Through the narrow gate

Disclaimer: This review was written in 2012 and do not portray the same values I have now.

Wow this is barely a review, it's just me rambling about myself. Tread carefully. And wow I haven't finish this. I have calculus homework to do haha, I'll finish it later. (Spoiler alert from 2022: it was never finished and will probably never be).

I bought this book at the bookstore at my university. There were carts just outside the store and I was wandering around campus because I had a midterm that evening. I stopped, and saw book carts parked outside with "$5 SALE" signs taped to the sides. the store and I absolutely could not resist going through those carts of books. I have to tell you that I'm a sucker for spines that have horizontal titles. It is the most beautiful sight ever. And when I saw that spine, I was entranced. Simple black serif font on light blue, ah, it was too much. And the sub-title was what really hooked me in, a memoir of life in and out of the convent. I brought it to the till immediately.

I'm a Catholic. A practicing Catholic but not to the point that I'm a pushy Catholic. We all know at least one. Actually, I don't. Does that mean I'm the pushy Catholic one? Probably. However I like to think that I'm not.

Anyway, I've only known one nun in my life. Well, two really, but the other one I did not know as personally. There was a nun at my (Catholic) high school, Sister Dorothy, but I've never had her for religion class. I've always wanted to be in a class with Sister but my schedule just never wanted it to be. Although I did have a deacon for religion, once. It was... Interesting.

She's not the nun I'm talking about.

When I was growing up my parents knew a nun and brought my brother and I to see her quite regularly. She was an elderly Filipino lady with curly white hair and thick square framed glasses. Sister Therese was her name. She didn't seem so different from any other religious fanatic that my parents knew. But I always interested about the life she lead. In my head, I always pictured nuns as tall pale billowly creatures and she obviously was't. I wasn't close to that nun. She moved to Montreal when I was finishing elementary school. But every year she would send me a birthday card (with religious context, of course). The cards haven't been coming for a couple of years now.

My curiosity about Sister Therese's possible life was the main factor in picking this book up. Not to mention that I'm currently feeling a bit lost since university started, especially spiritually. I want to strengthen my faith but I don't know how.

Every couple of months, my mother would participate in this program where a statue of the Virgin Mary would come into our home and we would pray the rosary every day for the duration of Her stay. The people who lead this program asked me if I was keeping up with my YFC (Youth for Christ) activities and I simply stated that I was too busy (the truth was that I didn't get along with anyone there and it made me feel pretty horrible about myself). The Brother there just looked at me disappointingly and made a comment to my mother about how most youth lose their faith once entering university. I was silently enraged. I would never do such a thing. I wanted to grow in my faith, if anything. But as stated before, I don't know how.

For some reason, I had some weird notion that maybe this book would help me. I did read the back about how it was an unsuccessful journey to the road to God but somehow, I had this weird hope.

I immediately fell in love with this book. I too am 17, like how Karen was at the beginning of the book. The 60s was a radically different time though. Even though I wasn't too surprised by the rigidity and torturous routine of the convent life, it was still hard to comprehend. Teens these days are so much more secular than back then. Despite going to a Catholic school, not a lot of my fellow classmates were actually Catholic. Most were atheists or agnostics who went to that school for friends or because their parents wanted them to go there.