Nun of My Dreams! (Part 11)

A Nun’s Testimony by Sister Charlotte Keckler

Continuation…………..

Sealed up in the convents until death, we would never be able to leave and let people outside know what actually takes place inside. With all communications cut off, we were beyond the protection of the law or loved ones and friends. There is no hopeless despair and black depression quite as smothering as that which seizes you when the realization of all this begins to sink in. To know that there is just no escape possible is maddening for there is no end or relief in sight.

Roman Catholics loudly proclaim that anyone can go into any open or closed order convent. There is an outside chapel and what is called the speak room. You are not even admitted there without an escort. If you were taking in food for a specific nun, typically you would walk up the front of the room and press a bell. This would activate a gate containing three shelves to swing open to receive your gifts for the nun inside. When the bell is tapped, you may be sure that Mother Superior is seated just behind the heavy black veil draped over the big iron gate guarding the inner part of the convent.

You will not be allowed to go any further but may speak to the Mother Superior through the veil. If you asked permission to speak to a specific nun, you might be permitted to converse with her, but only through the veil. If questions are asked as to her happiness, health, food, ect., the nun always answers affirmatively. After all, Mother Superior is sitting there, monitoring every word.

If she were to complain or reveal any of the unpleasant details of life inside, there would be swift and harsh action to correct her as soon as the visitor left. There are good reasons for them to refuse to let relatives see the nuns in person. After a time on convent fare and treatment, the eyes are sunken in the head and the body so wasted away, pale and unhealthy that seeing all this would bring an indignant outcry.

Many were the nights I was extremely exhausted and badly in need of sleep, but ravenous hunger kept me from rest. Going to breakfast meant only a scrap of bread and a cup of black coffee which did not even take the edge off of that ever-present hunger. To those who have always had enough to eat it will be difficult to understand the plight of those who go to bed hungry every night. This is tragic in impoverished, backward nations. It becomes even more evil when you realize that what I am describing is deliberately planned and induced with cunning and devilish cruelty.

Remember that there is not a night or day when those little nuns imprisoned in the cloistered convents around the world do not go to bed hungry. They are sick, wounded, hurt, homesick, heartsick, discouraged and filled with despair. While we look to the Lord Jesus Christ for hope, these poor women have no hope. Release into a lost eternity is the best they can look for.
Occasionally I meet Roman Catholics who vow they have been inside the cloisters and that what I report is not true. You must remember that Catholics are quite free to lie to protect the church and need not even confess this in confessional. It is permissable, just as it is alright to steal up to $40.00 before theft has to be confessed. (Exodus 20:15, 16).

My fury toward the succession of Mother Superiors was unchecked. Each time she singled me out for penance or some real or imaginary infraction of convent rules she would sadistically inflict some diabolical and vicious suffering designed to destroy my body and mind. My mind was so filled with schemes of violence and retaliation I lived for the bitter day when I would be able to repay some of the misery I had endured.

All of this awful violence and hatred in me was created by the endless stream of cruelties, deprivations, harassments and unbelievable sufferings heaped on me by my captors. I often fantasized what a joy it would be to kill one of the brutal, lecherous priests who regularly violated us.

In my twenty-two years in the convent, I saw three Mother Superiors die. Because I was a nurse, one day two nuns came to fetch me to tend Mother Superior who was critically ill. A Roman Catholic doctor from the outside had been called in to examine her. He gave me strict instructions concerning some powerful prescription medication he left for her. All of the hatred I held for this ungodly woman, her cruelty and the wicked system she represented boiled up in me. I would have my revenge, and this woman would die. I would see to that!

The day was long as I waited for my chance. The nuns were locked in their cells and the lights went out at 9:30. Time drug on until finally the midnight call to prayer was finished with the lights out for the night. I picked up a number of the tablets and dissolved them in water, a deliberate, massive overdose.

Eagerly, I roused the half-conscious woman and painstakingly forced her to gulp down every drop of the lethal potion. As I eased her back on the pillows I gloated. Soon she would die a horrible death and my vengeance on her would be sweet indeed. I checked her pulse, which was escalating rapidly, as was her respiration. In a short time she began to moan and toss and finally went into violent convulsions. I smiled evilly, for years of abuse had changed me into a bitter, heartless monster, bent on murder.

To be continued……..