Sister Mary and Monk Robert fell in love and left their vocation and got married.
Before entering as a carmelite nun in the monastery at 19 years of age, sister mary was previously known as Lisa Tinkler. She was from middlebrough. Growing up in a family where her parents were not religious was not easy. Her parents wondered what had awakened their daughter to choose such a path. At barely six years old Lisa had asked her father to build an alter in her bedroom.
Lisa would always be seen make her way to the catholic church near her home and she could spent most of her time in church. She had fell in love with the virgin mary and had a strong conviction of her vocation as a nun.
One time there was a retreat at the monastery when she was still a teenager. The monastery was run by the carmelite nuns. Carmelite nuns lived a secluded and strict life and Lisa was more than convinced of her intentions to join the monastery.
Lisa wanted to join immediately but her mother was troubled by her decision. She wrote to the monastery to delay her departure for a few months so that Lisa cold spend the christmas at home.she later joined the monastery in the new year.
Now Lisa was now Sister Mary, a carmelite nun. She says that she lived like a hermit. She says that she had only two recreational times a day and it would last only half an hour and the rest of the time she is always alone. She says that her vocabulary could have deminished because she was not in constant communication with the other nuns as they were a decade older than her. She recalls that her interior world always opened up while the outside world was closed.
24 years after becoming a Nun, it was a brief touch of the sleeve of a monk in the palour of the convent in Preston, Lancashire that changed everything for sistet mary. As sister mary let Robert, the Monk out of the door of the parish, she brushed his sleeve and says she felt something like a jolt and was quite awkward. She did not know whether Robert felt the same.
A week later she recalls that she recieved Roberts message asking her if she would leave her vocation to marry him. Sister Mary did not give an answer to his question and did not know what to do. He may have known something about her but she knew less about him except in events where she could see him do semons.
Sister mary thought of the reaction she would have gotten from the family or the bishop over the matter. She had wrestled over whether her relationship with God would change if she accepted Robert.
She told the matter to her superior but the superior was abit snappy and made her make a quick decision. She placed her pants anf toothbrush in her bag and walked out. She never returned back.
She got into drinking after walking out and wondered if Robert was really serious about marrying her. She decided therefore to meet him and they both left their monastic lives.
The transition between the two was difficult especially at the beginning. What brought them at peace was fhe thing that guided them to their monasticism in the first place and connecting with their personal faith.
Lisa found work at a funeral home and later as a hospital Chaplain. Robert was upset by a letter from Rome telling him that he was no longer a member of the carmelite order, but soon he was accepted into the church of England. They both got married and share a home in the village of Hutton in Nothern Yorkshire.
They are still on a journey to adjust their life outside the monastery.
Content created and supplied by: Chillux (via Opera News )
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