By Sister Genevieve Sachse, OSB

“Gee, Sister, what do y’all to do when we’re gone?” The college student asking the question was preparing to leave our college campus for the summer and her voice expressed an earnest sympathy for the boredom she imagined we must experience when we didn’t have the activities of the school year to keep us busy.

It was the appropriate situation for a dissertation on our additional activities, but I was aware that even my emphatic statement that boredom was not one of the main problems for religious women today would have little effect.

Relatively few and far between today are the nuns who are up at dawn, follow identical schedules day after day and go to bed early in the evening. Of itself, this is neither good nor bad; we still have urgent needs for contemplative communities to provide spiritual powerhouses of prayer, the backbone of the success of any apostolic work; moreover, some forms of the contemporary apostolate do lend themselves to a regular pattern.

But on the other hand, simply because she works far into the night or has a different schedule for every day does not thereby make the busy woman a good religious.

Speaking from the personal and existential viewpoint of one who tends to become over-committed and involved, I find that my daily schedule can become as rigorous a source of asceticism as any hair-shirt ever was! When I was teaching full-time in a high school or elementary school I had the basic school schedule to provide at least a general pattern for my time; then, however, I found myself taking on one extra-curricular activity after another or listening to students’ problems during planning periods after school.

That necessitated burning the midnight oil to correct all those papers and prepare for the next day’s classes. Now as a religious education coordinator in a parish, my entire schedule is at the disposal of the parishioners. One phone call at 9:30 a.m. and my mental plan for the day may go out the window, and since this job requires much nighttime activity anyway I must carve my planning time from some other day. This is as it should be and I’m delighted with the many different opportunities to serve.

“So what!” you may retort. Isn’t that the same thing true for every schoolteacher or administrator? Isn’t every mother’s day governed by the expected and unexpected demands of family life? What is so different about a nun’s schedule?

That is precisely my point! We sisters really don’t do anything so strange and mystical behind our “convent walls.” Yet in spite of the fact that any lay person comparably trained could do the same job I do, there is a difference. For the purpose of comparison I omitted mention of the major priority in my life – prayer.

The asceticism of schedule does lie in how many programs I can plan and execute, in deciding which projects I can take on and which must be rejected, but most of all, it lies in setting aside time each day for nurturing my relationship with my God. To fail to do so would be to negate the very essence of my vocation.

In the “good old days” we all rose in the morning to a common bell, meditated and prayed the Divine Office together on a regular program organized around a regular apostolate. It was easier and prayer was available in spite of the danger of its becoming routine.

Today the needs of my service to the Church require that I make daily decisions as to whether I should rise earlier in the morning to enjoy a quiet hour of prayer since I may not have time in the afternoon or might get home too late at night. The three of us sisters who live together must plan the time that we are to be home that we can pray together as well as relax together.

Summertime usually offers a change of occupation and/or location and the questions of time priorities may take on different characteristics, but the basic questions remain the same – how can I find sufficient time to grow enough before the Lord? The strength of my vocation and the fruit of my apostolate depend on it.