The Magdalen Laundries - Lisa Michelle Odgaard

Imagine being forced out of the security of your home and put to work in a convent laundry. Kept under lock and key, you now spend your days hunched over a washbasin filled with hot, dirty water for twelve full hours. The nuns in charge use brushes, belts, threats and insults to keep you in line. You are made to repeat "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys" endlessly, the murmur of your voice and those of a hundred other young women adding to the monotony of your tedious, exhausting workday. Now, imagine that you are only sixteen years old. This nightmare was daily endured by many of Ireland's teenage girls in the "penitent women's laundries." Society's so-called "wayward teens" were removed from their homes and put to work in the laundries, forced by priests and nuns to symbolically cleanse themselves of their sins. These unfortunate women were known as the "Magdalens," after Mary Magdalene, and their story is a chapter in Ireland's history that many would be happy to close. The Magdalen Laundries is the story of two girls living through just such an ordeal, cut off from their families and the world: Maren, wrongfully accused of fornication and struggling to maintain a faith in God under these trying circumstances, and Ceara, pregnant by rape but sustained by her belief in Christ and a loving God. It is the story of a journey that shows the loving grace and forgiveness possible through Christ even during the most painful and difficult of trials.