Monday, September 20
anno Domini MMCDX

My dear sister,

The identification codes accompanying this message should satisfy you that it does come from the person and the place it claims. I hope this letter finds you well, and that receiving it was not too great a shock.

Yes, you've read the headers correctly. This message truly is originating from an Irish Catholic monastery on the Outer Rim; one you already know of, in fact. Such are the strange workings of God's mercy. I won't bore you with the details of how I came to be here - that story is better told in person - but you should understand that I am not simply taking refuge here, as a foundling or one fleeing a dark past might do. In truth, I was a bit of both those things when I first came here, but now I know that I am the one who's done the finding, and I cannot flee from a past I have discarded.

That we parted so poorly at our last meeting is one of the few regrets I still have, but nothing can be done about it now. I said and did many stupid, hate-filled things in those days, and only recently have I come to understand that what I truly hated was myself. With God's help and that of my brothers and sisters here, I have relinquished that hatred, and with it all others. I know now why members of religious communities so often take new names; as a child (for that is what I was before I came here) I believed that talk of the death of old selves and rebirth in Christ was superstitious nonsense, but now I have beheld His face with my own eyes and known the sunlike heat of His love, and now I understand. Plena est omnis terra gloria eius.

Relax, this isn't the part where I try to convert you. Your personal relationship with the Almighty is no one's business but your own. I merely want to try, as best I can, to show you how and why I've changed, because I am leaving the cloister soon to undertake the next phase of my mission in life.

Since coming to the Abbey of St. Donicus, I have taken four sets of vows. The first were to undertake my novitiate; the second to confirm that I intended to carry it through; the third to mark its end and take my place as a full sister of the Order. The fourth, which I took this morning, solemnized my selection as a member of the Order's corps of itinerant crusaders - a Cleric of the Holy Grammaton. You are, I believe, familiar with this organization and its mission.

I do not know where my travels as a Cleric will take me; none of us do, for our path upon departing St. Donicus Abbey is left to the will of the Lord. However, given that we share a small galaxy and that nothing in this life is ever truly coincidental, it seems inevitable that we will find ourselves face-to-face again someday. I don't want there to be any misunderstandings when that day comes.

I won't say I've forgiven you for the grievances I voiced when we last met, because that would be fatuous; I've come to understand that, for your part, there is nothing to forgive. Instead, I have forgiven myself my trespasses, and I hope you'll forgive me as well. Though you are not of our Order, you are in another, equally meaningful way my sister, and now that I have at last learned to love myself, so I can finally love you.

If you want to respond - and I hope you do - you can address any message to me here at the Abbey, care of Brother Errol Partridge C.G.T., Master-at-Arms of the Tetragrammaton. I don't know where I'll be, but wherever I am in the galaxy, Brother Partridge will find me.

Be well, Dorothy. Sit sine labe decoris tuae.

Yours in Christ,

Sister Mary Destiny C.G.