One Nun's Story

At the age of fi ve, Mary Jane Masterson’s destiny was foretold by a stranger. “That one,” said the Brother of Holy Cross, pointing at Mary Jane as he sat comfortably in their living room with her mother, “will be a nun.” His prediction, repeated in later years by other friends and acquaintances, became reality when, in 1946 at the age of eighteen, Mary Jane joined the Sisters of St. Joseph and became a “bride of Christ.” She adapted quickly to religious life, sharing prayer and living quarters with other nuns, an “elitist group” considered by many in the secular world to have far more than secular access to God’s love, a belief encouraged by Vatican I. But as the Second Vatican Council came to a close in 1965, a shift in theology shook Sister Mary Jane to her very core. Had she sacrifi ced marriage, sex, and children of her own for nothing? Follow Sister Mary Jane on her journey from her calling to the noblest of vocations to her acceptance of how, as a nun, she could affect the world beyond her community and her school.