How do you solve a problem like sisters Regina, Rita and Bernadette, the three nuns with a combined age of 250 who have triple-handedly provided the world with a fully fledged plot for Nuns On The Run II?
If somehow you missed out on this captivating story, let me fill you in. The delightful trio broke out of their Catholic care home, aided and abetted by former students and a locksmith, dashed away on their Zimmer frames and broke back into the convent they had been forced to leave when it was taken over and then closed by an Augustinian monastery.
Wreathed in smiles after doing a runner, the three sisters explained that when they joined their holy order, they were assured the picturesque Kloster Goldenstein with its snow-capped Alpine backdrop would be their home for life. They were its last three occupants before being forcibly evicted and “rehoused” in a retirement home.
Their joyful reaction to being back inside the familiar walls of Kloster Goldenstein shows that uprooting and decanting people into alien environments is an assault on their spiritual equilibrium.
“I am so pleased to be home,” said Sister Rita. “I was always homesick at the care home. I am so happy and thankful to be back.”
Sister Bernadette added: “We weren’t asked. We had the right to stay here until the end of our lives and that was broken. Before I die in that old people’s home, I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity that way.”
The nuns must surely be the poster women for all elderly people who are under pressure to downsize, or elbowed by concerned relatives out of their beloved abodes and into care homes.
The sisters were professionally cared for in their home, but without the comfort of the surroundings they loved, they lost themselves so profoundly even their faith could not sustain them.
Too many pensioners in the United Kingdom will empathise strongly with the three nuns.
They know how heart-wrenchingly disorientating it is to be separated from the place where you put down roots. Sitting in your own living room, in your battered but comfy armchair, looking through your own window at your lifelong view is one of life’s sweetest pleasures.
We need to resuscitate our broken care system urgently – or expect to see a spate of copycat seniorcitizen break-outs.