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Reviews of The Secret Ladder
On this page you will find some reviews of The Secret Ladder. Absorbing account of life as a nunSunday Business Post - 17 July 2005 - Reviewed by Kieron WoodThe Secret Ladder, by Noreen Mackey, Darton Longman & Todd, €16.05. The concept of a young girl joining an enclosed order of nuns seems utterly alien in today's Ireland. So it is all the more strange to find a book written by a successful lawyer who was a contemplative Carmelite - not once, but twice. The book opens in Luxembourg, where Noreen Mackey was a lawyer to the European Court of Justice in 1993.As she sits on the balcony of her apartment one evening, sipping white wine and listening to a Paul Simon CD, she meets her old lover. That lover is Jesus Christ - and it is not the first time that he and Mackey have met. In the 1960s, as an 18-year-old, Mackey had entered a Carmelite monastery in Ireland. In the course of three tantalising paragraphs, Mackey explains how difficult she found life behind the grille - a life that had changed little since the 16th century.Eventually her health broke down and she left - burdened by a deep sense of failure and guilt. The spiritual encounter in Luxembourg led her back to the Carmelites, this time to a French monastery, which she names Aubépine. At her first sight of the nuns in choir, she confesses: "I was utterly appalled." She admits to an "inner resistance'‘, which she eventually recognised as "my own fragile sense of identity rising up in outrage to protest against becoming a member of the herd'‘. Strong words indeed - and an indication why, after 18 months, the other nuns voted that she should leave the monastery and return to the world. Today, Mackey is legal adviser to the Competition Authority in Dublin, where she was one of the authors of the report into the Ansbacher affair. The 180-page book describes her efforts to subdue her individualism and to come to terms with living in community - a difficult task for anybody, not least a successful barrister. Each chapter opens with a brief quote from a Paul Simon song, a device that works surprisingly well. While the book goes into minute detail about the life of an enclosed nun, it skips frustratingly over some of the author's most intense personal experiences. For example, before re-entering the cloister at the age of 45, Mackey decides to make "a private commitment to a life of celibacy'‘. She does this, not in any public way, but "in a church in the nearby town, en route to the monastery'‘. The perfunctory way in which she relates such a life-altering decision leaves the frustrated reader with a host of unanswered questions. The picture of life at Aubépine - the innocent pleasures of the nuns, playing games, doing heavy manual work, praying together and, most of all, endeavouring to live together in harmony - is illuminating and refreshing. Mackey's description of a visit to a local shopping centre to have her photo taken for her identity card is particularly poignant. She always loved shopping, and one of her great pleasures in life when shopping was to have a coffee and a pastry. "And then it dawned on me: I had no money. I was a total misfit in this palace of consumerism."
Taking and leaving the veilThis review first appeared in The Tablet of 22 October 2005. See www.thetablet.co.uk
The Secret Ladder: a spiritual adventureNoreen MackeyDarton, Longman & Todd. £10.95 Noreen Mackey was a successful, middle-aged barrister working at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg when she felt called to join an enclosed Carmelite monastery in remotest France. This book is the story of her call to religious life, and of the 18 months she spent with the Order; and of her painful leaving and how the experience changed her life. It reads, as promised by the subtitle, as a compelling spiritual adventure. The story begins on the balcony of Mackey’s comfortable apartment in Luxembourg. Re-reading The Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross, Mackey felt she has met her old Lover, in the mystical sense experienced by St John (the text of The Secret Ladder is divided into sections named after Paul Simon songs), and determined to set out in search of him once more. The search took her on retreat to a rural French monastery (as houses for Carmelite nuns are called). Appalled at first by how uniform the nuns seem, she nevertheless discovered great peace in prayer and experienced a sense of "invitation". After several more visits, she perceived the humanity and individual personalities beneath the nuns’ habits and began to feel that she could not carry on her search for God anywhere else. Just under two years after her first visit, Mackey left behind her career, her apartment, her family and friends and joined the order as a postulant. At this point her difficulties began. Mackey’s honesty is touching and revealing; she tells of her struggles and insights, and her confusion as she judges herself regressing into childish resentments rather than growing in holiness. She is able to present the despair and joys of that period as vividly as if she were in the midst of feeling them, yet with the clear-sighted wisdom that later reflection brings. As we journey with her, Mackey brings to life her companions – prioress, novice mistress, fellow postulant and other members of the community – without sentimentality but with humour, understanding and vitality. Despite the troubles which beset her early postulancy, Mackey was accepted by the community to take the habit 10 months after entering. A period of happy preparation followed but afterwards her old problems returned with a vengeance. Eighteen months after she first joined the community, Mackey came to realise that she actually preferred a solitary life – though she was still not willing to contemplate leaving the monastery altogether, believing it to be the only way to give her life totally to God. A dramatic showdown with the novice mistress culminated in her departure, feeling an enormous sense of loss and failure, as well as anger at her superiors. The most important message of the book, for me, is confined to the epilogue. After a period of grieving, Mackey began to find meaning in her experience and understand its importance as part of her quest for God. She finally came to realise that in the pain and confusion of her loss she had found her way more nearly to dependence on God than she could ever have done through staying at the monastery. In fact, her leaving was the point of the experience. Mackey’s story is an intensely personal one, but it has a universal validity. Here we can recognise our own experience of trying to live well and discovering how far we are from our own ideals. Here we find encouragement to look again at the failures in our own lives and to re-examine what we can learn from them. There is much to learn in the extraordinary stories of ordinary lives, and comfort to be gained from the knowledge that others have questions and struggles like our own. There is a challenge, too, as we hear how others try to live faithfully, and commit ourselves again, each to our own search for God. This is a wonderful, inspiring book: I heartily recommend it to anyone willing to enter upon a spiritual adventure. Rachel Howell The Irish Catholic, Thursday May 19, 2005Insight into the cloistered life"The Secret Ladder" is a compelling read. The "what-next" factor kept me busily reading. The chapters are short which makes it an excellent bedtime book. The story is told briskly but clearly, for the author has remembered not only the doings but also the feelings associated. She arouses the readers sympathy as well as providing us with an insight into the cloister. Noreen Mackey recounts a spiritual adventure with all the brilliant insights and dashed hopes which such a journey entails for those who are seeking and striving towards their unique way to God. From her position as a busy barrister and sophisticated woman-of-the-world in Luxembourg, Noreen received what she interpreted as a clear call from God to the life of a Carmelite Sister. She ventured forth, in the words of her favourite director, St John of the Cross "Without light or guide save that which burned in my heart …" Our hearts can be fickle and volatile But Noreen gave time and consideration to the move she felt called to make. She chose the Carmelite monastery at Aubépine where she stayed at the monastery guesthouse for a time to get the feeling of the life she was planning. She describes well the beauty and peace of the place compared to the life she had left in Luxembourg. The members of the community are well described and the author, from a visitor's viewpoint, found the community charming and friendly. The whole environment was conducive to prayer for Noreen. She describes vividly the excitement we experience when we feel that we have discovered our raison d'etre. After the first sunny vista of simplicity, peace and prayer came torrential rain - a metaphor, perhaps, for what lay ahead. Noreen was to be part of a community of women where relationships were to be forged and rules to be observed. Resentments and all the normal angst of the human scene are not swept away by giving one's life to God. Often quite the opposite. Coming from the legal world where she had felt confident and respected, Noreen experienced a great shock to her system. Her confidence was shaken by the conditions imposed on her. Even though there were moments of delightful togetherness it was difficult to identify her new role. While trying hard to smile, fit in and make new friends, Noreen discovered that she could be seen as arrogant and critical. Again in The Dark Night of the Soul she tried to understand St John of the Cross' description of the action of fire on wood. She often felt in no mood for the Fire that could be part of God's purging love. There are feast days and special days of rest and celebration for the Carmelite community. The activities of these days gave me a new view of Carmelite life. Noreen describes how much she wanted to be a joyful part of these and how the reality worked out. The reader nods in understanding and with a smile. Yes! It would spoil the tale were I to share with you how Noreen worked out - or failed to cut through - the challenges which were part of her new life. I found her description of that way of life to be revealing and very honest. Dreams of the contemplative do not always sit easily with the reality. "We're strong", said Sr Marie-Paul confidently, her eyes sparkling. "We're well used to clearing woodland. We do it all the time." Was this a metaphor or the real thing? Read about it. Noreen Mackey's story is certainly "an adventure." Angela McNamara Church Times, 22 July 2005Carmelite callThis refreshingly honest account of time Noreen Mackey spent exploring a Carmelite vocation in France has an interesting subtext: the writings of St John of the Cross. The story begins in Luxembourg, where she was working as a lawyer in the European Court of Justice. One sleepless night she took down a copy of The Spiritual Canticle and experienced a beguiling sense of call. Within three years this led her to a Carmelite monastery at Aubépine, a name she uses to describe the remote spot where she joined the community in 1996. There follows an engaging account of her 18 months there. She already knew the lure of a Carmelite vocation, for she had been a novice at a monastery in Ireland when she was 18. What makes this second attempt noteworthy is the complete sense of purpose, and the apparent desire for self-oblation, with which she undertook the journey. She describes her rediscovery of prayer, her longing for solitude, and yet her difficulties with community life and with the sisters in charge of her. A conflict of intelligence as much as interests, one suspects. She writes of Aubépine with huge affection and, at times, regret; but what is clear by the end of the book is that her time there was a bridge leading her back to a way of living her Christian vocation in the world. She returned to the law, and headed Ireland’s investigation of an international tax fraud known as the Ansbacher Affair. We are left with the sense that writing te book has enabled her to make sense of her experience, and to accept God’s strange dealings with her. We share her hopes, her pain, and her ultimate healing. Lavinia Byrne |
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