Introduction Joan Chittister
The cover flap of the first edition of Rumer Godden’s 1979 novel, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, carries a comment from a Washington Post reviewer, who wrote, “Rumer Godden has written beautifully about nuns.” I smiled when I read the statement. It is at best only partially true. Godden wrote wonderful stories about nuns, but in Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, she wrote about a great deal more. In fact, Elizabeth Fanshawe, Godden’s protagonist, is more an icon of what it means to be a human being than an icon of what it means to be any particular kind of nun. Rumer Godden’s novel came at exactly the time when it was most needed to make the point that sanctity is a process and a struggle for us all, religious as well as lay. By 1979, the Catholic community was locked in disagreement about exactly what nuns were meant to be. Or look like. Or do. The first blush of excitement that came with Vatican Council II and its sweeping adaptations to the modern world had worn off by this time. In its place was the confusion that normally follows any major