In 1969, Sister Meg Carney is fresh out of the Novitiate and sent as a missionary to Chile just in time to witness the overthrow of the socialist government of Salvador Allende.

In the aftermath of the brutal military coup, the priest she works with is murdered and she herself is the target of surveillance. Burned out, grieving over the loss of her compaero, Alfredo, and no longer the young nun who had set out so enthusiastically to bring God's sword to the Chilean people six years earlier, Meg accepts an invitation from her Mother Superior to work in El Salvador where she will join Theo, her best pal from Novitiate days, and her former Novice Mistress Queen Mum.

Smugly feeling she is now a savvy missionary, Meg is soon set straight by Theo who tells her an entirely different revolution is taking place in El Salvador. Fed by Biblical reflection rather than by Marxist analysis, Meg is soon caught up in events that bring revolutionary forces to a head.

As a woman burdened by her vow of chastity struggles with her religious vocation to serve the poor, she somehow manages to find love and peace in the rawness of life.