“Dear Mother, do look at Brother ⸺. Is he not a perfect fool?”
Nothing was too idiotic to impose in the name of holy obedience. I have seen, for instance, a brother, instead of kneeling to receive Holy Communion, standing afar off, holding up a black kettle, and at grace, in the refectory, with the muddy street door mat on his head. I have seen a sister with a handkerchief tied over her eyes, as if she was just ready for a game of blind man’s buff. Remember, these follies were ordered to be done as penances, and penances were said to be special gifts of love from the Lord Jesus Christ! What profanity!
I am sure the reverend Mother had the greatest trial in Father Ignatius’ freaks, or whatever they may be called; and she soon began to get sick of them, and would dread the ten days he would sometimes spend at Feltham; for she never knew what he was going to do or order next. Once he intended to bring a young monk, ill from his monastery, to be nursed by a young novice nun, and she was to devote the whole of her time to looking after him. This might have been well enough if we had been sisters of charity; but we were enclosed nuns, and were not allowed to see the face of a man, except, of course, our Superior. The Mother would not hear of such a thing, or allow the sick monk to come to the house, as she was sure it would prove an occasion of scandal. She thus set up her will and judgment to oppose Father Ignatius, and she did this on more than one occasion. But at last Father Ignatius boldly asserted that he was quite determined to have nothing but _unconditional obedience_. The Mother, and the majority of nuns in the Feltham convent, refused to accept such an unconditional obedience, and the result was that a split took place. The Mother would not sign a paper of unconditional and personal obedience, and so Father Ignatius said to those who refused: “You no longer belong to the order of the Monk Ignatius of Llanthony in the nineteenth century.” However, he took with him three nuns who were ready to render the obedience he required. I was one of the three. Another of the number was the nun who took novice vows when I did. She had, however, meanwhile broken her vows, and had gone into the world for some six years, and had been a wife and mother. Her husband and child having died, she had returned to Feltham a few months before this split had taken place.