Sister Mary Baruch loves the Office of Compline and relishes how it ushers in the Great Silence of the night . . . a time to reflect on the events of the day, or the week, or the year, or even one’s whole life.

Those who know her can reflect with her on her Jewish childhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; her coming to know the Lord, becoming a Catholic, and five years later, becoming a cloistered Dominican nun in Brooklyn Heights, New York. We’ve met her family, her friends, her sisters in community; and we’ve met her fears, her compulsions, her struggles to live a life of faith, hope, and love. Her life is not over, but there is a transition from the ambitions and work of her early years and midlife crisis to a “completion”, a compline of sorts, which continues her pilgrimage into Great Silence.

The spiritual battle continues, for the forces of Evil confront her in herself; in those whom she loves; in the sins of others for whom she prays and offers penance, within and outside the monastery itself. The years are 2005 to 2007. She likes to end her day after Compline, sitting in her rocker in her cell, praying and writing and telling the Lord all about everything.