Spaces for Silence by Mother Mary Francis

Mother Mary Francis has an extraordinarily honest view of reality, a reality illuminated by faith, irradiated with joy. She understands that the world for which the Poor Clares pray through the night and day is one in which in-ternational and national stresses, cold wars, burning hates, false ideologies, poverty, speed, automation and gross ad-vertising fragmentize the order and peace that man was made for. She does not sentimentalize monastic life either. The unfinished enclosure fence "ends like a hiccough"; the nose is red, the feet are blue with cold. She is a realist because she knows that God is the only Reality, and she looks at warts and broken water pipes with the sure aware-ness that God Incarnate looked at the reality of His world with absolute honesty. To accept reality in this way one must see it illumi-nated by faith.