It is astonishing to contemplate how absolutely Father Ignatius required us to yield our wills to his will. Whatsoever he demanded was, he said, distinctly God’s will for us, and whatsoever we did for him was God’s will. To use his own oft-repeated words:
“It must be so sweet for you to wait upon your Superior, because in so doing you are really waiting upon God; in fact, in waiting upon your Superior, like Martha of old, you are waiting upon the Lord Himself.”
I can assure my readers that we poor deluded nuns believed in all this; and, so far as obedience would permit, we literally vied with each other in waiting upon our Superior and preparing for him the very best we could, for we felt that nothing could be too well prepared in waiting, as we thought, upon the Lord. There was no greater penance to us than to be debarred from waiting upon his will. If any one was in disgrace for breaking rule, he would neither speak nor even look at her, nor even allow her to kiss the hem of his sacred dress!
After we had left Feltham a few weeks, Father Ignatius, and the widowed nun who had accompanied him, wrote several letters, in which the rebel nuns of Feltham were exhorted to return to their Father, by submitting to unconditional obedience. He allowed them, I think, three weeks to consider the matter; and if, at the close of that time, they remained obstinate, he would, he declared, excommunicate them, and then the awful curse of broken vows would rest upon them. The threatened curse was at length pronounced. The altar was draped in black, and an excommunication service was read through. I was greatly terrified at this most strange yet solemn act. I remember well the words that were uttered at this service:
Unless they repent of this their sin, may they be blotted out of the book of life. Amen, Amen.
Here the bell tolled. I was well nigh petrified with fear, and thought to myself, “Can all the Feltham nuns really be under this awful curse?” At the first opportunity I asked Father Ignatius if the bell was really tolled for the Feltham Mother and nuns? He said, “Certainly it was.” I exclaimed, “How awful!” He replied, “True, my child, but it had to be done.” I remember how he often prophesied that the community at Feltham would only flourish like a green bay-tree for a time, and that ere long it would pass out of existence; and I must honestly confess that he did his very utmost to bring it to nought, by efforts to draw away friends and support from it. It has ever been a peculiarity of Father Ignatius to curse and excommunicate people; but those who are thus cursed only flourish all the more.