‘I didn’t want to be click-clacking along to a Press conference in stilettoes... I’d rather be at Jesus’ feet, praying’
Martina Purdy (55) quit her high-profile BBC job to become a nun but rules meant she had to leave the convent five years later. Now sharing a house in Downpatrick with fellow former nun Elaine Kelly, she tells Editor-at-large Gail Walker what prompted her to give up her career and her devastation at not taking final vows
Q As political correspondent for BBC NI, your Canadian accent was familiar to audiences here, but you were born Belfast.
A I lived in Ladybrook in Andersonstown until
I was five. Then, in March 1971, we left for Canada. (The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland) Chichester-clark had resigned and my father said to my mother: “We’re getting out of here, there’s going to be a bloodbath.” He wasn’t wrong. I’d two brothers then. Mark is a year older than me and Grant was 18-months-old. I also have a younger brother, Logan, born in Canada.
My father was English and met my mother at a dance in Belfast. He was doing his National Service here. Mum was from the Falls Road and worked in a clothing factory on the Donegall Road. They married in February 1963. My first memory of Canada is walking through the snow at night. I always said I’d move back to Belfast and no one believed me, but I did go back when I was 21.
Q After graduating from the University of Toronto, you worked in advertising in Belfast, returned to Canada for journalism college, then worked as business correspondent at the Irish News and business editor at the Belfast Telegraph before breaking into politics.
A I started as political correspondent at the Telegraph on April Fools’ Day 1996... I do think God has a sense of humour! Three years later I moved to the BBC.
Q What an exciting time to cover politics. A Yes, but we also spent two years outside Castle Buildings just waiting around for a deal, though of course there’d be big moments. I’ve funny memories too: once I got pushed out of a media scrum and Ian Paisley boomed “Let the little girl through”. The cameras parted like the Red Sea. Someone said “Don’t let him patronise you” but I said “If it gets me into this Press conference, I don’t care.” Later, he took umbrage when I challenged him at a Press conference. After that, he called me “the foreigner”. The big characters — Mallon, Hume, Adams, Mcguinness, Trimble and Paisley — were very interesting. You wanted the peace but you had to be objective and ask the hard questions.
Q Yet you walked away from career success to become a nun.
A It was a surprise for me too as I had a job I loved. I was raised a Catholic. My mother was very devout, my father was Church of England but converted to Catholicism when he married. He’d a prayer that if he couldn’t have a strong faith, then his children would have a strong faith.
Faith was very much part of growing up. We went to Mass and I liked to read about the saints. By the 1970s, post-vatican Two, you’d the feminist movement and when I graduated in the Eighties women had so many choices. I questioned aspects of the Catholic Church, such as why you couldn’t have women priests. The sex abuse scandal was horrific. And I couldn’t understand why anybody would want to be a nun...
Qwhat changed?
A In my early 40s I began praying more. I’d take nice holidays, but then I went to Peru and was shocked by the poverty. My mother named me after St Martin de Porres and there was a shrine to him at a church in Lima. I prayed there, “Lord, please help me to change, I want to live a life that would be more faithful to you, I want to help other people...” (laughing) “... of course I’ve nothing too drastic in mind Lord.” And then I shopped my way through Peru. But I felt I might return as an aid worker, that my life as a journalist was coming to an end.
Q That feeling continued back in Belfast?
A I started to attend Eucharistic Adoration and Divine Mercy at St Michael the Archangel Church in west Belfast. My prayer life developed — I’d be walking past people in the street and pray for blessings on them. One Monday night I’d to present Stormont Today and realised I didn’t want to be click-clacking along to a Press conference in my stilettoes, but would rather be at the feet of Jesus, praying. I was torn between my old life and an internal process that had grown from a fleeting desire to give my life to God to being on my mind all the time.
Q Tell us about a series of pivotal encounters.
A I was helping at a Church conference in Belfast when Father Peter Mcverry, who works with the homeless in Dublin, said something that struck me: “If you want your share in the kingdom of God now, you don’t have to wait until the next life, you can have it right now if you’re willing to give up everything and follow Jesus.” I’m like “Wow, I wouldn’t mind my share... but I’ve got a lot of possessions!” The next day I went on holiday to Italy. Due to a last-minute change, we stayed in a hotel that had been a convent, with a little chapel attached. I went to Mass and felt this great sense of joy.
Back in Belfast, I’d this overwhelming sense that my possessions were choking me. I met the director of vocations and told him: “All I can think of is Woody Allen’s quote that ‘the third floor of Hell is reserved for journalists and it’s full’, I don’t want to end up on the third floor... ” And I’d a good career, a mortgage, mum was getting older, it felt impossible. He suggested a retreat.
The following weekend I’d agreed to take a nun in her 90s to a healing Mass at St Thomas Aquinas School. She was blind and didn’t watch TV so didn’t know who I was. The first thing she said was: “Will you be a nun?” I thought, “Who’s she going to tell?” so replied “Maybe”. She said, “When the Lord touches your heart, nothing else will make you happy.” At the Mass there was a sign behind the altar: “First, do what is necessary, then do what is possible and the impossible will follow”. It was a quote from St Francis of Assisi. I thought “That’s for me”.
In March 2014, I enjoyed covering St Patrick’s Day in Washington but was 95% sure this was my last work trip. The retreat made up my mind. I saw a tree without leaves, knowing it could be transformed and heard in my heart the words of Scripture: “I am the vine, you are the branches.”
I’d spent two years thinking about it. It would be so public. I couldn’t get a year off from the BBC to try it, I was walking away from everything, there was no going back. But I was totally sure, happy, peaceful... ready for a new life.
Q Had you felt conflict between faith and your work as a journalist?
A I’d never have intruded in someone’s personal life but latterly there were complicated stories at Stormont and I felt compassion for those involved. Before if I’d reported something that caused difficulty for someone, it never occurred to me how difficult that was for them. Now, I understood the stress they were under.
I also realised the Troubles had broken out because our ties to politics, culture and identity were stronger than our ties to Christ.
Q Why did you join the Adoration Convent on the Falls Road?
A Sister Eileen from that convent was at the retreat and someone suggested joining her order. I looked at her brown dress and said, “Oh no, I’m looking for powder blue!” But I went there to pray and was drawn to it. I did a three-day live-in in June and cried the whole way back to the BBC. I couldn’t quit work immediately because of financial obligations but worked those out and left in October. I entered on the feast of St Martin de Porres on November 3, 2014.
Q Were your family supportive?
A The first person I told was my brother, Logan. I was on such a high. I said “I’m quitting the BBC.” He asked “Are you drunk?” He didn’t expect it. But all my family supported me. My other two brothers weren’t surprised. Mum lived nearby and I was her only daughter but was very generous in accepting it because she wouldn’t have the same access to me, though she began volunteering at the convent and we’d say hello to each other most days. My dad died in 2003.
Q Did you have to give up all your worldly possessions?
A As a novice you can’t own a car and a house. Your money is put in a trust, you can’t spend it and you live as if you have nothing. That’s because if you feel unsure at any stage, the Church does not want you to feel trapped because you’ve no money. (Becoming a nun) is a nine-year process. When that finishes you decide what to with do any finances: you might give it to family, the congregation or the poor.
After three years I took my first vows on September 23, 2017, and my final vows were due to be taken on September 23, 2023...
Q Shockingly, that never happened. You and three others had to leave because the congregation was too small to meet the Catholic Church’s standards.
A It was devastating. On the eve of Ash Wednesday, 2019, we were told we’d have to leave when our vows ran out. We’d be laicized. We were immediately sent in to pray. I just stared at Jesus in disbelief.
Afterwards, Elaine asked “Did you get a word from the Lord?” but I said I’d been too busy glaring at Him. She thought she’d two words in her heart: “Be amazed”. I’d renewed my vows for another year so was going to see it out. That was hard, living the life but knowing it’s coming to an end. It’s like your husband telling you he still loves you but you are breaking up.
I’d sleepless nights, wondering how was I going to live. I don’t have the resources I once had. But that’s very human thinking — that security lies in money in the bank, a house. I learned my security lies in God who looks after me. I thought I’d lost everything — my status as an Adoration Sister, my home — but I didn’t lose my faith. This was God saying I want everything, even those things you love now.
Q what did you do?
A I was going to live in mum’s apartment but a Downpatrick woman offered us a place in that town. First, Elaine and I went to Florida, where my family has a place.
We took time out to recover, to see what God was asking.
‘I had sleepless nights, wondering how was I going to live. I don’t have the resources I once had’
Q Has adjusting to life outside the convent been hard?
A I didn’t want to be poor but had to accept I’d be in the world without all the trappings you expect for security. I‘ve learned to live one day at a time, not to think “What will happen when I’m 75 and my pension doesn’t exist as it would if I’d stayed at the BBC...” But I’m sitting by the fire. I’m doing okay.
Q Could you still become a nun?
A The five years at the convent are not transferable... it’s not like doing five years at law school, then switching school. Most congregations take younger people though some take a person my age. I’d have to feel drawn to a congregation, do another nine years and I don’t really have years any more. Seven years ago my mum was younger. I know she wouldn’t stand in my way but I’d have to consider all that.
Qwhat do you miss most?
A The hours of adoration and stillness, the quiet. Elaine and I have a prayer room, pray three times a day and have online Mass daily.
Q In the convent, did you lose touch with popular culture — music and books?
A In the car going to Tesco I’d blast out Bruce Springsteen. I was given his autobiography as a Christmas gift and I read that and prayed for him, but most books there were spiritual. My friend (the late journalist) Seamus Kelters came to tell me he’d cancer; he was hopeful of beating it. But every time he came after that the news was worse. I was reading Peter Kreeft’s Making Sense of Suffering and felt like throwing it out the convent window, though actually it’s excellent.
Q Downpatrick has brought new opportunities...
A I write for the parish magazine, have an online column, Grace Notes, and do PR work for the Saint Patrick Centre. Elaine and I teach online and are Pilgrim Guides on the Saint Patrick’s Way Walk. Those words Elaine was given earlier — “Be amazed”? When researching St Patrick, I read that famous line about being “like a stone in the mud” and in the next lines are those words “Be amazed”.
Q any regrets?
A The mistakes in my life, but they’ve made me humble. And that I didn’t enter the convent earlier.
For further information on Saint Patrick’s Way, go to: www.saintpatrickcentre.com