Deborah Larsen

5428. The Tulip and the Pope, by Deborah Larsen (read 5 Dec 2016) This tells of the author, at age 19, and after attending Catholic grade and high school in St. Paul and after one year at Clarke College in Dubuque, entering the BVM community at the motherhouse in Dubuque in 1960. She tells of her time as a postulent, a novice, and a professed sister with temporary vows. She goes to study at Mundelein College in Chicago and--as one knew would happen--deciding to leave the convent. She speaks highly of the BVM community and I found it disappointing that she lost her vocation, as so many did in the sixties. She often refers to the novel The Nun's Story, by Kathryn Hulme (read by me 4 June 1961) and to the book by Monica Baldwin, I Leap Over the Wall, (read by me19 Nov 1951)--both accounts of women who left the convent. I was disappointed that such an intelligent and gifted person as the author was not able to continue with her vocation as a BVM when the Church has such a need of good and able sisters. I found this a very poignant and sorrowful book, written with grace and insight. It made me even more conscious of the debt I owe to the devoted sisters who were so important in my life in the glory days of American Catholic life. How inspiring was the large group of young women who joined in 1960 the BVMs--118 in the author's "set".… (mere)

This is the story of a young woman and her growth
in a convent. She describes her short life as a
Catholic nun. The everyday facts of that life are
a keen interest of mine. It is one of the few that
I have read that told of the day to day life.

The other fact of the story that I liked was the
absence of the horror stories and the diatribes
against the Catholic church. It is refreshing to
see a former nun who accepts responsibility for
her decisions, both to going and coming from that life.… (mere)