When the U.S.S. Constitution headed to Rome in early June 1964, the newly elected president of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the United States was aboard. After her election, the assembled reverend mothers urged Sr. Mary Luke Tobin to head to Rome.

Why? The Second Vatican Council was underway, and a document on religious life in the modern era was on the table. No one was sure what they intended to change, and the leaders of women’s religious orders in the U.S. had an abiding interest in any proposed changes, although no one had invited a single woman to these sessions. There were no women invited to these meetings. So Mother Mary Luke hopped on a boat to Rome.

originally published in the July 2007 issue of Secretum Meum Mihi 

(New York: Vintage Paperbacks, 2001. 192 pp.)

Lying Awake is as close to a poem as a novel can get. Salzman packs meaning and beauty into a little book. Amazingly, Salzman understands the mind of a woman; I had to look again to see if "she" used a pen name. Salzman borrows the cyclical routine of a cloistered convent and the feasts of the liturgical year to organize his novel. As a result, his novel feels orderly and peaceful. This serenity contrasts with the internal struggles of Sister John of the Cross to know and do God's will.