Like the last book I wrote about, this is a memoir by a woman. Catherine Coldstream’s background is about as different from Emilee Hackney’s as possible. Her father, Sir William Coldstream, born in 1908 (same year as my father), was a well-known British painter and taught at the Slade School of Arts and Crafts, which flourished under him. Catherine is one of three children from his second marriage. Her mother was inattentive, and his death was very painful for Catherine, partly because it left her with little family support. She was an active musician, and had lived and studied in France.
She searched for help to cope with the death of her father and found it in the Carmelite monastery. In all ways you can imagine life, was limited: very little speaking, Spartan food, hard physical labor and yet she found comfort in this life in her connection to God. She was different from the others in her aristocratic background, her intellectual interests, being a convert to Catholicism rather than born into the faith, and being “from the South,” that is, London, rather than the Newcastle area. Though sisters were expected to lose their identities in the monastery, that doesn’t happen readily and others were put off by her background.
At some point during the 12 years she was there, one of the sisters who became the prioress formed a clique that split the community. Catherine felt that human warmth was withdrawn from her and she was isolated. A different sister was chosen to be prioress who apparently did not have the ability to withstand the one who formed the clique. She beat Catherine quite severely; later Catherine ran away from the monastery. She made her way to her sister’s home and was cared for there, but later rejoined the monastery for another two years. After she made the final split, she completed degrees, became a writer, a musician, and married.
The descriptions of the struggles with the clique made me think of stories of “mean girls” in high school. The factions were split by the differences in background, as I noted, but also the differences reflected the approach to the modernization decreed by Vatican II (1962-65). The most notable change was that the mass could now be celebrated in the vernacular language. That and other changes were not readily accepted by many who had grown up with the old ways. The changes made the authoritarian governance of monasteries more easily challenged.
It was poignant to listen to the author read this intimate work. So much about that life seemed to nourish the author and I wonder if the circumstances in that particular monastery were the cause of the problem.
Catherine Coldstream, Cloistered: My Years as a Nun, St. Martin’s Press, 2024, 327 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.