The Little Sisters

The mother superior hardly knew what to make of it. Here was a nun in her 20s, an attractive French girl with a wisp of brown hair sticking out from under the light blue veil of her habit, walking about alone in the streets of Madrid. What the nun told the mother superior, in a combination of French and halting Spanish, was almost equally surprising: she had come from Aix-en-Provence to establish the first house of her order, the Little Sisters of Jesus, in Spain. She asked the mother superior of the Casa de la Virgen for hospitality until she could find a place to live.

In a few days, Sister Marie Aline was joined by a teen-age novice, Sister Dominique, who had once been a student at the University of Aix-Marseilles. Every morning after Mass, the two sallied forth alone in their blue and grey habits on long walks through sections of the city where nuns and priests--or anyone with a few pesos to rub together--are seldom to be seen. At last the horrified mother superior summoned them and demanded an explanation. "We are searching for our future home," replied Sister Marie Aline serenely. "But it is not up to us to decide exactly where we should settle. Jesus will let us know." She explained that the principal rule of their order, inspired by the French priest Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) is simply "Live and work among the humble."

Pigs & Garbage. One day the two young nuns found La Bomba. Called that because it is expanding like an exploding bomb, it is a shantytown village on Madrid's outskirts, without streets or lights, without water or trees or grass. There is only a huddle of huts and a dusty, sun-baked path ending in a square with a deep hole in its center, the community's only sanitary system. It is a place of shred-clothed beggars, gypsies, shrill urchins, stray dogs, pigs and piles of garbage. Whenever a new family arrives, the whole community turns to and helps build them a shack by night, when the police dare not interfere. When morning comes they have a "house," and can stay there as long as they want.

In La Bomba, Sister Marie Aline and Sister Dominique knew they had found their new home. That night the nuns of the Casa de la Virgen prayed long for the two sisters out in the dangerous dark. And that night, by the light of a big bonfire, the neighbors of La Bomba labored with the sisters to build their house.

Their house was built around Christmas time. All through the raw winter, Sisters Marie Aline and Dominique worked to establish themselves, putting up a fence to keep out the animals and building a small, neat chapel. Little Sisters of Jesus are supposed to earn their own living: Sister Dominique got a job as charwoman to a rich family in town and Sister Marie Aline began to give French lessons and do babysitting. The people of La Bomba accepted them as their own. Women dropped in to offer help and ask advice; children picked up French words to impress them; during the black winter nights a couple of young men, apparently loafing around the sisters' hut, kept an eye peeled for obstreperous drunks. One widow with six children spoke for the whole community when she told how she felt about the nuns: "When I see them come in to help me with the washing or cooking, I know I'm not alone any more. Up until now I've seen nuns and priests only in church--whenever I've had time to go. And I've had mighty little."

Small Disappointment. The Spanish clergy, however, is not used to the Little Sisters' way of doing things. One rainy day this spring, Don Angel, the parish priest whose church is more than a mile from the settlement, sloshed through the mud for his first visit to the nuns. He could not conceal his disapproval. "My daughters, I hope you know what you are doing," he said, shaking his head. A high-ranking prelate, hearing of the sisters' work, observed: "Every country has its own traditions and customs. Here we preach the word of God and help the poor as best we can, but in different ways. Our nuns remain cloistered in their convents and our priests are supposed to hold the prestige of their mission high, as befits ministers of God. Those girls will learn the hard way, I fear."

Last week a third Little Sister joined the others at La Bomba: 24-year-old Marie Amelie Arizmendi, a French Basque. The warm weather had come at last, and the Order of the Little Sisters of Jesus seemed securely established in Spain. Only one small disappointment flawed Sister Marie Amelie's arrival. Don Angel refused for the second time to dedicate their little chapel.

The first time, it was because the roof leaked. This time, Don Angel said, it was because the chapel could not be securely shut. But the sisters and their neighbors were working hard last week to put up strong doors and a stout lock, and Sister Marie Aline bubbled with optimism. "We will end up by having such a nice little chapel that Father Angel will be happy to come and say Mass in it," she said. "We can do good work here."

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