows. Some pachydermatous monk or veneered Jesuit preaches to her from the altar of the tranquil joy of her future life as spouse of Christ alone, and the candid virginal eyes that are bent upon him tell only too clearly of her profound ignorance of the sleeping fires within her, the latent joys of love and maternity which she sacrifices so readily. In ten years more she will know the meaning of the vow of chastity into which she has been deluded. It was brought home to me vividly on hearing, a few years ago, the confession of a young nun who was in the wild throes of passion-birth; after detailing the usual peccadilloes she began to tell me of her utter misery and isolation. Her sisters were unkind, thoughtless, and jealous; ‘and yet, father,’ she urged piteously, ‘I do want someone to love me.’ I muttered the usual commonplaces, but, as she knelt at my feet, looking sadly up at me, in their little convent chapel, I felt how dark a sin it was to admit an immature girl to a vow of chastity. How their parents—their mothers—can let them act thus without a word of warning surpasses my comprehension. ’Tis another signal instance, no doubt, of the triumph of grace over nature!
- ↑ A congregation is a monastic institution of less importance and antiquity than an order.
- ↑ The pope claims de jure to have the power to dissolve solemn vows, but de facto they are practically insoluble. There is only one clear case on record where the power has been used: it need hardly be said that it was in favour of a member of a wealthy royal house.
- ↑ It is well to note that a house of friars may be called with equal propriety a friary, monastery, or convent.
- ↑ A vow of chastity embraces the obligation of celibacy and much more: it doubles the guilt of any transgression of the virtue of chastity or purity, which, in the theory of the Church of Rome, is a very comprehensive piece of ethical legislation. Yet many confessors actually encourage their girl-penitents, living in the world, to make such a vow.