Postulant, Novice, Professed: Initiation into Monastic Life (4/2/25)

Last night I used movie clips to help my students understand a bit more about monastic life. I did, in fact, use a clip from Sister Act (1992) as a set-up for a discussion of Vatican 2. (None of the seminar students are Catholic, but all of them are able to discuss cogently the differences of the staid presentation at the front end of “Hail Holy Queen” and the more animated popularized version with clapping and jazzy riffing at the back end). That example also gave me an excuse to bring in a quick discussion of Salve services.

But the core of our discussion was on vocation and discernment, and for that, I offered several longer clips, mostly from the amazingly beautiful film In This House of Brede (1975) starring Diana Rigg as Philippa Talbott. To me, the novel and the movie are compelling in different ways -- and the movie is easier to teach with! 

I recently discussed age at entry and at profession at Thalbach in Bregenz, and I shared those data with my students. But I suspect they appreciated the movie clips more since they bring the sights and sounds of monastic ceremony to life.

1. From secular space to sacred: Postulancy (7:08-16:46)

How do you leave the world you have inhabited? I love the film’s many details, but for my students chose to start with Philippa’s arrangements for her cat. This act of providing caring for the life she’s lived is important, as are the visual symbols of the luxuries she’s foregoing. But then, she arrives at Brede Abbey, a (fictional) Benedictine community, and has to ask permission to enter:

“What do you ask?” “To try my vocation as Benedictine in this house of Brede”

With her, we follow the thread of music into the heart of the convent, where the sisters are gathered in choir… 

 

2. Joining the novitiate (29:07-31:10 and 48:10-51:18)

Different stages are marked by different clothing, as people of different life backgrounds merge into a community. I showed two clips of the Reception of the Habit (aka Investiture), one for Philippa, and then one for Joanna, a much younger sister. In both clips, we hear chants from the ceremonies; Philippa’s is accompanied by the “Veni Creator Spiritus” and Joanna by “Jesu corona virginum” and “Te Deum laudamus.”

In this male celebrant-led ceremony, a Benedictine sister receives the white veil and habit that marker her as a dedicated and committed learner, and some, like Joanna, take on a new name.

“What do you ask? “The mercy of God, and the grace of the Holy Habit”

Joanna’s ceremony contrasts visually, since she dresses as the bride of Christ, but both go through the process of petition, and both have locks of hair shorn, a symbol of renunciation and transformation.

Philippa’s Investiture (29:07-31:10):

 

Joanna’s Investiture (48:10-51:18):

3. Making Solemn Vows: Profession (52:21-53:50)

Taking permanent vows is the final stage in making a lifelong commitment to religious life. As depicted here, the professed prostrates herself as prayers are said over her, a symbol of dying to the world and rising to new life within the monastic order. My students were uncomfortable with the element of prostration – it isn’t used in their personal faith practices – so it sparked a conversation about the humbling of self before God and visual signals of a choice to serve.

4. Death of the Abbess (17:02-19:56)

One more clip for today, and that is the death of the abbess. This depiction is compressed (obviously) and lacks the full gathering and prayers of the sisters at her final bedside, but the movie version uses the moment to show Philippa’s farewell and foreshadow some of the later elements of the film's story-line. And I do like the glimpse of the funeral we get. The death of an abbess is a deeply significant moment for a convent, and that this one comes so early in the story will drive some of the “afterwards” of Philippa’s personal narrative.

 

CONCLUSION

Sometimes it’s helpful to visualize (and audiate) the ceremonial events which serve as such significant markers in women’s monastic lives. These rituals – whether the quiet renunciation of the postulant, the symbolic transformation of investiture, or the solemnity of final vows – embody a deep and deliberate commitment to the religious path. 

By engaging with these depictions in In This House of Brede, I think my students were able to see (and hear) not only the formality of the monastic life, but also the personal, spiritual, and communal dimensions of vocation. Their reactions, particularly to the act of prostration, reveal how physical expressions of devotion vary across traditions, sparking valuable discussions about embodiment, humility, and dedication in religious practice.

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Works Consulted

• Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede (Viking, 1969; digital copy Open Road Integrated Media)
• In This House of Brede (1975), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJTvbTmv5Yw
• “Hail Holy Queen” from Sister Act (1992), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtz-usSXaGg
• See also the arrival of novice Richardis at Disibodenberg from Hildegard of Bingen (1994), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlziyM3xWWs, especially 2:24-8:13, which includes a performance of “O Eucharii” and a discussion of music learning 

When a 6-year-old brought a Marian Icon to Thalbach (1/22/25)

Bregenz Parish church (E) and, perhaps, Thalbach (yellow), from Copperplate of M.Meriam, 1643

In July of 1588, Catarina Haidenhoferin from Ravensburg arrived in the monastery of Thalbach in Bregenz. She was, at the time, six years old, but her monastic career was auspicious. She eventually became the convent’s Meisterin in 1641, at age 59 (by my calculation), and served until her death in May 1664. She took holy orders at age fourteen or fifteen in August of 1596, and made her profession on 27th of October 1599, tucking her in among the monastic sisters of the 16th century.

The story of Catarina arrival’s is seen by the convent chroniclist as remarkable, since her natal city of Ravensburg was at the time mostly Lutheran. Nevertheless, the family’s Catholic faith remained staunch, as witnessed not just through Catarina’s monastic dedication, but also through the story of her arrival, as the chroniclist tells it:

A Lutheran baker wanted to throw our dear lady's Vespers picture into the oven and burn it, but the mother of this 6-year-old child saw this and asked the baker not to do this but to give her this little Marian picture, and she would give him other wood if he wanted, which was also done.

Afterwards she sent the original Mary or Vespers picture with the child to the monastery, which is still in the church on the right hand side, in the choir of the same place in which St. Ursula is grouped with four virgins, of whom the eleven thousand had been previously venerated, but this Vespers picture was recently kept and venerated. (Bregenz VLA, Kloster Thalbach Hs 9 Thalbach Chronicle, p. 19. Transcription/translation by the author.)

Our chroniclist is doing several things here. She is first telling a story of the miraculous rescue of an image of the Virgin, the so-called “Vesperbild,” rescued by a devout family in a “remarkable” intervention. (Such pictures were frequently the focus of specific prayers, and particularly, of Vesper services, when the singing of the Magnificat could be enhanced by the contemplation of the Virgin's image.) The Catholic hero of the story, Catarina’s mother, had to be in the right place at the right time; had to convince a Lutheran tradesman not to consign the picture to the flames; had to bribe him with substitute wood. Moreover, this mother’s faith was evidently strong enough to rescue the picture from this hotbed of Lutheranism and send not just it but her small child to a Catholic sanctuary – and not just any monastery, this monastery of Thalbach, one in a Catholic stronghold.

This, of course, raises important questions of gendered agency in the context of contested religious identity. We hear of the mother’s actions, but not the father’s. We also learn here of the young age of Caterina’s arrival as a six-year-old Catholic girl finding home with Catholic sisters of Thalbach. Notably, the Chroniclist centers the age of arrival in many of her reports of Convent sisters, and the majority of these “early arrivals” (pre-14 year olds), at least in her telling, choose a monastic vocation upon maturity. It is also interesting that the only man in this particular story is the baker, who was about to perform an act that Catholics would consider sacrilege. The women of the story – the mother, child, and arguably the Virgin herself – turn what could have been a crisis of his making into a pivot-point towards Catarina’s future monastic success.

The chroniclist is also telling a story of Catholic persistence in regions that are (from her vantage point) uncomfortably Lutheran. Since, at the time, Bregenz was firmly positioned in the Counter-reformation camp and was Catholic to the near-exclusion of other faith practices, she’s telling a story of “our side’s” success in the face of oppression in other lands. That Catarina – eventual leader of the convent – came from Lutheran lands shows, suggests the Chroniclist, a hint of divine providence. The 10-hour walk from Ravensburg to Bregenz might only have been a few hours on horseback, but the arrival of a 6-year-old from a place as remote as Ravensburg is itself worthy of mention, even without the gift of precious artwork that accompanied her.

This story is also an explanatory story which tells of convent treasure and its derivation. It is a specific image, identified not by internal visual clues but by location. It is that image which stands in the corner of St Ursula, “on the right hand side in the choir.” It is, moreover, an image of the virgin, acquired at nearly the same time as the convent came to own the miraculous statue of the Virgin (the 13th century Gnadenmutter) which still adorns their chapel. The Virgin, in other words, is being made visibly manifest through these miraculous arrivals. (The story of the statue’s arrival at Thalbach is told in a number of places, and perhaps I’ll retell it in a later post. Stay tuned.)

And lastly, this is an anticipatory story, for Caterina Haidenhoferin was to feature in the reform of Thalbach’s liturgy. But that is a story I will tell another day.

NOTE:
I use the term chroniclist rather than the masculine-gendered chronicler that abounds in the literature. I follow Catarina’s own spelling of her name from Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv Klosterarchiv Box 15, Folder #225, document of 1649.

THALBACH CHRONICLE: Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Kloster Thalbach Hs 9, Chronik des Klosters 1336-1629.

THALBACH’S GNADENBILD: A story told several places, including these: 

• “Wie das alte Bild der Gnadenmutter von Mehrerau nach Talbach kam,” Holunder Wochen-Beilage für Volkstum, Bildung und Unterhaltung zur Vorarlberger Landes-Zeitung, Jg. 15 (1937), Nr. 40, S. 1 – 2. 
•  “Das marianische Gnadenbild zu Thalbach bei Bregenz.” Monat-Rosen zu Ehren der Unbefleckten Gottes-Mutter Maria 14 (1884-5): Heft 1, Beilage, pp. 48-53. https://books.google.com/books?id=kKPi0ihULl4C

(I need to dig up the rest of my bibliography on the Thalbach Gnadenbild from my files from pre-pandemic days, and am putting that on my to-do list now!)