Nun: A Memoir

By Mary Gilligan Wong

Book Overview

Dust jacket notes: "'In 1961 I became a nun. My head was covered with bands of tight linen and my body was buried in yards of French serge. I wore black to symbolize that I was dead to the world and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060911883
• ISBN13: 9780060911881
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 390 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Gripping Story

Mary Gilligan Wong's Nun is quite simply the best of the semi-fictionalized nun memoirs that have been written in the last 35 years. It tells the poignant tale of Mary Agnes Gilligan, good Catholic girl, who leaves her home in Illinois in the 1950s to enter a pre-convent girls' school run by the Sisters of Blessing. Wong's intense narrative chronicles her years with the sisters, roughly 1957 through 1968. At the outset, Mary Agnes is a dreamy-eyed American girl who wants to leave all things secular to follow Christ and live as his bride. But matrimony to a crucified bridegroom takes it toll in many humiliating and infantilizing instances. Those of us who had encounters with nuns will recognize the kernels of painful memory in each of these scenarios that Wong so clearly limns. What happens to dreamy-eyed Mary Agnes? In becoming Sister Mary de Paul, she enters the Medieval world of nuns living in the modern world. The sixties explode outside the convent's walls and Sister Mary de Paul begins to chafe at the restrictions of convent life and at the impositions of her superiors, who treat their novices and postulants as children--all in the name of upholding the Holy Rule that governs a nun's every move and every thought--from the way she walks, to how she talks, to how she eats, to what she does with her eyes; the Rule dictates that a good nun at all times keeps custody of herself. She does not galumph. She is Christ's bride and must act accordingly. What is so refreshing about Wong's narrative is that she does not bash the Catholic Church, the pope, the sisters; although she may challenge some of the Church's outmoded tenets, Wong ultimately acknowledges the gifts she received as the crucified groom's wife: a love for nature and the seasons of the Church, an understanding of the need for solitude and contemplation, the simplicity to be had in a regulated life. What, ultimately, seems to drive the young nun from the convent is her desire to help people, to change the world, to make a difference...to do that first before being a nun. But first, she must take on the greatest challenge of all: that of confronting herself, of coming to know herself, not as a nun in a community, not just as a woman, but as a human being.

Nun: A memoir

It is an excellent biography. Mary Wong decided to be a nun when she was only 14 years old. She was influenced by the nuns at her Precious Blood Elementary School. They always smile and are very kind to the students. They are patience and knowledgable in the classroom. However, she was too young to see the emotional layers underneath the cheerful surface. Only had she entered the convent, she realized the conflicts between a normal life and a community life. Most important was that she had to "give up" her family, including her father, her mother, her brothers, and her sisters. She was only allowed to see her family on special occasions. After 12 years struggling and trying very hard to fit in the community life in the convent, she gave up and decided back to the "world." In this book, Mary Wong described the strictness and restrictness life in the noviate. What I like most is that she shows her respect and love to all the nuns she learned and lived with. Even though she left, she still believes that "best things are more than bad things in the life of convent." This is a book that reminds my own experience in Catholic school in the mid-1970s. The fun I had with the nuns and the things I learned from them. It is a book that makes you remember the "good old days."

Realistic!

Mary's life as a nun started in 9th grade. Why do people become nuns? For her the purpose was to strive for the highest goal she knew. Behind the scenes she tells how she was popular in the high school for nuns, the pranks they played, the fun they had, plus how their lives were ordered down to the last detail. They had to get dressed alone in their cubicles by dressing under their nightgowns. That way they were never indecent. Finally she asked herself if the life of a nun was worth throwing away a normal life and family for. Really intersting book. You won't be able to put it down!

From Cloister To Freedom

Mary's story is the story of thousands of young Catholics who searched for God and found Him/Her in the convent, seminary or monastery. She tells of the strictness she experienced in the noviate and as a fuly vowed nun. You and I get to experience the life of the convent from the eyes of this dedicated nun. She begins to doubt the austerity and restrictiveness as a result of the openness of Vatican II. She takes the plunge to Freedom. We see her struggle to find the same God experience outside the Convent. She does find this in her marriage and new life. What I like best is that Mary shows her deep appreciation and love for all those nuns she learned and lived with. It's a book that will move you to tears, remembering the old ways.