Free Changing Habits by Debbie Macomber Page B

Angie’s father could come up with no more effective way to discourage her. It was with a heavy heart that she offered up her disappointment to God.
    At the end of her first year, in which she’d received only one terse letter from her father, Angie entered the novitiate. This was known as the contemplative year of silence. Speaking was allowed for only half an hour each evening, and all contact with family was prohibited. She never knew if her father wrote during that year but suspected he hadn’t. He was still angry with her.
    Nor did he write during her second year as a novice. She spent her days in prayer, studying Scripture and Church history and performing household tasks. The slow, peaceful days in this year of silence helped to shape her thoughts. They taught her patience and a willingness to yield her life to the dictates of God and Mother Superior. By the end of her time in the novitiate, Angie was approached by the Mistress of Novices regarding her new name as a professed sister. She was asked to submit three, but final approval rested with Mother Superior.
    The Mistress of Novices stopped her one afternoon as Angie swept the dining room floor. Her eyes brimmed with sadness. “I understand you knew Sister Trinita?”
    â€œYes,” Angie said, keeping her gaze lowered out of respect for the nun’s position. The term the convent used was “custody of the eyes.” “Sister Trinita was a favorite teacher of mine in grade school,” she explained.
    â€œI thought you should know Sister passed on to our heavenly Father last week.”
    â€œNo,” Angie gasped and her hand flew to her throat.
    â€œShe’d been seriously ill for some time.”
    â€œI…I had no idea.”
    â€œSister didn’t wish to burden others. She was sufferingfrom cancer.” She paused. “You were a special friend and I thought you’d want to know.”
    Tears welled in Angie’s eyes but she refused to let them fall. The woman who had so greatly influenced her life was gone to be with God. Angie felt the loss as keenly as she had when she’d lost her mother.
    â€œI believe one of the names you chose was Sister Frances?”
    Angie nodded. Sister Trinita had long ago told Angie it was her given name before she’d entered the convent.
    â€œI’ll talk to Reverend Mother and do what I can to see that you receive the name Sister Frances.”
    â€œOh, thank you,” Angie whispered. “That would mean the world to me.”
    â€œI can’t make any promises, Sister.”
    When she saw Karen during the recreation period after dinner, her friend knew immediately that something was wrong. “What happened?” she asked, squinting at the needle she was threading. All the second-year novices worked diligently on sewing their own habits, using three battered old machines and doing the finer work by hand. Until they spoke their final vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, their clothing was known as dresses or gowns. Only professed Sisters wore habits.
    â€œSister Trinita died…she had cancer.” Thinking back to their chance meeting on the convent grounds three years earlier, Angie recalled the hesitation in her manner. When Angie had asked about her latest assignment, Sister Trinita had passed over the question. She’d said “For now,” and Angie was convinced the nun knew about the cancer then.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Karen whispered.
    â€œI am, too… She was so wonderful to me.”
    That same evening, Angie wrote her father. She expressed her love for him as she inquired about his health and the restaurant. She didn’t give him an account of her life insidethe convent. It would only rub salt in his wounds. Neither did she tell him the news about Sister Trinita. He wouldn’t understand why it affected her so intensely. Just as he didn’t understand that the convent’s rules and routines now