The Calling : A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns

by Catherine Whitney

On a hilltop north of Seattle, overlooking the glorious vista of Puget Sound and the white-capped Olympics, stands Rosary Heights, the motherhouse of the Sisters of Saint Dominic of the Holy Cross. The story begins here, with a catastrophic storm that shifts the ground beneath the motherhouse and threatens to send it crashing into the waters below. In a single act of nature, a moment of truth, the order is forced to rethink its place in the world and its purpose.
        
With Rosary Heights as the backdrop, Catherine Whitney takes a personal journey inside the order that ran the school she attended as a child, the order that, for a short time, she contemplated entering herself. Her quest is to come to terms with what it means to be called to the religious life. What is the secret these women hold that makes them--no matter how diverse--perform common rituals, celebrate the same Mass, and serve the same God?
        
In The Calling , we meet several valiant women who struggle with the practicalities of the world around them as well as the complicating issues of the life of a nun. Each woman's story is compelling. Together, they form a dramatic human chronicle that is fascinating and revealing--a chronicle of a community that has existed for centuries but is still evolving and whose anxieties and joys are utterly relevant to all of us, regardless of our beliefs.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir, Catholic

272 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2008

Reviews

[Julieann Wielga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine Whitney was born in Seattle Washington in 1950, one year before my older sister. She was raised by two Catholic converts and her pre-college life was spent in Catholic Schools. She loved the all-girl highschool, because the classroom was saved from the presence of the those loud and much attended to boys. She saw those nuns has strong women who had chosen paths which freed them to thier own work and not serve the lives of children and husbands. She always wondered if she had a "calling" to the convent life. But when she was 18 and went into sign up, the mother superior of Rosary Heights told her to go college, experience the world, then if she was really called, she would be back. She reports a religious crisis, became a journalist, married, had a son, divorced.... but the question of a "calling" plagued her her whole life. This book is her year long search of that question. She returned to Rosary Heights, reconnected with the nuns she had known and was introduced to younger women who had made the commitment even in these modern times.

These nuns of 1998, no longer lived in convents singing the daily hours.They found jobs in fields of education, social work, medicine, where ever they were needed. Their vows of poverty keeps theme free from aquisition and security, obedience to the community allows them so set aside regrets and recrimminations. They are chaste to a single purpose. The author reports that they look younger than their non-religious countereparts. Her friend, John an ex-priest posits that everyone has a calling from something"other", that we can choose to follow or ignore, that it is not always comfortable, and it changes as we grow and change. That it is not a particular job but as at least in part a searching for the "naked god".

I have always been and remain attracted to the community and simplicity of religious life. When I was in college, about once or twice a year, our dean with several students were weekend guests at Saint Xavier a Dominican Brother's dairy farm in Elvira New York. There we could participate in the hours, discuss religious questions and take long, quiet walks. I have a quiet nature and have always been most comfortable in spaces that allow contemplation, community and service with very little worry about worldy aquisition. I have a very strong sense of when my life achieves this balance and when it does not. I have a long sinusiodal wave of comfort and discomfort sometimes lasting for years. In the years, that most hours have been shaped by an inner disjunct, I have realized that it is some way a compass, pushing me to try again to find that space where I can achieve some peace within my self and the world seen and unseen. Although, this is a secularization of a charged word, I think this is an illustration of what Katherine and her ex-priest see as a calling.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this was an interesting read, it really seemed to miss the mark in relation to what the title seems to promise. It ends up being a rather rambling and spotty memoir about the author who went from being a fairly devout Catholic who believed she might have been called to join a holy order to her becoming disaffected and an ardent feminist. Along the way we find some interesting anecdotes and some lovely women who have also been called and joined holy orders. At the end we find some thin, vague and unsatisfying conclusions about the author's personal calling and what it means to be called in general. This book was a string of stories about a variety of Sisters very loosely held together by the author's life experiences. It was less about call and more about her. I gave it three stars instead of two because at least it portrayed the Sisters as Catholics who perhaps had issues with the Church hierarchy and leadership structure, but who honored their religion and tried to honor the vows they made. We didn't have to delve into bringing in Wicca and goddess worship as part of the new catechism for modern monastic religiosity, which I've encountered in another book of this type.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the stories of the nuns in this book; the author's internal struggles, not so much.

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author went to Catholic high school in the early 60s, a time of dramatic change in the Catholic Church. Her teachers were all nuns, and she contemplated taking vows as a nun herself. When the Mother Prioress suggested she take some time to be sure she was called to that vocation she was so crushed she effectively left the church in her past.

About three decades later, she was asked to write about nuns by her publisher and headed back to the Seattle area to re-immerse herself in the life of the religious and find out if things had changed inside the order as much as it looks like it has changed from the outside. The answer is yes. And also no. Things are substantially different, but the women who are called to serve as Dominicans continue to do God's work in the world, regardless of clothing and other outer trappings.

For someone who was not raised Catholic, this is full of daily routines completely unfamiliar to me. For someone who was taught by nuns, maybe this would be vaguely interesting, but it might also bring back some unpleasant memories. Either way, I think it's comforting to think of these women who remain dedicated to doing good works for the betterment of society--a link to the past looking forward toward an uncertain earthly future.

[Booklover · Rating 3 out of 5]

It look me forever to finish this book. I would not say it's a compelling read, and in 2015 it is definitely a bit dated.

Part-autobiography, part-journalist vignettes, it just didn't keep my attention. I got through the majority of this title, after I first checked it out in August of last year; with one or two renewals. Today, I decided it was finally time to put it to bed and finish it. I skimmed sections to refresh my recollection, so I could try to write a semi-coherent review.

There is little to hold the story together or drive the plot forward, though it revolves around the Dominican Sisters of Edmonds, Washington and their motherhouse at Rosary Heights. I would not describe it as "a year in the life of an order of nuns" --it was more like, "how being turned away from the convent changed the direction of my life, but I still really like the nuns who used to teach me..." -- probably too long for a subtitle, but if you picked the book up because you wanted to know what life is like for nuns in the 21st century (or late 20th century); I think you will be disappointed.

[Willa Guadalupe Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected. It is so much of the author's personal life journey & yet she captures the feeling & reality of having a calling to be a religious. I was happy to have read this book, though it certainly did not answer the questions I had or give an exclusive look into the question of a calling.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

People who know me well will laugh at this: I've always kind of wanted to be a nun. It's a very attractive lifestyle. Unfortunately, Lutherans don't have nuns, and I'm not about to change my religion just to get a rosary. This is a fascinating look into the lives of modern day nuns.

[Pam Frost Gorder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, who herself considered becoming a nun in her early years of a Catholic education, gives an inside look at what it means to be nun today, and how that meaning has evolved over the last few decades.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like it. What calls them to this life? Great spiritual insight

[Hope McCormick · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting, but it wasn't what I expected.

[Sandy lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very inspiring to read. Has anyone else read this book before?