On Thursday morning, the bell rung at half-past six to awaken us. The
old nun who was acting as night-watch immediately spoke aloud:
"Voici le Seigneur qui vient." (Behold the Lord cometh.) The nuns all
responded:
"Allons-y devant lui." (Let us go and meet him.)
We then rose immediately, and dressed as expeditiously as possible,
stepping into the passage-way at the foot of our beds as soon as we
were ready, and taking places each beside her opposite companion. Thus
we were soon drawn up in a double row the whole length of the room,
with our hands folded across our breasts, and concealed in the broad
cuffs of our sleeves. Not a word was uttered. When the signal was
given, we all proceeded to the community-room, which is spacious, and
took our places in rows facing the entranced, near which the Superior
was seated in a vergiere, or large chair.
We first repeated, "Au nom du Père, du Fils, et du Saint Esprit--Ainsi
soit il." (In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost--Amen.)
We then kneeled and kissed the floor; then, still on our knees, we said
a very long prayer, beginning: Divin Jesus, Sauveur de mon âme, (Divine
Jesus, Saviour of my soul). Then came the Lord's prayer, three Hail
Marys, four creeds, and five confessions (confesse à Dieu).
Next we repeated the ten commandments. Then we repeated the Acts of
Faith, and a prayer to the Virgin in Latin, (which, like every thing
else in Latin, I never understood a word of.) Next we said the litanies
of the holy name of Jesus, in Latin, which was afterward to be repeated
several times in the course of the day. Then came the prayer for the
beginning of the day; then bending down, we commenced the Orison Mental
(or Mental Orison), which lasted about an hour and a half.
This exercise was considered peculiarly solemn. We were told in the
nunnery that a certain saint was saved by the use of it, as he never
omitted it. It consists of several parts: First, the Superior read to
us a chapter from a book, which occupied five minutes. Then profound
silence prevailed for fifteen minutes, during which we were meditating
upon it. Then she read another chapter of equal length, on a different
subject and we meditated upon that another quarter of an hour; and
after a third reading and meditation, we finished the exercise with a
prayer, called an act of contrition, in which we asked forgiveness for
the sins committed during the Orison.
During this hour and a half I became very weary, having before been
kneeling for some time, and having then to sit in another position more
uncomfortable, with my feet under me, my hands clasped, and my body
bent humbly forward, with my head bowed down.
When the Orison was over, we all rose to the upright kneeling posture,
and repeated several prayers, and the litanies of the providences,
"providence de Dieu," &c.; then followed a number of Latin prayers,
which we repeated on the way to mass, for in the nunnery we had mass
daily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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