Grace before Meals: Food Ritual and Body Discipline in Convent Culture

by Patricia Curran

174 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1989

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Grace Before Meals ~~ Food Ritual and Body Discipline in Convent Culture" was written in 1989 by Sister Patricia Curran, SNDdeN and offers a very rare and important piece of research into an area of Convent life that had not yet been explored nor published outside those convent walls.

The food rituals of two congregations of nuns are the subjects of this study ~~ the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

"Grace Before Meals" describes the waning days of the centuries-old convent meal rituals as performed by these two communities of nuns.

The participating nuns from these congregations were divided into two groups ~~ those nuns who had entered before 1925 and those who had taken their vows in the 1960s. Drawing upon interviews, questionnaires, and other research, Sister Curran describes ~~ in GREAT detail ~~ the typical convent meal of the early 1960s and contrasts and compares the customs and rituals of these two orders of nuns.

She treats the refectory (convent dining room) as a sort of stage on which the nuns are the actors. Gestures, postures, movement, speech and silence were all carefully blended to embody the ideal nun. There are so many mysterious customs revealed in this book ~~ customs and rituals which were, at one time, kept extremely secret from the outside world.

Now, for the first time, these customs are not only revealed to the reader, but the nuns speak out and describe exactly how they felt when they were living this life. Twenty nuns from each congregation responded to Sister Curran's questions.

These questions were specifically designed to stir old memories from Novitiate days in the convent refectory ~~ Food (quality, quantity, availability and familiarity of diet) Environment (textures and colors, seating and setting) Formal Behaviors (reading, speaking,penances, table manners)

Next, the nuns were asked to describe how they had been initiated into these strange practices; how the unfamiliar had been explained to them as young novices; what each nun believed was the purpose of all of this strange behavior.

"Grace Before Meals" is a fascinating read for anyone who was ever curious about life inside the convent. The details provided are amazing and most could, probably, be applied to any congregation of nuns.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting.