Down through the centuries, mystics, saints and theologians have stressed that prayer is the work of a lifetime. Sister Mary Swift, a 64-year-old Discalced Carmelite nun, readily agrees --- with a knowing nod, followed by a quick chuckle and, finally, a throaty laugh. Because prayer is what led her to a cloistered vocation at the Carmel of St. Teresa in Alhambra nearly 50 years ago.
Mary Ann Swift learned about the power of prayer when she was only five. That was when, growing up in a drafty house in Des Moines, Iowa, she caught pneumonia and the measles that developed into a violent attack of encephalitis, which can destroy brain cells. The doctor told her mother that if she recovered, she probably wouldn't recognize anyone.
Her parents prayed along with the entire parish. Novenas and Masses were offered. When a priest friend of the family came to the hospital with some holy water from Lourdes, he managed to pour a few drops down the dying girl's throat even though she was in a coma. Her convulsions stopped, and she opened her eyes. The doctor, a non-believer, admitted that something greater than medicine had saved her.
Those long-ago prayers were the "key" to her vocation, according to Sister Mary. She and her parents and three younger brothers would thank God for her cure again and again. People on the street would stop her and say, "Oh, you're the little girl we all prayed for."
"So I was always reminded about prayer," she says today. "And we just prayed at home anyway for grace. It was part of my life. So that's how I got interested in prayer, really in just a very natural way."
Mary Ann was actually born at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles in September 1941, a year after her father had followed his brothers and own father to the West Coast to work in the burgeoning war industry. The family soon moved back to Des Moines, but continued to visit California relatives every other year.
Meanwhile, Mary Ann's prayer life became more and more intimate.
'A relationship'
"My mother said I could say anything I wanted to Our Lord, so I would talk to him naturally," she recalls. "At night I would promise him that I'd just belong to him. We had a relationship, and it just kept growing. And that's what prayer is --- a relationship.
"Plus I grew up in a very devout parish. But everything came from this development of prayer."
When Mary Ann read the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, "The Story of a Soul," she knew she wanted to be a Carmelite. The problem was deciding which Carmel to enter. She picked the Carmelites in Alhambra because they were the only community called "Discalced" in her directory book, which she figured meant they had to be the oldest and strictest.
When the Swift family moved back to the Los Angeles area, she wrote a letter to them stating her interest. But when the 15-year-old wearing a straw hat knocked on their door and declared, "I'm here to become a nun. Right now, today," they told her she first had to finish high school. Three months after she graduated from Ramona Convent Secondary School, a few days after turning 18, she entered the brick-and-tile Carmel of St. Teresa, which was built in 1923.
"I think it was the silence, being alone with God that attracted me to the cloistered Carmelites," she explains. "And I didn't realize then what the role of community was and how much you needed that support for this life. Carmel was just this idea that I would have a life supporting me in prayer, and that's actually what I've found.
"I didn't know I knew about contemplative prayer being just talking to God. You're sharing your life with him, and he is sharing his life with you. God gives you every day, and you try to give it back to him.
"The funniest thing about this life is you would think having a schedule you would know what's going to happen. Well," she adds with a chuckle, "you are in for a surprise. You just don't have a chance to get into a routine."
The essence of her contemplative life is seeking union with God. And that's best accomplished, according to Sister Mary, by building on the life you have been given. Solitude and silence are vital.
She quotes St. Teresa of Avila, who founded the Discalced Carmelites in 1562, as pointing out that "prayer is being with one we know loves us." And when you're alone with somebody is when you can really open your heart, she notes. Moreover, as a contemplative, you're trying to listen to what God is saying. To hear that, you need silence.
Spiritual tools
Other helpful spiritual tools include the Liturgy of the Hours (much more meaningful, she says, in post-Vatican II English than Latin) and spiritual reading. Her favorite authors are St. Augustine and C. K. Chesterton. But she's also found meaning in the complete set of Reader's Digest Condensed Books she's almost finished.
While sewing habits, cleaning third-floor halls, transcribing audio tapes and taking care of two young German Shepherds named Gallo and Gemma, Sister Mary often ruminates on a Gospel passage that struck her that morning. Other times she just prays: "Help me."
"Because you want to be in contact with Our Lord," she says. "I mean, that's the whole idea of contemplative life. While you're working, your mind is occupied with the Lord." And she chuckles again. "But you're very normal. If somebody comes and asks you a question, you can talk. That's not a problem."
The cloistered Alhambra nuns read The Los Angeles Times, The Tidings and U.S. News & World Report. They watch the news on TV and listen to the radio. This, in fact, is partly how they know what and who to pray for. There's also direct in-person, phone and mail requests.
Recently, Sister Mary has been praying for an end to the war in Iraq, victims of worldwide natural disasters, family members of other nuns as well as personal petitions. Some prayers are specific, others are general. But she always tries to be as inclusive as possible.
The little girl in Iowa who talked to God like she would a friend is still trying hard to keep that conversation going. But she admits she's learned a thing or two since her Des Moines days.
"Actually, as you get older your prayer simplifies like your life does," she muses. "That's a good thing. So it sort of comes back to what we started out with. For me it has.
"I started off with this friendship with Our Lord, and that's really what it's come back to. But you've used everything in your life, you know, for the input for that. Because he's always been there, but you don't realize it."
Then Sister Mary changes her expression and tone.
"I think life teaches you. You learn to accept everything in life. It's not like from five to six I'm going to communicate with God, and if God doesn't say a word you go through a crisis," she says, laughing and shaking her head. "What you learn is that your whole life is communicating with God. And you sort of relax."
|