Rose Marie (Nancy) Carnes

Before converting to Roman Catholicism, I was an ordained minister of a non-Christian religion. I was also a workshop leader for the Mastery Foundation. The Foundation has three programs. One initiative carries out reconciliation efforts in Israel and northern Ireland. Another is community empowerment work in Israel and the Mississippi delta which is committed to bringing all people living in an area into effectively planning a future together. The third program, which I was involved in, consists of workshops for ministers of all faiths called “Making a Difference”.

The Making a Difference workshop is a rigorous enquiry into what it is to minister and to make a difference using language technologies and centering prayer. This enquiry is what led me here.

In March 2003, we held a workshop at the Trappist monastery, the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, in Conyers, Georgia. As I drove slowly up the magnolia-lined driveway to the monastery, a bluebird flew across my windshield, only inches away. It was a harbinger of a life-changing experience.

While I had been contemplating since 1973, the monastic environment of silence and solitude, and the rich liturgy and fruitful dialogue with the monks fed my centering prayer practice in unexpected ways. I felt like I was falling into an abyss. I returned to Minnesota, where I was residing, feeling totally uprooted. A monastery now felt like home!

And the contemplative life of intercessory prayer opened up to me as my highest calling. God put into my heart that here was how I could make the greatest difference.

Thus I was converted first to the Cistercian (Trappist) charism. Continued dialogue with the monks led me to entering an RCIA program at a parish in Minnesota. After confirmation, I spent the first three months of 2005 as a long-term guest with the Trappistines in Dubuque, Iowa, living and worshipping with them in enclosure. The life was hard, yet in one moment of doubt, another bluebird appeared in Iowa in the middle of winter! How could I not take heed?

I spent the rest of 2005 as a monk in Conyers. I was given room and board in exchange for work, and I continued my immersion in the contemplative life and communal liturgy. They were very generous in tolerating a soprano in their choir!

Yet while I found the Trappist charism of severe ascetism inspiring and beautiful in many ways, God did not grant me the grace of being able to live it. I did not know which way to look until, again, a little bird showed me the way.

A bird, trapped in the huge monastery church, landed on a ledge near me. When I put out my hand, she hopped onto my index and middle finger and perched there, letting me carry her outside where I put her down on a stump. She was a Carolina wren – in a plain brown habit – and nothing could have been more Franciscan!

And so here I am, happy as a lark. God is surely very good.