Sarah Dunant - Sacred Hearts

This is a story about Character. Strength of Character to challenge the status quo as pitted against strength of character to accept the status quo. It is sobering that whatever side of the divide one finds oneself, one needs the strength of character to survive.

The book is set in the late 1500's  in St Catherine's convent in Ferrara, Italy when, it is said, one in eight women ended up in a convent for a variety of reasons but more for lack of dowry. (My first digression is to explain that in my culture, it is the man who must have enough cows for the dowry, ikhwe or lobola.)  Oftentimes, as unwilling brides, in protection of the family name, these unmarried girls, from elite homes, were incarcerated in convents to be married to Christ.  Reading the book, I was stunned about how so little I knew about the life of nuns despite spending eight budding years under the tutelage of nuns in convent schools - first, with the Loreto sisters and subsequently, with the Carmelite sisters - albeit at a different time, place and dispensation. From the recesses of my mind, I conjured up my headmistress, Sister Virginia and wondered whether she had joined the Carmelite order of her own volition or whether, like some of the Benedictine sisters in the novel, she too had simply resigned herself to a fate that she could do nothing about. I was not raised catholic, but the life of St Catherine's reminded me of the school, the constant prayers, the masses, the discipline, the refectory (we called it factory!), the confession, the exotic names of my school mates - Sebenzia, Perpetua, Inviolata... I recalled the prayer to the Virgin, seared into my mind, in both English and Luhya and which I faithfully recited neither understanding the language nor appreciating its meaning, but in which I often found solace.

M'rembe Maria, Witsule Ineema

Nyasaye ali n'nawe

Waebwa Tsimbabasi M'bakhasi

Na Yesu Omwana inda, waebwa Tsimbabasi

Maria Omutakatifu, okhusabir'efwe aboononi

Bulaano n'de inyanga yokhufwa, Amina

The book, about so solemn a subject, is intriguing in its style and prose..and even humorous and full of witticisms. It is a book devoid of male characters and principally tells the tales of the strong women who live, organise and manage the affairs of St Catherine's convent with the inherent politics that would exist in any society of people...even a godly one.  The nuns, conversas and novices exhibited the usual competition, jealousies and envy that exists in any human relationships. The novel reminds us that basically, we are human - hence flawed - and it is that humanity that creates in us, the need for a power greater than ourselves to whom we can reach out for penance, forgiveness and perhaps strive for perfection & redemption. Yet in between all this frailty, there is in the convent life, lots of love, beauty, determination, devotion and communion. The setting is mostly in one place - the convent and yet, despite the sameness of convent life, it does not bore because of the richness portrayed in its characters.

My best character is the Madonna Chiara. I admired her strength of character as Abbess. Her duty was to ensure that St Catherine's survived the upheavals and turmoils that buffeted both within and without the convent walls.  Her methods were not always conventional - but the end justified the means - for the good of the convent. We can learn a lot about leadership by carefully studying her closely. The central character however, is Serafina ex Isabetta who shook the very foundations upon which convent life was presumed. (I digress again to muse about the church's penchant for re baptising people. I do recall many a countryman seeing it fit - later in life - to drop some of their given names and have often wondered which of their names are written in the book of life.) So I was exceedingly amused when Isabetta pouts and says 'my name is not Serafina'. Serafina never took easily to her incarceration and demonstrated this by all means possible - rebellion, false piety, deceit, fasting, starvation, drama, threats, disorder, and whatever weapons she had in her armoury.  In the end, with the help of the Abbess - by unconventional means- she succeeded in finding her freedom and I do hope in so doing she found happiness...Perhaps another book on her life out of the convent may have helped shed light on whether the freedom was worth the struggle.

At the risk of judging the church, we must remember that for many young girls, this incarceration was a better fate or perhaps even the only fate...For example when Faustina's father died, with no family to protect her, the only chance open to her was St Catherine's convent as Suora Zuana.

Reading the book, I drew many parallels with the life as we live it today...including but not limited to the fact that many a time, to survive or even flourish & thrive, we resign ourselves to the cards that fate deals us.  There is much wisdom in Kenny Rodger's famous song, "that the secret to surviving is  knowing when to hold on and knowing when to throw in".  Or for those more spiritually inclined, we need to echo Reinhold Neibuhr, the American Theologian, by asking to be granted the grace to accept with serenity the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can change and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.