In a State of Grace

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Until recently, Sister Antoinette was part of that world. A trained botanist who moved from India to Melbourne to be with her brothers in 1994, Antoinette busied herself teaching disabled children, working in palliative care and delivering Meals on Wheels. "I worked day and night for two years, and I loved it," she recalls. All the while she harbored the desire for a more traditional life of prayer, and in 1995, after the death of her mother, she found the call too strong to resist. "There's no accounting for when Our Lord calls," explains Sister Veronica. "It's not something that we decide that we will do, like we're off to buy a new car or something. It's a calling that you actually hear in the depths of your being." If Sister Veronica's call had not sounded in 1979, when she was 25, her razor-sharp curiosity might have carried her into a career in journalism. Or perhaps as a spruiker for L'Osservatore Romano. "Are you familiar with that?" she asks. "Oh, it's a great mag. The Holy Father's just put out an encyclical on the Eucharist."

One of John Paul II's 31 new cardinals, the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, is visiting the monastery for the first time this afternoon. "It's a great blessing," says Sister Antoinette excitedly. Otherwise, the day has proceeded calmly for the sisters. For many of them, breakfast was "bread with honey straight from the hive," reports Sister Veronica. And fish for lunch, plus plenty of fruit "and because we don't have meat, we just throw in peanuts for the protein." But no alcohol. As Sister Veronica puts it, "We have a regular life, marked by a moderate austerity."

The Cardinal would surely approve. And as his arrival is announced by a tolling bell, the monastery's usually locked front door creaks open to admit him. The cardinal's towering figure quickly disappears inside behind a cloud of habits. "They seem happy," he says when he emerges. "Not all religious communities are."

Sister Maria had been addressing that subject minutes before Cardinal Pell's arrival: "If you were interviewing a group of very happily married ladies, probably they'd give very different answers about why they were so happy," she says. For this bride of Christ, joy comes with each attendance at morning Mass: "We couldn't be more intimately united with Him every day." As for Sister Antoinette, her faith is cultivated daily along with the standard roses she tends in the central cloister. "As a botanist," she says, "I always allow for the grace of God." Needless to say, they're blooming.