A mother had two daughters whom she loved dearly. And then they both died and she was told things that her mourning was excessive and inordinate and then was quoted words like these of St. Chyrsostom:

To mourn is part of nature; but to mourn with impatience is to injure your departed friend, to offend God, and to hurt your self.

And

How absurd it is to call heaven much better than this earth, and yet to mourn for those who depart thither in peace.

Oh, yes–she was also told that it’s wrong for the godly to be too stoic, but if you mourn too much, you will lose touch with the love of God in your heart.

Well, all of these things were presented to Monegondes (the woman who lost her daughters). She was told that “this much, but no more” grief was acceptable. Can you imagine?! She was told to dial her grief down to an acceptable level, or she’d be offending God! Monegondes was told that it was wrong, if she was going to be a good Christian, to wish her daughters to be with her on earth when they were in a much better place.

What Monegondes did makes great sense–she informed her husband (who didn’t appear to care all that much) that she had had enough of everything and everyone, left town and built her own cell, shutting herself up in it. Butler tells us, “She had no other furniture than a mat strewed on the floor on which she took her short repose”; in other words, Monegondes just had enough of the world and people’s nattering.

Over time, other women heard about Monegondes and decided that they too wanted to live like her–tired of the crap out there in the world, desiring to streamline their lives and do so away from all the mansplaining about how they should feel, react, and behave. Together they called what they co-created a “nunnery” (which was their only option in the 500s) and, over time that nunnery morphed into a place of education.

The men assumed that Monegondes accepted their chiding about grieving over her daughters too much, and created a holy nunnery, and “rewarded” her memory by making her a saint. Yet, to my 21st century eyes, her story reads as a major way of telling all these Job’s Comforters that they were utterly incapable of understanding her grief and she could no longer bear to be around them. She shut them out–literally–and used her time to find herself, allowing other women to find her, and then re-engaging community life on her own terms.

Thanks, Monegondes!