CONVENT LIFE IN QUEBEC.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 137, 17 December 1875, Page 23 (Supplement)

CONVENT LIFE IN QUEBEC.

The Quebec correspondent of the 'New York Tribune,' Avriting from that city recently, gives the following interesting description of convent life in that city : " Yesterday morning I made one of a party which Avent to Avitness the ceremony of bestowing the black veil upon seven candidates, at the Convent of Le Bon Pasteur. This convent is outside the Avails, between the St. Louis and St. Foyo roads, and is, comparatively, a young and poor institution. Not being a cloistered convent, it is visited by many Americans. There are iioav over a hundred professed nuns belonging tc it, and the noble work they do interests everybody in them. The convent Avas founded twentyfi.A r e years ago by a widow who became a nun, and avlio Avas at one time, f believe, the Lady Superior. The devoted Avoinen prove themselves worthy servants for the Good Shepherd, in going into prisons and hospitals and taking back into their oavii atmosphere of purity and peace the degraded and unfortunate girls they find there. Since the convent Avas established over a thousand of these poor creatures have found refuge from their world of temptations and crime, and so successful are the nuns, that 1 am told they have reclaimed nearly two-thirds of that number. Those women are left perfectly free to go or remain, and those who avisli really to reform, but still remain in the world, arc given safe homes. For those who prefer remaining in the convent, there is an order knoAvn as the Order of Magdelene, of which they can become members, though never professed nuns. The convent supports itself by all kinds of industry.

" The ceremony of taking the veil consists of the celebration of the Mass, after Avhich the candidates approach the altar, each bearing a lighted candle in her hand, and kneel. They are then addressed either by the convent chaplain or the bishop, and their duties, sacrifices, and future life laid before them. Afterward they make the usual vows of poverty and obedience ; their nun's robes tire handed them — after being blessed — and they retire. They soon re-appear in these robes, and kneel again to leceive the black veil. After a short ceremony it is thrown over the head of each by the bishop, aed fastened to its place by the Lady Superior. The nuns are then taken into the ' community,' Avhicli ceremony consists of each new coiner's receiving ' the kiss of peace/ or the * nun's kiss,' as it is often called. Their lips do not meet, but they kiss each other on either cheek.

" The funeral of a nun is a fitting climax to her life of poverty and self-renunciation, and the only pomp which attends the occasion is that Avhich is gathered from the dirge music and the universal solemnity and mourning with which a convent community celebrates this last ceremony. She is buried beneath the choir of tbe inner chapel, in a plain, unpainted pine coffin, and in her clasped hands she hides the crucifix. She is dressed in the robes ef her profession, and the veils of her novitiate and last vows are ■Juried Avith her. Her sand-glass and prayer-book pass to another, to muxk and bless the hours cf another life, and her empty place, ihough held in loving remembrances by her sisters, is filled by a Uaw comcv, whose fee I have entered • the nuns' alrcot.' "