The Nun's Story

Sister Luke: You can cheat your sisters, but you cannot cheat yourself or God.

Rev. Mother Emmanuel: Have you struggled long enough to say surely that you've come to the end?

Sister Luke: I think I've been struggling all these years, Reverend Mother. In the beginning each struggle seemed different from the one before it. But then they began to repeat, and I saw they all had the same core: obedience. Without question, without inner murmuring. Perfect obedience as Christ practiced it. As I no longer can.

Rev. Mother Emmanuel: Yes?

Sister Luke: There are times when my conscience asks which has priority. It or the Holy Rule? When the bell calls me to chapel, I often have to sacrifice what might be the decisive moment in a spiritual talk with a patient. I'm late every day for chapel or refectory or both. When I have night duty I break the Grand Silence because I can no longer cut short a talk with a patient who seems to need me. Mother, why must God's helpers be struck dumb by five bells in the very hours when men in trouble want to talk about their souls?