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153 pages

English

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Becky Feinstein is well-acquainted with unexpected tragedy. Growing up in New York City during the turbulent 1960s, she has already experienced her brother's death in Vietnam and her family's gradual drifting apart. So when her closest friend suddenly becomes gravely ill, this nice Jewish girl decides to give her an unconventional gift by lighting a candle in a big gothic church on Lexington Avenue. Little does she realize, as she passes through the heavy wooden doors of Saint Vincent Ferrer's, that after this afternoon nothing will ever be the same. For there, lighting a candle for a friend, she discovers someone waiting for her in the "still, quiet place" of her heart . . .

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Publié par	TAN Books
Date de parution	15 août 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781505114577
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Praise for Sister Mary Baruch: The Early Years
Sister Mary Baruch shows how ordinary struggles become the stuff of a divine life of grace. Through the imaginative eyes of Sr. Mary Baruch, Fr. Jacob has given us a look into the mystery of the Dominican cloistered nun and captured the intersection of the human with the divine.
—Fr. Basil Cole, O.P., Professor of Moral Theology, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C.
I would thoroughly encourage anyone to read this book. It is truly an abundant presentation of Monastic life yesterday and today. We had the opportunity of having Fr. Jacob as our chaplain for six years, and during his homilies at Mass we heard many of the stories that make up the foundation of this book. Once you start reading this book, you won’t be able to put it down, believe me!
—Sr. Theresa Marie, O.P., Monastery of the Mother of God, West Springfield, MA
Such a blessing, this book. Fr Jacob is a gifted storyteller who can be hilariously funny and yet pierce the heart. His years of experience as a monastery chaplain give him authentic insights into the trials and the profundity of cloistered life, and he skillfully balances a story of delightful simplicity with profound insights into human nature and the mystery of the monastic life.
—Sr. Mary Dominic, O.P., Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary, Buffalo, NY
Father Restrick’s novel offers characters, settings, and life situations that are realistic and recognizable to a wide-range of readers. One is easily drawn into sharing the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of Rebecca’s life and spiritual journey while experiencing the pulse and culture of New York City living. Readers will smile, chuckle, and knowingly nod as they are unexpectedly lead to gentle reflections of God’s providential impact in their own lives. A delightful story that begs to be continued!
—Marianne T. Jablonski, O.P., Dominican Laity
Fr. Jacob’s attention to detail is what makes everything come alive for the reader. At times he made me laugh, at other times weep, and at times he made me pray. He weaves truths about the Catholic faith into the story’s fabric, educating even as he entertains the reader.
—Darillyn Paterson, Dominican Laity
Sister Mary Baruch
S ISTER M ARY B ARUCH
The Early Years
Fr. Jacob Restrick, O.P.
TAN Books Charlotte, North Carolina
Copyright © 2015 Jacob Restrick
First Edition, 2009. Second Edition, 2015. Third Edition, 2019.
All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in critical review, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Caroline K. Green
Cover image: The Ceiling of a Gothic Church. Photo by kombattle/Shutterstock
ISBN: 978-1-5051-1455-3
Published in the United States by
TAN Books
PO Box 410487
Charlotte, NC 28241
www.TANBooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
This humble work is dedicated to today’s cloistered daughters of St. Dominic who walk this road less traveled, and to the sons of our Holy Father Dominic who serve them and depend on their prayers .

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
—Robert Frost
C ONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
F OREWORD
T HIS IS THE story of Sister Mary Baruch’s deep loves. As we come to know Becky Feinstein (her name “in the world” before becoming a contemplative Dominican nun), we learn about her love for warm bagels and good chocolate, for Broadway theater and good books, for her good friends and her close-knit family, and, of course, for New York City itself. But it is another love—one that comes upon her quite unexpectedly—that gives her story its power: the love of Jesus himself.
This is a story of conversion, acknowledging all of the crises and consolations, both small and large, that come from that. We follow Becky as she first comes to hear the Lord in that “still, quiet place” in her heart and then as she follows that newfound love and encounters its (sometimes bittersweet) consequences.
This book is the fruit of the contemplation and the rich experience of a wise and gifted preacher. Fr. Jacob Restrick’s long service as a chaplain to different communities of Dominican nuns has given him a privileged insight into the experience of this form of intimate friendship with Jesus, and its moments both sublime and ordinary. The reader who accompanies Sr. Mary Baruch on her odyssey is receiving not only the story of a soul but a profound lesson about the spiritual life itself.
—Jonah Teller, O.P.
P REFACE
The nuns of the Order of Preachers came into being when our Holy Father Dominic gathered women converts to the Catholic faith in the monastery of Blessed Mary of Prouille. These women, free for God alone, he associated with his “holy preaching” by their prayer and penance. Our Holy Father drew up a rule to be followed and constantly showed a father’s love and care for these nuns and for others established later in the same way of life. In fact, “they had no other master to instruct them about the Order.” Finally, he entrusted them as part of the same Order to the fraternal concern of his sons .
—Fundamental Constitution of the Nuns 1.1
I WAS PREACHING AN Advent retreat at one of our cloistered monasteries and the readings at Mass for the Monday of the Second Week are from Isaiah and the Gospel of Luke. I wondered how a cloistered nun would reflect on these reading and how they pertain to the life of a cloistered nun. And so Sr. Mary Baruch of the Advent Heart was born. I “discovered” a journal she had written with her own reflections on these readings and shared them in my homily. The nuns seemed to identify with her, and so she would appear in homilies thereafter. Through her journals, we eventually got to know her family and the story of her own conversion from Judaism. Here the full story can be told.
Sr. Mary Baruch was originally written for Dominican nuns, as I had been chaplain to two of our cloistered monasteries, and familiar with most of the others. But her story has entertained, and I hope, inspired, many beyond the cloister walls: Dominican laity, priests, Sisters, Brothers, Catholic and non-Catholic friends alike.
We welcome a new and revised edition of Sr. Mary Baruch, O.P. The Early Years. There have been a few factual errors in the original which have been corrected, while the storyline remains the same.
I am especially grateful to two of my Dominican brothers, Jonah Teller and Henry Stephan, for their editorial expertise, desire, and diligence in editing and reformatting the entire novel. I am also grateful to the many Sisters who have come to know Sr. Mary Baruch and welcomed her into their hearts, and have offered their personal reflections.
Sr. Mary Baruch is completely fictitious, as is her monastery of Our Lady Queen of Hope in Brooklyn Heights, New York. The Sisters, priests, family, and friends of Sr. Mary Baruch are also completely fictitious, while the churches and places in New York are factual (except for Tea on Thames).
If you have not met Sister Mary Baruch before, the early chapters will introduce you to her and her family and friends, and her coming into the Faith of the Holy Catholic Church. If you are reacquainting yourself with her, you will follow her again into the monastery and the grace-filled life of a Dominican nun. Whether you are reading for the first time or renewing the acquaintance, may you be moved to laughter, to tears, and, most of all, to prayer. May you find something of yourself in Sr. Mary Baruch, who has found that loving God with all one’s heart is “such a blessing.”
Fr. Jacob Restrick, O.P. October 31, 2015 Vigil of All Saints
One
M Y NAME is Baruch; I know, it’s not a girl’s name, but it’s my name…Mary Baruch, actually, which gives it a nice feminine flavor, yes? Sister Mary Baruch to be exact, but Sister is a title that we nuns are all called by. I did not choose Mary Baruch as my name when I became a nun; it was chosen for me. It was a day I’ll never forget. In my journal I have written right after the date, November 1, 1970, My Wedding Day .
It was a crisp, autumn-in-New-York kind of day. The community had just chanted Lauds before the Solemn High Mass for All Saints’ Day. I had come into the choir, the nuns’ part of the chapel, dressed in an eggshell white Chantilly lace wedding dress. It was a used dress; I don’t know how many nuns before me had worn it, probably not too many, as it came off the extra-large rack and even then had to be let out some. Most of the more portly nuns don’t acquire their portliness till many years after their wedding day, but I came in as a size 18 and a half. Some of the nuns had even worn their own mothers’ wedding dresses, if they passed the inspection of the prioress; they couldn’t be too exquisite, but plain and not tight-fitting.
Mine was not my dear mother’s, who would have been horrified at the thought of her gown being worn by a Catholic nun, even if—or especially if—it was her own daughter. She wasn’t even in our lovely chapel that All Saints’ Day to see me in Chantilly lace with the little pillbox lace veil. I may have looked like a chubby old gal making her First Holy Communion, but I couldn’t have been happier. My wearing the wedding dress was an exception to the rule, as the custom had been let go some years before. “Letting go is always difficult,” Mother John Dominic, the prioress, would often say; we seemed to be more reluctant than others. Mother also had another reason to make this exception in my case, which I’ll explain later.
Like all the nuns that came before me, I was dying to know what name I would receive. When I entered and officially became a postulant, I was called Sister