I learnt later that Marie Alacoque was a French
nun who lived in the seventeenth century, and I discovered why her
memory was so revered by her co-religionists. It was easy to get a
book from the Ottawa Library and to read her up, and after that
conversation became less difficult, for a few remarks about Marie
Alacoque were always appreciated in conventual circles. The
convents were invariably neat and clean, but I was perpetually
struck by the wax-like pallor of the inmates. The elder nuns in
the strictly cloistered Orders were as excited as children over
this unexpected irruption into their convent of two strangers from
the world outside, which they had left for so long. They struck me
as most excellent, earnest women, and they delighted in exhibiting
all their treasures, including the ecclesiastical vestments and
their Church plate. They always made a point of showing us, as an
object of great interest, the flat candlestick of bougie that the
Cardinal-Archbishop had used when he had last celebrated
Pontifical High Mass in their chapel. In one strictly cloistered
convent there was a high wooden trellis across the chapel, so that
though the nuns could see the priest at the altar through the
trellis-work, he was unable to see them.
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