It's a way of life........
"Helen Stannard'sStory"
by Rachel GivneyGonzaga Gazette
I pick up the phone and dial the unfamiliar number that I have scrawled messily on a scrap of paper. A lady answers, and I reply meekly:
“Sister Helen Stannard please”.
“One moment,” she replies, and almost too quickly: after putting off this moment for many weeks, I am suddenly confronted with the prospect of talking to my second grade teacher, who has, since I last saw her, taken orders and is now a nun with the Sisters of Mercy. I have no idea what I am going to say – how does one, after all, address a nun? Should I call her ‘Sister’? Or should I address her by the only title I have ever called her – Miss Stannard? I realise that the last time I spoke to this woman was fifteen years ago.
“ Hello”, a voice answers.
“Hello, I’m looking for Helen Stannard please?”.
“Yes, that’s me”. The voice is instantly recognisable to me, registering memories of my school days as a seven-year-old, and a lively, smart and funny teacher who would get her guitar and lead us all in a rousing rendition of ‘We gotta get out of this place!’ every Friday afternoon. And now, she was a nun.
I had seen Helen Stannard fleetingly over the years, but had always avoided approaching her, partly because I never quite knew what to say. She had been a favourite teacher, and besides my own mother and the aunts of my immediate family, few women have made an impact on me like she did. Now, I felt intrigued to know what sparked this woman, during the fifteen years since I last knew her, to pledge eternal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, to forgo the monumental life experiences of marriage and children, and to dedicate herself to what I saw as a thankless career in an archaic institution?
Older readers may be baffled by my outrage. They need to understand, however, the environment in which I have been brought up. Mention the word ‘nun’ to me and I imagine little more than caricatures, penguin-suited women from an age long ago. In earlier times, however, it was not so - the clergy had a far more prominent role in greater society. If a person had a problem, they would go to the local priest for help, and the community looked to the local parish for advice on everything from questions of morality, to who to vote for. Far more people attended weekly mass, and young nuns and priests taught in the schools, and were visible on a daily basis. But times have changed. Where once, it was a great honour to be selected for Holy Orders, today, we would speak of it in hushed tones, and it would be an oddity.
“It’s a way of life” says Sister Helen. I have arrived at her home, the beautiful, historic Mercy convent in Parramatta that once housed over fifty nuns, but is now the permanent home to only four, and uses the remaining space as an administrative hub for many Mercy operations. She is far smaller than I ever remembered – though admittedly, I am also much larger now – but I estimate that my joined hands could probably entirely circle her waist. Was she always this skinny, I ask myself? Probably. But it’s only now that I notice it. Her hair is cropped neatly at her head now – before it was an enormous mass of curls falling down her back. I ask her later if it was chopped off dramatically in a ‘nun-making’ ceremony, ‘Brides of Christ’ style, but she shakes her head and laughs, saying that over the years, it had merely seemed to get shorter and shorter with each passing trip to the hairdresser. She gives me a tour of the grand old convent before we head to her kitchen for afternoon tea.
As I inquire about how she came to be here, the topic of ‘vocations’ soon enters the conversation. ‘Vocation’ is a word that describes something more than a career, but rather a life’s calling. I ask Helen when she first knew that she had a ‘vocation’ to enter the church. There was no single, miraculous moment of realisation, she says, but rather a gradual build up of signs that were noted with caution.
Helen came into the order relatively late in life, only taking her final vows well into her thirties. She knew that she could serve God well as a lay person, “my parents are excellent examples of that” she adds, and she never really had any reason to join. As time went by, however, and she found herself increasingly aligning herself with various church activities in her work – her last job as a layperson was, for example, as a retreat co ordinator for the Marist Brothers, and “the question just wouldn’t go away”. During a seven month stint traveling through Europe and the Middle East, she realised that the “gut sense that it was who I was” was genuine, and upon arriving home, she contacted the Mercy sisters.
What followed was a ‘novitiate’, where she continued her daily job but also moved into the convent, and her lay duties were gradually replaced by a deep study of theology. Taking orders is not a rapid process; it spans a number of years, and Helen now possesses two outward symbols which mark her journey to becoming a nun: a small crucifix badge which she wears on her shirt lapel, (which she received upon taking First Vows in 1997) and a silver ring, (which she received when she took Final Vows in 2003), engraved inside the band with the words “I am yours” and a symbol of a cross piercing a heart and a dove rising out of it.
So what essentially, does being a Sister of Mercy involve? The Sisters of Mercy take four vows, adding service to the usual three of poverty, chastity and obedience, and Helen explains each vow in turn to me over afternoon tea.
‘Service’ is taken because the order is an apostolic, humanistic one. Instead of introspection, the Sisters of Mercy take themselves to the community, and vow to serve through practical outlets such as teaching, welfare and charity relief. The current ministries of the Sisters of the Mercy are widespread and varied. There is a centre for the unemployed at Mamre, and a centre for teenage mothers at Baulkham Hills. Rebecca McCabe, another Mercy sister who hails from the parish, is a physiotherapist in a public hospital. There are Sisters working at Kings Cross, not to mention the Mercy schools which you can find throughout Australia. They have a website, and an organised network throughout the world, which ensures they have a collective voice of recognisable weight which they can yield in order to challenge various governments and institutions for social justice.
‘Poverty’ is about “living simply so you can offer as much as you can to others”. What I see as restrictions, she sees as freedom, and this vow is a breeze for Helen: “If I leave this community and go to another, I don’t need a Grace Bros truck… we don’t own anything, but we have all that we need”. Apart from things needed for work and school – books and reaching supplies, and a few items such as a CD player, Helen doesn’t own anything. This freedom from materialism, she says, is liberating: by not being “overburdened with possessions”, there is not the stress involved with acquiring and maintaining them, and is a bonus that Helen’s lifestyle affords. The “richness of community” she says, means “there is an abundance, because we share everything… I don’t need to own a dining room table – there’s one here, there’ll be one when I go to (the next place)”.
‘Chastity’ is about “not loving one in particular, so we can love others; so we can love widely”. This decision to forgo intimate, earthly relationships must hurt at times, I ask. Helen is no fool, and she speaks with frankness about the sacrifices she has made in order to take vows. “We’re witness to the fact that there’s more to life” she says. “It’s just as hard to be in a struggling marriage than to be doing what I’m doing”. But surely, I wonder, one wants more than a life that can, at best, rival the intimacy of a struggling marriage? Doesn’t she regret, for example, not having children? “I’ve got to say, I think that must be part of my calling… up to this point, I don’t miss it”. Helen has fourteen nieces and nephews that she sees, and she is around children all day at school. As for the biological desire to mother and nurture, she fulfills it in other ways, by giving “birth and life where there’s dryness and need within the community”. Is there loneliness? I remark that she must be a strong person – living alone, even before taking orders, she moved around constantly – her previous life as a school teacher saw her moving around to Grafton, Quenbeyan, living in the African township of Soweto for three months, the three years with the retreats team constantly moving up and down the east coast, not to mention the seven months overseas. And this intimacy with God, I ask, as opposed to intimacy with another person, has one slight drawback: God never talks back. “Yes”, she admits, and notes that God does not talk back, though she thinks there is a “deep listening”. But, she adds, when people come to her with problems, the majority of the time what people need most is simply someone to listen to them, and by the same token, it can still be very rewarding to share your thoughts with someone, even if they don’t talk back. “Often, the most needed gift is the world is just listening” she says.
‘Obedience’ (which she says by far is the hardest vow), is “a vow to listen…where is God calling me?” These days, she says, it is much more of a dialogue, a discussion between the sisters about what is best. Obedience, the word, she tells me, comes form the Latin ‘obedi’, meaning ‘to listen’. There is a strong element of discernment – of knowing oneself and one’s strengths and weaknesses, but also being open to the suggestions and guidance of others, and always putting the needs of the church above your own. It’s much more a commitment of trusting of church authority – especially at a time when there is so much exposure to negative influences against the church.
The severity of these vows is obvious, yet the outcomes seem just as worthily achieved by someone who has not taken orders. Surely, I ask, a woman as good as Helen could serve God just as well as a layperson? Yes, Helen says, but the “central calling of taking orders is an intimacy with God… and in the refection that ensues, the hope is that in time, a nun will gain perhaps an intimacy, a wisdom, that allows them to see that there’s more to life”. When I struggle to understand, she offers a succinct analogy: “You know how when couples have been together a long time, they start to look like one another? - dress like each other, talk and act like each other?”. What she means is that hopefully, like a trusted husband, her intimate coupling with God over the years will lead her to be more like him, to act and talk more like he did. “We do the best we can in this life… with the gifts we have to offer”, she adds, reiterating that her desires to have children were never strong, and the feeling “of coming home” when she joined her Mercy sisters meant that the decision to take orders was always a natural one.
And what about the greater questions of faith? Of crises of spirituality? Surely, I challenge, you must have people, who have just experienced obscene tragedy, come to you and say “ Why would God do this? How could someone who is supposed to be good, allow this to happen?” I ask her what she says in such situations. “I just sit with them and let the pain and the grief come… I just allow them to ask those questions and shake my head along with them”. The look of knowing in her face when I ask this, shows that she has been in such a situation many times before. As for her own questions of faith, Helen says that “it’s normal to have doubts, in anything you do, and I prepare myself for that. I think it’s healthy to have a questioning mind. You don’t just take anything for granted, no matter what you do for a living. You need a healthy level of discernment, a desire to delve. That’s what keeps things active”.
What issues with the church, I ask, did she see as being relevant for today? A loaded question to ask anyone, I guess, and especially a Sister. But her reply is diplomatic and well informed. The same issues, she says, that the church was founded upon 2,000 years ago: Showing mercy and compassion for those who are powerless, showing justice where there’s injustice, supporting those who are downcast and hopeless, and celebrating with the community at times of great joy - of births and marriages, but also, times of great tragedy - of sickness and death. She adds, however, that of particular interest at the present is the need for the church to take a look at itself, and ask how just it’s own structures are. She asks: “is our current model of church serving the people well… in times of today? Is our current model in the image of Christ and the way he lead?
As for the Vatican’s latest-released report on the position of women, (released in July 2004, to much eyebrow-raising with its dismissive views of the women’s movement), she’s read half of it. She takes a diplomatic stance in her reply, and for all the report says, she believes that the most pertinent thing about it is that it shows that while the role of women is a current topic for discussion, it is also necessary to discuss what is the role of men in the church and greater society. Concerns about the identity of women and ‘mother’ may be misplaced, she says, if they are not accompanied by concerns about the identity of men and ‘father’. “We don’t just want our men to work”, she says, “but also be fathering and loving and around their children. We are freer now that we acknowledge… fathers can have a vocation to look after their children too. Fathers also, can be both nurturers and parents”. She adds that the preoccupation with defining woman as ‘mother’ excludes Helen’s own role completely – she is not a mother, and never can be within her present role, so where does that leave her in the church? “What am I in apostolic service, If I am not a mother?”.
Any hobbies or interests, I ask? Her face lights up when she mentions her love of dancing. “Dancing, I love dancing. A friend and I from school, we go down to the Mean Fiddler at Rouse Hill”, (surely she jests! But no, she swears she is serious), “and have dinner and a glass of wine and a dance”. I want to ask her if there is a special way a nun dances, but I decide to leave it for now. An athletic child who played many team sports in the summer, she also enjoyed (and still does) bushwalking, kayaking, and “anything to do with nature”. She danced as a child – jazz ballet and tap- and if she could take up a sport again “it would be dancing” she says.
She hesitates when I ask her what the future holds, then decides to proceed. “You’ve always got to be careful as a public figure” she preludes. This is obviously something she has thought long and hard about. “There is a wariness about what you say, because I’m not just speaking for Helen Stannard… this is an era where the group which I have joined enjoys a public voice, and I must respect that”.
Helen in the future would like to see women ordained as deacons. She emphasizes that she is “not talking about the priesthood” but rather, “depending upon the discernment of the church”, the scope for women to be ordained as speaking preachers within the church. “We are allowed to discuss it. Nobody’s discussing it much, but I am putting it on the table…I’d love to make a difference for women in the church”. Theologically, her reasoning is sound: Phoebe, it is recorded in the scriptures, was a deacon of the early church, a fact that is taught in every high school religion syllabus. Women, at present, are prohibited from giving a homily - whilst they could write a book about the church, they could not stand up and read it in public - a fact which Helen thinks is to the detriment of the church. She notes that the disciples were both men and women, and that Christ himself was more like a deacon that anything else, because his ministry was one of spreading the word, of preaching, teaching and healing within the community. “That’s very much like a deacon” she says. She notes that women are great preachers and teachers, and also follow the gospels – it is not just men who do this, so they should not be denied the right to do this in public. She notes how a deacon’s versatility - they can be married or single – would mean that the role would attract far more people, not to mention the potential boost to dwindling parish attendances. “I think the face of God is poorer that we only have men up the front at the liturgy” she says. Deacons can also officiate weddings, funerals and baptisms. They cannot, at the moment, anoint the sick, but Helen would like to see female deacons be allowed to do this. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she says, if the intuitive female capacity for healing and nurturing be put to use as deacons administering to the sick? Personally, her ultimate goal would be as “a deacon in a country town, where they are in need of ministers”.
And as I depart the convent and bid my farewells to this extraordinary woman, I realise that I have just had the privilege of talking to someone who is truly making their way through the world with relevance and goodness. Helen’s decision to take orders is not something a young person these days would enter into lightly (or heavily, for that matter) but it suits her perfectly. What’s more, with the extensive network of people who rely on her goodness, intelligence and compassion, there wouldn’t be a day that goes by without someone thanking God for Sister Helen’s being on this earth.
