Riding in the back of her sister’s car one afternoon, seventeen-year-old Patty O’Donnell is suddenly chosen…by God.
The summer after high school graduation she finds herself at the Motherhouse, rising at dawn with a hundred other postulants to a day filled with meditation, Gregorian Chant, Mass, classes at the College, back-breaking labor and an hour of “recreation.” If she doesn’t like it, her postulant mistress tells her she can go back to secular life, trading in her scratchy black gown and nun shoes for a wanton “red skirt.”
Taking the name of Sister Marie Petra, she begins to grow with guidance from her new family of “sisters;” at times dysfunctional, but always loving and supportive at their core. She only hopes that she can depend upon their compassion and understanding when she tells the order she’s leaving…forever.
With heart-felt prose Patricia O’Donnell-Gibson reveals the clandestine life of a nun, sharing her struggles with obedience and asceticism and how they relate to her relationship with God.
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