14 - SUSPENDED BY THE THUMBS
And then in a few mornings after this the Mother Superior is taking me back for another initiation. And when I go into the penance chamber this morning, we come from a place up here. And we're going to walk back along like that clear to the back. And you know it's quite a ways back here, and I went - part of it's a tunnel. And then I come out into a room. And I walk through into that room. And when I get way back there I see those candles burning. And I see something else. There are ropes hanging down from the ceiling. And, oh, I'm so scared. I wonder what the ropes are for, and what's she going to do? After these two penances you begin to have a lot of fear in your heart.
And so I can't say anything and I walk back there. And you know I saw the ropes. They're really plain - and what are they doing hanging down from that ceiling? Then she tells me, "You go over there against the wall." About that close from the wall. And I have to stand sideways like this. And she asks me to put up both of my thumbs. And I did. And then she pulled one rope down. And there's a metal band fastened securely. And she fastens that around the joint of my thumb. Then the other one comes down and it fastens around this thumb. And there I am standing there like this facing the wall. And then, you know, she comes over here to the end - there's a... whatever you want to call it, she starts winding. And I start moving. And she's taking me right up in the air. And, you know, when she gets me so just my toes are on the floor - just on my tip-toes - she fastens it. And there I hang. And all the weight of my body is on my thumbs and on my toes. Not a word is said. No one speaks a word. And she walks out of that room and locks the door.
If you know what it means to hear a key locking a door, and know that I'm strung up there like that... you'll never know unless you're a Nun. And when that woman walked out I didn't know how long I'll stay there - how long that woman will leave me there.
And you know, they didn't come to give me food. They brought me no water. And I thought, "Is this it? Am I going to die back here just like this?" And within a few hours... you could imagine. I'm still a human being. My muscles began to scream out with the pain - all that suffering. And that woman let me hang. And no one come near. And what good would it do for me to cry? You can spill every tear in your body. Nobody will hear you. There's no one there to care how many tears you spill.
And so I just hung there. And finally I began, seemingly I felt like I couldn't stand it - I'll surely die if they don't come and get me quickly. And I felt as if I was beginning to swell. I don't know how long went by, and she opened the door one morning and she had something for me to eat. And the water was in a pan. And it was potatoes. And those potatoes were not good to eat. They were in a pan. And there's a shelf over there on the wall that she can adjust to the height of the Nun. And, you know, she pulled it out.
Now, I'm not against the wall. I'm about this far from it. But to get that food... she puts it there, and she said, "This is your food." And she walks out.
Now, how am I going to get it?
She didn't let my hands down. But this is what you learn. And you struggle to get it. I'm hungry. I mean, I'm so thirsty I feel like I'm going mad. And to get it I discovered that this hand goes high and this one will come down a little bit. And that'll keep right on going higher if I lean. I have to reach higher with this one, this one will automatically let down. And to get that water and that food, I mean, I had to get it like the dogs and cats. And I lapped as much of it as I could because I'm so thirsty. And get those potatoes; I tried as hard as I could because I'm so hungry. I mean I'm hungry! And I got as much of it as I could, naturally. But I was hungry.
That's the way she fed me for a while and then she released the bonds on my hands. I hung nine days and nine nights in this position.
And may I say, the time came when I was so swollen here, and naturally I could see myself puffing out here. I felt like my eyes were coming out of my head. I felt like my arms were apart. I could see them right there. They were two or three sizes their normal size. I felt like I was that way all over my body. And I was like a boil. I was in real suffering.
And then on the ninth day she comes in. And she releases the bonds from my hands and my body, and lets me down on the floor. Now I go down and I can't walk. I'll assure you I didn't walk. I didn't walk for a long time. But you know what; there are two little Nuns that carry me out. One gets under my feet and the other under my shoulders. And they carry me in the infirmary, and lay me on a slab of wood. And there they cut the clothing from my body. And let me tell you right now, nobody but God will ever know - I'm covered with vermin and filth. Why? I'm hanging there in my own human filth. There are no toilet facilities. Right behind me is a stool. And they have running water in it, and the lid is down and they have sharp nails driven through that lid. If I break my ropes and fall on that, I would suffer terribly.
And this is the life of a Carmelite - a little Nun behind cloistered doors - after they've already deceived us - disillusioned us and got us back there. Then this is the life that we're living. And these are the things that we're going to have to do. I'll assure you, it isn't anything funny.
15 - HARD WORK
And then I remember, as I lived on in that place, oh, let me tell you, we have to get up out of our bed for 4:30 in the morning. The Mother Superior taps the bell, and that means five minutes to dress. And may I say to you folk, it's not five and a half minutes. You better get that clothing on in five minutes.
I failed one time, and I had to be punished for doing it, but I never failed again in all the years in the convent.
And you know when we're finished dressing then we're going to start marching. And we march by the Mother Superior. And that Mother Superior is going to appoint us to an office duty every morning. It might be scrubbing. It might be ironing. It might be washing. It might be doing some hard work. But I have to work one hour. Then we'll go in and gather around the table, and we'll find sitting down in front of us our tin cupful of coffee and our slice of bread.
And then, of course, we have hard work to do. I think there were twelve tubs in the convent that I lived in. And we washed on the old-fashioned washboard. We have the old fat iron that you heat on the stove.
And, you know, it wouldn't be so bad if we just had our own clothing in the convent. But the priest brings great bundles of clothing and put them in there because he can get them done for nothing. And we have to do that clothing on top of it. We work very, very hard. And they're not able to work because they don't have enough food to keep body, mind and soul together. And those little girls are living under these particular circumstances.
Well, I say, we're women without a country. And I mean just exactly what I say. Women without a country. Now we belong to the Pope. Anything they want to inflict upon my body they can do it. And all the howling I do, if I should howl, it wouldn't make any difference because nobody is going to hear me. And they have no idea that I'll ever leave the convent. The plan is that I'll die there and be buried there.
16 - CENSORED VISITATION
You know, the mother will call that lovely little girl, and call her out on the other side of the grail, and of course you can't see her. And you know what, the mother will speak to her and say, "Honey, are you happy here?" And that little Nun will say, "Mother, I'm very happy."
You say, "Why did she say that?"
Well, bless your heart, don't you know that the Mother Superior is standing there? And if we didn't say that, after our mother is gone, then God only knows what the Mother Superior will do to the little Nun. And so we must lie to our mother.
And then the mother will say, "Do you have plenty to eat?" And that little Nun will answer and say, "We have plenty to eat." But, I'll tell you that mother will go home. She'll prepare a lovely meal for the rest of the family. But if she could look in and see our table and see what her little girl is eating, if she could look into her little girl's eyes after she's been there three or four years, she'd see those eyes are back in her head. She'd see that her little body's began to waste away. I'll assure that mother that she'll never eat another meal at home. No, never. You'd never enjoy another meal if you could see your child after she's in a convent for a period of time. But these things of course are under cover, and we have to take what they give us.
17 - FEAR OF THE MOTHER SUPERIOR
Alright, now they can make us do anything. Here we are, the Mother Superior. And I might be down in the laundry room washing. And I told you how we wash. And its a cement floor. And, well, doing the type of laundry we do - some of it's very heavy - the water slops out on the floor. And, oh, it's such a mess. We'd walk in it. And you know, then, here comes the Mother Superior.
And to me, our Mother Superior, I'd just as soon you turn loose a lion that's very hungry and let it come walking down that aisle as to see a Mother Superior in a convent. I was scared to death of her. Every time I saw that woman, somebody had to suffer. And we're afraid of her and she knows we're afraid of her. Because she's cruel. Her heart is calloused.
And here she comes. And, you know, there we are washing. And, I'll tell you, that when she comes - and we know... we feel her presence before we ever see her. We know her footsteps. And, you know, we'll wash a little harder. But when she gets down to where we are, she might address me. And she'll say, "Now, you come out here." And I'm out there like a flash because I'm scared. And then she'll say, "Prostrate your self down there and lick so many crosses on that floor." That's a cement floor! And, of course, I have to prostrate my body and lick those crosses. And those are not little tiny crosses. As far as I reach, I'll have to lick those crosses.
And she watches my countenance. If I don't like it, and she knows that I don't like it, then she might say, "Ten" - she might say, "Twenty-five." And, you know, then the next morning she may walk back through there again and because she saw something in my face that made her to know I didn't like what she wanted me to do, she may call me again. And my tongue, by this time, is sore. It's bleeding, but I have to lick the crosses on the floor again.
And then they do the same way by compelling us to crawl. They'll compel you to crawl. And, may I say, it could be up and down an aisle like this ten times. And it'll not be on a beautiful rug like this. It'll be on a floor that you know what you're crawling on.
And, you know, I'm crawling, and I have to crawl like this - upright. And my, my... my knees. Don't they hurt! And I might make it five or six times. And then I might not have enough strength to go the other three or four times. And I'll faint. But she'll pour some cold water on me and tell me to crawl again.
And, may I say, and then I'll try to finish it out. And maybe the next day she compels me to crawl again. By this time there are scabs on my knees. I mean, those knees are sore! But I must crawl again.
This is the life of a little Nun. We're doing penance. And then she teaches us to believe that God is looking down out of Heaven - He's smiling His approval upon those little girls. And God is made happy through our suffering. And because we are heathens - we don't know any better - we've never read the Bible. We've never had any Scripture. And so those little Nuns are ignorant of the Word of God. You know, we're just raised under the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. And we know nothing about this lovely Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we have to do these things.
18 - PRAYING ON A BOARD OF TORTURE
Then the Mother Superior might walk through the cell door - by the way, in our cells, there's nothing in there but the Virgin Mary, and, that is, she's holding the baby Jesus. And there is the Crucifix. And then we have a prayer board. And by the way, I'll assure you folks that you'll never want to lean on our prayer board. We lean on it everyday if we are able to walk under our own power. It is a board about this high from the ground. And there are two leading up like this one. And this one is about that wide. I'm going to drop my knees down on it. And there's sharp wires coming up through that board. And then, this one up here, I prostrate my arms on, there's going to be sharp wires.
After all, I told you we were going to suffer. We're going to do penance. And this is a part of our suffering.
And as I lean on that prayer board, I'm praying for lost humanity. And I'm believing as I suffer that my grandmother will be released from a priest's purgatory sooner, because of my suffering. And I'll kneel there longer, sometimes. Oh, it's terrible, but we don't know any better. So we do that, because that's all that little Nuns know. And we believe it.
And there we are. And we are locked in our cells. Every night the key is turned in those doors. We can't get up and come out of there. And then, more than that, seven minutes to twelve - we go to bed, at nine thirty the lights are out - seven minutes to twelve, there's two little Nuns appointed to unlock every door. Every little Nun again gets on her feet, dresses in full dress, goes into the inner chapel, and there we again pray one hour for lost humanity.
We don't get very much sleep. That's why. And we don't have enough food and we work hard and we suffer much. That's why our bodies are so broken.
That's why we seemingly don't have enough strength to carry on after we live there.
19 - SUFFERING TO BE SPARED DAYS
IN PURGATORY
But I'd like to say this to you before I go any farther. Now, I did those very things. And we're taught to believe that as we spill our own blood - now, WE must do this - if I whip my body, if I torment it, or torture it in any way that I spill blood, I'm taught to believe, that I'll have one hundred less days to spend in purgatory.
Now, you know, we have no hope. Those little Nuns don't look forward to anything. You may think they do, but we don't. Why? After you live in a Convent ten years, I began to realize the Virgin Mary is just a piece of metal. She's a statue. I began to realize Saint Peter is just a statue. I began to realize that the statue of Jesus is just a piece of metal. In other words, we come to the place to believe that our God is a dead God. And, I'll assure you, after you live in a convent long enough, not at first - oh, no - but after we've suffered enough, after we've seemingly fallen down at the feet of those statues and spilled our tears on them, and have begged them to intercede and get a prayer through to God, and years go by and no prayer is answered, then we began to realize we have a dead God.
And so on it goes.
And so those precious little girls, we're taught to believe that as we whip our bodies, or burn our bodies, or torture our bodies, and spill blood that we'll have one hundred less days to spend in purgatory. We believe in a literal purgatory. And that literal purgatory is a fire and it's going to burn. And we're going to feel the flames of fire.
20 - PURGATORY IS THE PRIESTS'
POCKET BOOK
And you know when I say Nuns are forgotten women, just who do you folk think is going to say a prayer, or go over and pay the priest to have a high mass for a little Nun that's in the convent? I wonder who's going to. Why? Because they'll not even be notified. When many of those little Nuns die, there's no notification of it whatsoever. A parent won't even know when they're dead. So, who's going to pray us out of purgatory? Or rather, buy us out of purgatory? No. We realize after we're in there for a period of time that there is no Purgatory.
Of course, you know there isn't, and I know there isn't. And there is no purgatory. The only purgatory the Roman Catholic people have is a priest's pocket. And they're filling his pockets with coins in order to pray for the dead.
And, may I say, there are thousands and thousands of Roman Catholics -- in the month of November, may I say to you, in United States, two years ago -- in the month of November the Roman Catholic priests praying masses for the dead of the Roman Catholic people in this country, in one month collected twenty-two million dollars for masses said for dead Roman Catholics. That's just a little idea, or sample, of what's going on in this country.
And still there are thousands of mothers that'll work their fingers to the bone to go over there and give the priests another five dollars to say a mass for a loved one that's in Purgatory, because that mother believes there is a Purgatory.
In the Convent, they have a painting of Purgatory. And there's nothing in the room but just that painting. And, you know, every Friday we have to walk around that painting. And when we walk around it, I would you could look at the little Nuns' faces.
What do I see? The painting, as you would walk around it, looks like it's a big deep hole out there. And there are people down in there. And the flames of fire are lapping around the bodies of those people. And their hands are outstretched like this. And the Mother will say to the little Nuns, "You'd better go and put another penance on your body. Those people are begging to get out of that fire." And because we're heathens, we don't know any better, I might go someplace in the convent and maybe I'll burn my body real bad. Maybe I'll torture it some way and spill some more blood, because as I suffer I believe they're going to get out of that place where a priest puts them.
And there are millions of people, so to speak, in Purgatory that your priest has put there. And he knows that it's the biggest fraud there is in the world... he knows there's not a bit of truth to it. And, bless your heart, I often say you take Purgatory Mass away from the Roman Catholic Church you'll rob her of nine tenths of her living. She'll starve to death, if you would take it away from her. She commercializes, not only off of the living, but off of the dead. And on and on it goes.
Alright. It doesn't bother a Mother Superior to take one of those dear, little girls... And, may I say, you know, when the priests come into the convents, they come as our Father Confessors. Once a month we go to confession. And we don't want to go, don't you worry. I many's a' time have gone in the very back row. I didn't want to go in there. I know who's out there. One of them... I may not know the particular man, but I know he's a priest. And I know those priests. I certainly have seen them enough. I've lived there long enough. I certainly have had contact with every one of them. And, I'll assure you this one thing, I don't trust one single one of those in the convent.
Now, we're not telling you about every priest. I don't know all the priests. I'm just talking about the Convent in my personal Testimony of Convent Life.
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