I love that Catholic sisters and nuns are increasingly present on the Internet and in social media and networks. Sister Maxine and I have seen astronomical growth since we first began in 2006 with blogging and social media and then adding a forum in 2008, podcasts in 2009, an iPhone app in 2010, and a newly updated forum in 2011. What’s next?!

When we started, there were very few nuns around but today I’m happy to see them in many areas of the Internet, social media, and technology! In fact, there is now a nun who develops software applications, commonly know as “apps”. Sister Catherine Wybourne is a Benedictine nun of Holy Trinity Monastery in Oxfordshire county in southeast England.

Rather than turning to traditional bake sales to raise money for the monastery she founded along with two other Benedictine sisters seven years ago, Wybourne is setting her sights on software application sales, and developing two apps for the iPhone.

She says one app will focus on the rule of Saint Benedict and will be free, and other is an app to help parish priests. The nun wouldn’t elaborate more on the idea, except to say she can’t believe nobody else has thought of the idea before.

“We are going to charge for our apps because we are in the middle of a fundraising campaign and we are trying to get people to get hold of the idea of philanthropic investment,” Wybourne said, sounding more like the banker she was for a few years before entering religious life in 1981. “So it would not be a good idea on the one hand to say please invest in us, and on the other, give everything away for free.” (source: Apple and the App-Making Nun by Margaret Rock, May 11, 2011)

You can find Sister Catherine on Twitter @DigitalNun and at Holy Trinity Monastery.

What other areas of the Internet, social media, and technology do you think nuns should get into?

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We are delighted to announce dates for our new Digital Ministry Podcast! More details on topics for each episode will follow. (NOTE: Initially, this podcast was called Social Ministry podcast)

The Digital Ministry Podcast focuses on using Internet technologies and social media for ministry. The podcast will be a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in everyday life on the Internet.

The Digital Ministry Podcast will begin on Thursday, September 9, 2010, at 3 p.m. Central Time and be held monthly on the second Thursday. It will be a 60-minute live broadcast which you can access at http://aNunsLife.org/live. We also have a chat room for you to use during the broadcast in order to connect with one another and with us.

The current schedule for 2010 is as follows:

• Thursday, September 9 at 3 p.m. CST
• Thursday, October 14 at 3 p.m. CST
• Thursday, November 11 at 3 p.m. CST
• Thursday, December 9 at 3 p.m. CST

Check out our full podcast schedule and join us for other podcasts such as Praying with the Sisters, Ask Sister, and Feature Podcast.

Also, we have also created a discussion forum for you to interact with one another any time of the day or night! Visit our Community Forum and look for the topic “Digital Ministry Podcast Listeners.” The forum is available now.

If you’d like to be on our mailing list for more information about the Digital Ministry Podcast and other A Nun’s Life Ministry news, enter your info below:
** If you’ve already signed up for the podcast via this blog post, then no need to sign up again!

If you have ideas for possible topics or persons to interview, let us know! Comment below!

A Nun’s Life Ministry will be launching a new podcast soon! The Digital Ministry Podcast will be on using Internet technologies and social media for ministry. We’ve been using these things for 4 years now and get many questions asking us “how’d you do that?” The new podcast will be a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance our capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. (FYI: Podcast was initially called Social Ministry Podcast)

This podcast is for anyone who ministers online or who uses the Internet to connect with people: vocation directors, youth ministers, online community managers, religious communities and parishes, webmasters for religious organizations, churches and parishes, individuals, and more!

This is a place where no question is too foolish and everyone can share their wisdom and questions.

We’ll share our experience with blogs, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, equipment, software, consultants and collaborators, books and resources, and interacting with people online. We’ll also interview folks across the social media landscape who can provide expertise, insight, and concrete help on a variety of related topics.

Here are some of the kinds of things we’ll talk about:

• How to get people to comment more on your blog
• Can one really do ministry “virtually”?
• What can I do to spread the word about my website?
• What are some good, solid Catholic organizations that I can go to for help or direct my visitors to?
• What is podcasting and how could it benefit my ministry?
• How do I start a blog?
• What would Jesus do with today’s Internet technology?
• Is it important for me to know what SEO is?
• Which social networks should I belong to?
• What do I do if I get negative comments?
• What is the difference between Twitter and Facebook and blogging?
• Can an iPhone or Blackberry really help me minister better?
• How do I explain to my community/organization why this online stuff is important?
• How do I manage all this online stuff AND still do my regular job?
• How do I care for and nourish my online community?

We’d like to hear from you! If you’d like updates on this podcast by email, click the SIGN UP button below.**  We just need your first name, email (never made public), and check the Digital Ministry Podcast box. If you wish, please let us know your other info, such as ministry position, organization, and website. If you are interested in being an underwriter of this podcast, please contact us for more information.
** If you’ve already signed up by commenting below or emailing me prior to June 14, 2010, then you’ve already been signed up!

Praying the Stations of the Cross is common custom during the season of Lent. It is prayer in which we remember the scenes of Jesus’ passion and death. It is begins with Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane and takes us through the way of the cross, Jesus’ death on the cross, and his burial.

The custom of praying the Stations of the Cross originated with pilgrims who went to visit the Christian holy places of Jerusalem. Of course not everyone could make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem so the good Franciscans created outdoor stations that could be walked and prayed so that people could meditate on the passion and death of Jesus. Eventually people started incorporating the stations within the church building itself.

And now, the Stations of the Cross is as close as your phone. Ave Maria Press recently launched the Stations of the Cross, its very first application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is free for download and is based on the popular John Paul II’s Biblical Way of the Cross by Amy Welborn and Michael Dubruiel.

It’s not just an app … it is a “prayer companion”and I have to say, it really is. The artwork by Michael O’Brien is stunning and is a prayer itself, even without the words. The actual interface of the app is elegantly simple which allows one to be truly present to the meditation without the distractions of trying to figure out how to navigate or dodging advertisements which are common in other free apps. I love having this on my phone and it has become a daily prayer for me. I can also go “old school” with it and take it with me on a hike so that I have both the stations and the sense of pilgrimage.

The Stations of the Cross application is available in the iTunes App Store. You can find out more on the Ave Maria Press website. Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the Indiana Province of the Brothers of the Holy Cross.

What other holy apps do you have on your mobile device? What are some of your favorite customs or experiences around the praying of the Stations of the Cross?

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Join the sisters for evening prayer tonight at 6 p.m. CST and every Monday through Thursday at http://anunslife.org/live

Today’s Nunday has an honorary nun guest — Brother Chris Valka, CSB, of the Congregation of Saint Basil. And yes, we have his picture! Chris recently spoke on Faith in Cyber Communities at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, and was written up in the Western Catholic Reporter.

Valka presented historical highlights of the Church’s mostly positive views on communications.

“History not only gives us perspective, but it also conveys the optimistic stance the Church takes towards media. The Church has never seen the media as an obstacle,” he said.

People who cannot find answers at the institutional Church of brick and mortar are searching for answers in other places, including the cyber community. This gives people worldwide a place to gather and ask life’s tough questions. In spite of the great distance between them, they can debate, discuss and live out the answers.

Be sure to read Brother Chris’s other observations and ideas about new media and the Catholic Church in the article New media can break through barriers.

I had the pleasure of meeting Brother Chris back in 2007 when he interviewed me for his podcast series Conversations with Macrina:

A Discussion About Religious Life (June 23, 2007)

What do you think we religious should be doing online? Would you like us to do more with new media such as podcasts, live discussions, etc.? Give me some ideas about what would interest you, what you think would be helpful to people.

In response to my post about the movie Nun of That, Sister Louise O’Rourke, PDDM, sent me a link to a video she created following a 2-week intensive course of video production in 2004. Sister Louise is a Catholic sister of the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master based in Ireland.

Sister Louise’s goal in creating the video was to challenge the stereotypes of young people toward religious and vice-versa. I think she did a great job. Sister notes that not only is she a real sister, but she did all her own stunts! Also, she notes to ignore the 1st minute of the video as it was the first video exercise she had to do.

Excellent job, Sister Louise! Thank you for sending this. You show that nuns are real people who are dedicated to God and who live and minister as film producers or ninjas while at the same time being contemplative, relevant, joyful, smart women of faith.

Rev. Michael A. Renninger and the Catholic Diocese of Richmond are doing some innovative vocation work on online. Behind the Collar is a website where people can have “an inside look at life as a priest”. Father Renninger, the diocesan vicar for vocations, worked with an advertising agency to develop a campaign to be present online to young men who are discerning a vocation to the priesthood and to give a “behind the scenes” look at the life as a priest.

Behind the Collar features an array of social media in order to give young men multiple doors through which to learn about a vocation to the priesthood. There are videos and podcasts of informal chats between “Father Mike” (as he’s known online) and seminarians discussing priestly life, family reactions, celibacy and more. There are links to Behind the Collar on the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace. And there are frequently asked questions about become a priest.

The website is a very good example being present to young people online and using the media and language that young people are familiar with. Kudos to the Diocese of Richmond! My prayers are with you.

Learn more at the Behind the Collar website and also in a recent article in the Richmond Times, Online campaign helps recruit priests in Virginia.

Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, recently gave a conference on Media and Evangelization and how the Catholic Church is committed to using new media.

What I found particularly intriguing was how the Archbishop framed his remarks about communication. He referred to the work of the late Cardinal Avery Dulles on the theology of the Trinity in order to illustrate his thoughts on communication and how such a theology is foundational to how we connect with others, especially via the new media

The Trinity is, of course, one of the great mysteries of our Catholic faith. The One God is at the same time three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Many mystics and theologians of our faith have looked to the Trinity as a model of how to relate to and communicate with God and one another. The Archbishop quoted Dulles on what this relationship and communication “looks” like within the Trinity:

“The Trinity is communication in absolute, universal perfection, a totally free and complete sharing among equals. In generating the Son as word, the Father totally expresses himself … the Holy Spirit completes the intradivine process of communication” (The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System).

Although this particular quote doesn’t make mention of it, love is key to Dulles’ understanding of the Trinity and of how the Triune God communicates among the three Persons as well as to all of creation. For example, Dulles writes:

“Within the Trinity the Spirit is the subsistent love breathed forth by the Father and the Son. He is the personal bond of union expressing and sealing their mutual love, and proceeding from them” (The Catholicity of the Church, 45).

Key messages about the nature of good communication can be found in both of Dulles’ quotes:

• Good communication is “a totally free and complete sharing among equals”.

• Good communication is the generation of not only words (information) but of a word about who we are; we express ourselves, give ourselves to others when we communicate with them.

• Love proceeds from good communication.

What does this mean in this age of mass communication where we can relate to and communicate with others immediately and through huge variety of media? Do we treat others as equals when we are communicating with them, especially when we are hidden behind the veil of anonymity? Are we attentive to how are words are expressing how we are? Do all of our communications (yes, even that 140 character tweet on Twitter) express love? I’m not talking about sentimental love, but a love that Saint Paul so well articulates in 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Let’s talk more about this. What key messages do you hear in the Archbishop’s conference or in Dulles’ theology of the Trinity? How can we make the blogosphere, especially the Catholic blogosphere, more of a place where good communication is the rule, not the exception?

Other thoughts, ideas, wonderings …

The Vatican has just published a message from Pope Benedict XVI in anticipation of the 43rd World Day of Communications.

New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship (January 24, 2009) is the theme for this year. Writes the Pope,

The new digital technologies are, indeed, bringing about fundamental shifts in patterns of communication and human relationships. These changes are particularly evident among those young people who have grown up with the new technologies and are at home in a digital world …

Pope Benedict addresses the digital generation and offers to them (and to all of us) ideas of how to use the new technologies for good “to promote human understanding and solidarity.”

These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavour to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

While noting the many practical benefits of the new media and technologies, the Pope points out that the digital communication ultimately reflects our fundamental human desire to relate to one other.

This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations…. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call – a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.

Pope Benedict encourages people “Who are active in the emerging environment of digital communication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship.” He then goes on to explain what each of these three elements mean and concludes with an appeal to young Catholic believers to mirror the great Apostles and disciples of the early Church who brought the Good News of Jesus to the world by living the Gospel and proclaiming the Good News to all in the digital world.

I highly recommend reading the full text of the Pope’s message. What does it mean in terms of how we use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, forums, text messaging, and other social networking technologies? How are we (Catholic sisters, parents, teachers, catechists, vocation directors, priests, and other Catholic leaders) present on these social networking sites and using the new technologies? Let us know what you think about the Pope’s message and what it’s call is to you.

P.S. Pope Benedict also just launched a Vatican YouTube channel. Read more at the LA Times.

Celebrate Inauguration Day at my nun Sister Mary Bea Keeley’s blog, IHM Calling. Sister Mary Bea invites people to IHM nuns and friends share your experience of today’s Inauguration Day.

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September and October have been a wirlwind of activity for me. Let’s see … I’ve traveled to Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I’ve seen the Fall colors change in varying degrees in all of these states. I’ve prayed, played, presented, listened, worked, prayed some more, hiked, explored, laughed, and communed with God, with others, and with the great outdoors. It’s been a trip, literally and figuratively, and hopefully in a couple weeks things will settle down. So I’ve been a bit remiss in responding to emails (hang on — if you’ve written to me, I’ll be in touch soon!) and writing about various happenings.

One such happening was my delightful visit with Catholic Mom extraordinaire, Lisa Hendey. Lisa is the woman behind the popular website CatholicMom.com as well as the blog Catholic Mom Moments and Catholic Moments Podcast. Lisa is doing a tremendously good work for Motherhood and for spreading the Good News online. Lisa has an intelligent and compassionate Catholic presence online.

I first met Lisa online in one or another social network that we both were on. While plurking one day, I saw that Lisa was going to be visiting Chicago (she lives in Fresno … probably a lot warmer there right now than here in the Windy City). I invited her to visit and she accepted! Lisa came to Loyola Press where we chatted, toured the place, had lunch and did a podcast.  It was pretty awesome. Having had a few weeks to reflect back on our visit, what remains with me is a sense of spiritual companionship — being with someone where there is a meeting of spirits. Lisa’s active engagement in online ministry and use of new media is a blessing to me personally as well because it’s helpful to have ministerial colleagues in this vast World Wide Web. Online ministry is like a new mission land, a frontier to be explored and to be present on and to reflect the light of Christ. Plus, creating and sustaining an online ministry on a shoe-string (read: no) budget, finding time amidst other responsibilities, dealing with wonky networks and technical issues, etc. — all these can be a huge challenge for those of us in the digital missions. I’m glad to have Lisa as a friend in these adventures!

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Lisa online and hopefully for an occasional visit here at A Nun’s Life.

To catch a bit of Lisa’s and my time together, listen to Lisa’s Catholic Moments podcast for a conversation between the two of us.

After reading a post about sci-fi nuns in a forum, I wondered why the sci-fi nun is so compelling to people. Frankly I think real nuns are way more cool than fictitious nuns. Write a novel about a nun’s quest for justice, a religious community’s care for abused children, a nun’s dedication to community and poverty in a society that values individualism and consumerism. Now that would be awesome.

To highlight the diversity of how nuns have given radical witness to the gospel and to the goodness of life, here’s a sampling of news stories from just the last few days …

Nun spent her life fighting for the homeless and against war and nuclear arms – “Faith was Flats protester’s arsenal” by Virginia Culver for The Denver Post (August 10, 2008)

Nun gives life to teaching and hospital work – “Beloved Sister Cecilia turns 95″ by Brenda Levins McCorkle for The Daily News Online (Longview, WA) (August 9, 2008)

Carmelite nun Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta) martyred 66 years ago – “The Life and Death of a German Jewish Christian Nun by Roderick Strange for The Times Online (UK) (August 8, 2008)

Nun ministers in and around New Orleans – “Marking an Anniversary: Congregation celebrates nun’s 50 years of service” by Eva Jacob Barkoff for The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) (August 7, 2008)

Would love to hear your comments (especially my sci-fi buddy Jen!)

I’m experimenting with Plurk, a social networking type site. I’m still exploring it and learning about it — essentially it’s a kind of instant chat application where you can see what your friends are up to and have mini conversations (140 characters or less for each comment) with one another. I’ve been on Twitter and never thought I’d like Plurk, but I really do! I think it’s the funky icons and generally querkiness that I love. And I think it lends itself to more meaningful interaction, not mere broadcasting.

If you are on Plurk or interested in trying it out, visit me at Plurk. I can’t say that my plurks are always going to be inspirational, just the daily stuff of life including random banter.

My friend Denise is twittering the online conversation with Father Martin … it’s one more way that we can use online technologies to get the word — the Word — out!

Check out Denise’s twittering at http://twitter.com/Denise205 … you can also find my occassional tweets at http://twitter.com/sisterj

I’ve finally succumbed to Twitter. Yes. It’s true. If you’re not yet initiated into the world of Twitter, Twitter is a free online “service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website … Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.” (source)

After playing around with Twitter for a few days, I discovered it was a nice way to see what other people are up to and to write about some of the “little moments” of my daily life. I’m not a twitterholic, so you won’t find an update from me ever two minutes, but I tend to write each weekday. I’ve found some fellow nuns and colleagues on Twitter which is cool.

Come by and visit — Sister Julie on Twitter.

Sister Anne Flanagan, FSP, of Nunblog fame was recently interviewed by David Miller for his Monday on-line religion column at SFGate.com.

FINDING MY RELIGION
Pray for the geeks

by David Ian Miller, San Francisco SFGate.com

Monday, October 29, 2007

Her cell phone has a custom ring tone. She frequents the Internet’s most popular social networking sites. She gets jittery when she can’t check her e-mail or post on her blog. She communicates with her family mostly by AOL instant messenger. And she’s a 50-year-old nun.

Sister Anne Flanagan has been a Daughter of St. Paul for almost 30 years, and lives with five other nuns in a convent upstairs from a Catholic bookstore near Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. She teaches Bible study classes, edits Catholic books and magazines and roams the Internet looking for cool technology, although, she wryly notes, “a vow of poverty tends to limit one’s access.”

She spends her under $100 monthly stipend on cables and gadgets. She’s currently developing a “retreat in a box” idea for a pre-loaded MP3 player, complete with a sermon and hymns. I spoke to Sister Anne by phone — and in case you were wondering, her cell phone’s custom ring tone is “Ave Maria” from the Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria.

I was surprised to find out you have a blog, a YouTube channel, cell phone and e-mail. I assumed that nuns are more cut off from the world than the rest of us.

There are some communities where that’s definitely true. I’ve got a friend who is in a cloister, and she gets permission to write me a letter maybe once a month, a handwritten letter. She’s a Poor Clair, the order founded by St. Clair and St. Francis, and they’re very penitential. Their whole focus is to be a presence of prayer, so they get tons of prayer requests from people, and that’s their form of service. They don’t engage actively with people. But there are other sisters like me who are more visible and more engaged in public forms of service.

How much time do you spend online during the day?

I don’t really measure it, but I can tell you I don’t like being without it. I was traveling last week. I spent a few days with our sisters in Maine, and they only have dial-up at the convent. It was horrible! I’ve gotten used to DSL. I couldn’t even blog, because Blogger wouldn’t load into the computer.

Are there a lot of nuns who blog?

Yes. I link to some nun blogs on my own blog. Some of them are people like me, who just want to be out there, engaged with people. Others are using it for vocational promotion, to be a presence for women who are interested in convent life — there are a surprising number of women looking into consecrated life right now. Probably only a minority will follow through on that impulse, but it’s a beautiful thing.

You told me that you pray for computer software programmers. Can you say a bit more about that?

I do that when I’m, say, reading the technology section of the Wall Street Journal and they introduce a brilliant new piece of software or a new Web site. Sometimes I take the paper to chapel, and I’m thinking, “Jesus, look at this! There are these people who have come up with this application, and these minds that have thought to put this together!” It’s just a matter of pointing them out to God and saying, “Look at these people! Bless them! Give them direction! Give them ideas! Make sure they can use their ideas in a way that contributes to the good and to the health of society.” I hope they feel little waves of inspiration coming at them.

I would imagine that being so immersed in technology could take you away from the more contemplative aspects of life as a nun. How do you handle that?

I’m trying to find an appropriate form of discipline for myself — for my work and my prayer — by just going outside and enjoying the beauty of the day. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, I’d rather just get something done. I really would, because it’s exciting to get stuff done. It’s very exciting, but you could end up like that Chinese gamer who just sat there for days till he dropped dead in his chair or you could say, “Wait a minute. My whole humanity has to be part of this, and for the sake of my humanity I am going to put that thing in sleep mode, take my rosary, walk to Lake Michigan and pray along the lakefront on a beautiful sunny, warm day.”

I need to let my full humanity — body and soul — be recharged and put my work aside because ultimately we all have to put our work aside, you know? That day’s going to come. So it is something that I’m challenged by. I have a screen saver on my laptop that says, “Heaven and earth are full of Your Glory” to remind myself of the whole point of why I am doing this.

Why did you decide to become a nun?

I was 17 when the idea first crossed my mind, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I was finishing up high school, and I’d just been accepted to Loyola University in New Orleans. I was going to study communications, because I wanted to give the Church a voice in the world of media. I didn’t know if I was going to do that by training to be a journalist working in secular media or if I would be focusing more in Catholic communications. I just knew that was what I wanted to do.

Just about that time, the girl across the street had a birthday, and my mother wanted to get her a present at the Daughters of St. Paul bookstore in our suburb of New Orleans. While we were there, one of the nuns saw me, this 17-year-old carrying a stack of Catholic books, and she said, “You know what? We make these books. This is a publishing house.” And I’m kind of short: “Oh, that’s nice.” Then she said: “It’s our mission to put the media at the service of the Church.” And I thought: Wow! I’m not the only person on the planet who has this desire? I can have the life that I was trying to invent, it’s already established. That’s what I really desired to do, it’s what I still desire to do, it’s what I still get really excited about.

And how do you do this?

I’m sort of an informal R&D person. With a vow of poverty you learn how to do things in a very creative manner. So I explore. I read Wired. I read the Wall Street Journal’s technology section, and then I follow up on some of the references in the articles. If it’s telling me about a free service, then I’ll try it out and see. What does this do? What is it good for? Is there some way that I can use this?

I’m curious, since you took a vow of poverty, do you have your own computer?

It’s not really mine. It belongs to the community. I’m using a Mac that is provided by a donor who can ask for it back any day. I doubt he will, but that’s how it works.

Are there extended periods of time where you intentionally unplug from the Internet?

Canon law requires members of religious orders to take a retreat day once a month. My community does that on the first Sunday of the month. And a big part of my retreat day is no technology.

Is that hard for you?

Well, I feel it. I am by nature an active, doer kind of person. So I’ve tried to make it my own personal discipline. Also, I don’t blog on Sundays. This is my tiny little way of purposely setting that day apart.

Tell me about your blog.

I started blogging in 2004. I delayed doing it because I already had a Web site, and I thought: What’s the point of duplicating my presence on the Internet? But then I decided I wanted to see how blogging works.

And I learned that when you are a blogger you are not in control of the process. You are there to enter into a relationship with the audience, and they’ve got a say in how it unfolds. To me, that’s what these new technologies are fostering when they’re used to their best — relationships.

Somebody may have been reading my blog for a year or two, and I don’t know they’re out there. And then boom! They pop up in the comment box, like old friends. Recently, this young woman who reads my blog asked me to contact her directly, and I said, “Well, she could be a nutcase,” you know? But I did contact her, and it turns out that she was needing prayers because she might have a lethal form of breast cancer. And now I’m like a spiritual anchor for her. I never knew her. Now I do. You are there to be met.

You had an interesting post on your blog recently about environmentalism and religion. You wrote: “There is such a thing as attributing too much to God’s sovereignty.” Can you say a little bit more about that?

I was commenting on what tends to be a given in some very literalist Biblical lines of thought — I think it’s a little bit in some strands of Islam too — where the thinking is that God’s in charge, so what we do doesn’t really matter. In this case I was referencing a news article quoting a Baptist minister who was dismissive of any concerns for the environment. He was basically saying that God is almighty — God has His timetable, and the world is going to end when God decides, and we can’t stop that; so we can’t save the Earth by being frugal or environmentally conscious or careful.

What do you think?

I think this way of thinking diminishes the actual responsibility that God gave us for His creation. What we do with creation actually does matter, and you can’t just say: “Oh, well, Jesus is going to come again, so we can all drive SUVs or pump emissions into the atmosphere and melt all the ice caps because it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to affect God’s plan.” Well, how do you know? If God gave us responsibility for His creation, the Catholic understanding is that we are responsible for that creation, and we have to answer, not just to God, but to the generations that come after us for our stewardship.

I get concerned sometimes because I find in the blogosphere a number of Catholics who tend to follow this very fundamentalist line of thought. I think it’s partly the influence of the Internet that some of these preachers have a stronger influence on Catholics who are online than actual Church teaching does. Their minds are formed by what I call “faith-based pundits” rather than by the real teaching and tradition of the Church.

So when I find something like that minister who was saying we don’t need to take care of the environment, I like to tell people that’s not a Catholic line of thought. In Catholic thought, nature has a great deal of value. The laws of nature are part of God’s providence. There is, I think, a lot of intellectual fuzziness and lack of clarity in these things.

How much latitude do you have to speak your mind online?

I’m a member of a congregation that is focused on teaching, so I’m never really just speaking for myself. I’m speaking as a member of that community. Just like when I go out in my habit, I’m a public person, and I’m representing, to some people, the Catholic Church and, to other people, Christianity in general. I’m not really speaking as a private person. So I always have to say to myself, when I’m going to write something, am I properly representing my community, the sisters I live with, the Church? Because that’s how it’s going to be interpreted.

Have you run into conflicts with church leaders?

No. There is the assumption out there that Catholics are the most restrictive people of all when it comes to freedom of thought. But truth is a lot bigger than people give it credit for, and truth is actually the widest form of freedom.

I think a lot of problems people have with church teaching is because they don’t really know what the church is teaching. Or they don’t know it with any kind of depth. Or they are reading it from a cultural lens that is entirely inappropriate.

Tell me about your Angelus project.

Everybody knows that the Muslims pray five times a day, and the Jewish people have their blessing prayers — they say their Shemas. But since the ’60s, Catholics have lost the tradition of praying the Angelus. We used to pray three times a day, at 6:00 in the morning, noon, 6:00 in the evening. And what we do in the Angelus (prayer) is remember and reaffirm the principle belief of the Catholic Church, that in Jesus, God has become human. And not only is that reviving our faith, but it is also putting us in the position of Mary, saying: “Be it done to me.”

So the Angelus Project is really aimed at restoring the practice of Christians praying the Angelus, and I say Christians, not just Catholics, because it really is a Christian profession of faith. And I think that it would help bolster the personal commitment. You know, being Catholic isn’t just saying you are Catholic. It involves a very deep belief and a personal commitment to that belief.

I guess people would have to turn away from the Internet for a little while to say those prayers.

Actually I put it on the Internet, so they can just click on it and pray along with the video.

I am pleased to see that the Church is encouraging religious sisters and brothers to blog. Of course, many of us have been blogging for a while (see my list of Blogs by Catholic Nuns and Catholic Blogs’ list of Blogs by Religious).

Cardinal Urges Religious to Get Blogging

Says Internet Youth Forums Need Real Christian Message

ROME, OCT. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org) – Benedict XVI’s vicar for the Diocese of Rome expressed his hopes that religious men and women increase their use of information technology, and thus take advantage of what he called a new form of apostolate.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke to the religious at the Pontifical Urbanian University during the diocesan gathering of the Union of Major Superiors of Italy, which represents 1,287 communities and 22,000 religious in Rome.

According to the Roman diocesan weekly RomaSette, Cardinal Ruini said: “A priest from Novara told me that the theme of ‘Jesus’ is very much discussed by youth in blogs. The focus, though, comes from destructive books that are widespread today, and not from Benedict XVI’s book ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’

“What will the idea of Christ be in 10 years if these ideas triumph?”

The true Jesus

The 76-year-old prelate admitted, “I don’t understand the Internet, but especially young religious ought to enter blogs and correct the opinions of the youth, showing them the true Jesus.”

“The teaching emergency is central in Benedict XVI’s concerns,” the cardinal said. “For him, education in the faith coincides with service to society, because to form someone in the faith means to form the human person.

“Simply giving motivations for living defeats nihilism and gives value to the human person, a value that is based on Christ himself, the fact that God became a man.”

The cardinal asserted that an educator’s testimony and content can matter more than pedagogical techniques.

He called for catechists to be creative in finding occasions for promoting Benedict XVI’s book, saying it shows the solidity of faith in the historical Jesus of the Gospels, and bases the identity of the Christian in a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

Cardinal Ruini said that in Catholic schools, “the religious can witness to Christ in all their lessons, in the sciences, in history and even in Italian literature, in an inseparable union of faith and culture. Your creativity ought to find new techniques for the vocational challenge, which ought to develop in step with society.”

I don’t think I’ve ever won anything I’ve been nominated for. Not that I’m complaining, it just seems to be a fact of nature. Well, there was that one time I was named May queen for a May Crowning (it’s a Catholic thing … for a cool book that includes talk of May Crownings, check out May Crowning, Mass and Merton by Liz Kelly) … though Mary was more the headliner and I was like the opening band. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

So a gentleman by the name of Chris Abraham nominated my blog ANunsLife.org for Blogger’s Choice Awards in the Best Religion Blog category. It’s an honor to have my blog nominated. I spent some time looking through the other nominees. I did a search using the word “catholic” on the Blogger’s Choice Awards Web site and came up with a whole host of new-to-me blogs. These blogs are vast in terms of their content and perspectives. Many, many are apologetic oriented. Take a look at the range of blogs by Catholics. Let me know if you hit on one that is really interesting and/or quirk-ily Catholic.

Oh, and if you want to check out the nomination for my blog, click this icon.
There’s also a bunch of other categories with interesting blog nominations.

Just came across this and think it is fabulous … a respectful yet relevant way to approach all things Catholic. Kudos to SQPN (Star Quest Production Network) for a great piece. You can watch the video podcast below or check out my “nunpod” of videos in my sidebar where I’ve added all three episodes of That Catholic Show.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daSbZyh9BWo]

I loved The Muppet Show when I was a kid (okay, I still love the Muppets). One of my favorite sketches was “Pigs in Space” (you can hear the guy saying it, can’t you?!) Now, whenever I think of nuns on the Internet, that’s all I can think of: Nun’s in [cyber] Spaaaaaaace. Okay, so it’s a bit of a stretch, but it makes me laugh.

Anyways, that’s a long and bizarre way of saying that I’ve been thinking about how nuns and sisters have used (or not used) the Internet to connect with people, proclaim the Gospel, and provide a window to religious life.

A stellar example of nuns in cyberspace is the Dominican Nuns of Summit, New Jersey. Today they celebrate their second anniversary of their blog, Moniales OP. Definitely check this blog out. The post today is quite illuminating. The nuns well articulate their experience of having a blog. The blog is a great service to the church and world. Here’s a clip:

We did know why we wanted to begin a blog. First, it seemed not much different than printing and sending out our newsletter; in fact this was easier and cheaper!

More importantly, we thought that by posting about our Dominican contemplative life, in all its beauty and all it’s ordinariness we could share something with others and help them learn what the contemplative is about.Perhaps our blog would be the means for others to become attracted to the beauty of a life “free for God alone.”

I must say, when I first found their blog, I was a little surprised that cloistered nuns would be on the Internet, let alone have a blog! (my limited universe is ever expanding!) And not just any blog. This thing is well written, has a good use of photographs, is visually appealing, and rather inspiring.

Truly this cloistered group of women is on the cutting edge. I know of no other religious community of women that has sponsored a blog for two years. In fact, there are remarkably few nuns and sisters in the blogosphere. There are a number of folks discerning religious life or who are in formation, but not too many card-carrying nuns and sisters. Where are you all hiding out? You’ve got great writing skills, tons of life experience, and a desire to meet people where they are. Vengan aqui, monjas!