First, as I entered the convent, as just a small child I went on to school, I was being trained. But the day came when I was about fourteen and a half when the Mother Superior began telling me about the "White Veil." And I didn't know too much about it. By taking the White Veil, they told me that I would become the spouse or the Bride of Jesus Christ. There would be a ceremony. And I would be dressed in a wedding garment.
And on this particular morning, they told me at nine o'clock they would dress me up in a wedding garment. Now, you're wondering where that came from, and how they got the wedding clothes for the little nuns. The Mother Superior sits down and writes a letter to my father to tell him how much money she wants. And then, whatever she asks, my father sends it. And she, the little buying sister, goes out and buys the material, and the wedding gown is made by the Nuns of the Cloister. (I'm still Open Order now.)
And of course, whatever she asks -- now you say, "Did they spend all of the money for the wedding gown?" Well of course, We don't know these things at the very beginning of our testimony, but after we live in a convent for a little while, we learn to know they could ask my father for a hundred dollars and he'd send it. They would not use maybe a third of that for the wedding garment. They would keep the rest of it, and my father would never know the difference. Neither did I until I'd lived in a convent for a period of time and I had to make some of the wedding clothes. And then I knew the value of them, and what they cost. And I knew of the money that came in because I was one of the older Nuns.
Well, alright, the time came, of course, when I walked down that aisle and I was dressed in a wedding garment. And you know, in the convent, I used to walk the fourteen stations of the cross the fourteen steps that Jesus carried the cross to Calvary, but after I made up my mind to take the White Veil, never again did I walk. I wanted to be worthy. I wanted to be holy enough to become the spouse or the Bride of Jesus Christ. And so I would get down on my knees and crawl the fourteen stations - quite a distance. But I crawled them every Friday morning. I thought it would make me holy. I felt it would draw me closer to God. It would make me worthy of the step that I was going to take. And that's what I wanted more than anything in the world.
I would like to impress that in your hearts.
Every little girl that enters a convent that I know anything about, that child has the desire to live for God. That child has the desire to give her heart and mind and soul to God. Now, many, many people make this remark and we hear it from various types of folks who say, "Only bad women go into convents." That isn't true. There are movie stars who go into convents. They've lived out in the world and no doubt they are sinners and all of that. But they go in when they're women. They know what they're doing. And they go in only because the Roman Catholic Church is going to receive, not only thousands, but yea it will run up into the millions of dollars. And they don't mind who they take in as they can get a lot of money out of an individual.
But when the woman goes in as just a child - she's just a child - and she goes in there with her heart and mind and soul just as clean as any child could be. I say that because sometimes we hear a lot of things that are really not true.
Now, after we become the spouse of Jesus Christ - I want you to listen carefully to this, and then you can follow me into the rest of the testimony - we are now looked upon as married women. We are looked upon as married women. We are the spouse or the Bride of Jesus Christ.
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