HARRIMAN, N.Y. -- Before daybreak, in the upstairs parlor of the Sisters of Charity convent, a single candle flame flickers in the middle of a bookshelf-lined TV room. Four gray-haired women, their voices sleep-tinged, take turns reading Psalm 33 from prayer books open on their laps.
“It’s the source that binds us to other women like ourselves who live in groups,” Sister Eileen explains the daily prayer sessions later.
The nuns sit in armchairs or on a worn couch, beside floor lamps that bathe their books and the room in a kind of warm yellow light. They face the center and each other. And the road noise of early morning commuters on the busy highway below the hill gives the impression of an interior and exterior world – the world of the farmhouse-convent and the world of work and school and the struggle and joy of daily life. And for a moment, it is as if these four nuns are pouring their prayers into the universe.
Every weekday morning, the women gather to pray as daylight breaks. They then attend Mass at a local parish in shifts before scattering for their respective callings – teaching, counseling, administering. This might be the only time of day that they’re all in one room.
The practice of daily communal prayer also taps into an ancient cycle of praying rounds that bound Christians together before telephones, mass transportation, or the Internet.
Modern monastic life within the order has changed dramatically since Eileen, 71, first joined the Sisters of Charity more than 50 years ago. Back then, sisters were veiled or wore caps. Routines were more structured, more rigorous. There were more young people. The median age now of Sisters of Charity of New York is 78 or 79, according to Eileen. Her order’s numbers have dropped from 1,400 to less than 400 in 50 years, she says.
The general mission remains the same, however, Eileen says. “We recognize that the call to be a Sister of Charity is to be a living, loving presence, making known the love of God for who we are.”
Not, she says, the “sisters of the happy handout,” but rather sisters of a common spirit deeply concerned for the poor.
During the course of the daily prayer, the nuns listen to ethereal chants and other sacred music. They close their eyes, their hands folded. A few hum along, tapping their toes. They read from a spiritual book, meditate or pray in silence for a couple minutes, discuss their thoughts about the reading. Today, the reading is on letting go of life. They talk about the importance of letting go of suffering. And the sisters offer up blessings for the sick and poor who they know.
I ask Eileen about the importance of community in faith, of the challenges America faces with many faiths.
Americans, she points out, are a mix of religious backgrounds with a strong independent streak that is celebrated in the founding of the country. We are a nation of immigrants whose identity has been shaped by the concepts of liberty, freedom, the love of dignity of human beings, the rights of persons, she says.
“We may have neglected the sense of community in so stressing the individual person,” she concedes. “Sometimes we lose the ability to bond to each other or to bond with and make bridges with people who are not like us.”
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