NUN 101

 … shared study, prayer and reflection with Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM …

When:

Friday, February 15 — 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. followed by a social
Saturday, February 16 — 9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. lunch provided

Where:

Saint Giles Parish Hall
1025 N. Columbian Ave., Oak Park, IL

Cost:

$40.00 per person

Registration:

Click here — Celebrating Consecrated Life pdf – for the form which can be printed and mailed in with a check. Registration is due Monday, January 14.

Sister Sandra Schneiders is one of my nuns, an IHM Sister of Monroe, Michigan. She is one of the foremost scholars on religious life today. Among her recent publications are Finding the Treasure and Selling All, the first two volumes of a trilogy on Catholic Religious Life entitled “Religious Life in a New Millennium.”

See you there!

Nothing makes one feel hip and relevant like an interview by a mysterious-sounding group called DaRK PaRTY. Check out the blog DaRK PaRTY ReVIEW and read their interview with me in “5 Questions About: Nuns“. And to peak your interest, the five questions were:

1. Why did you decide to become a nun?
2. What order are you and what are the differences among the many orders of nuns?
3. What is a typical day like for you?
4. Where does your faith come from and why are you so sure there’s a God?
5. What is the most difficult part about being a nun and what is the most rewarding part?

Happy feast day! Today is a major feast day for us IHMs. It is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. This feast celebrates the conception of Mary (Jesus’ conception is celebrated on the feast of the Annunciation) who was born “immaculate”, that is, without sin so that she could be a pure vessel of the holy.

Though this feast day is cause for great celebration, today it is with a mixture of joy and sorrow that I celebrate with my sisters. Today was the funeral of one of my dear sister’s mom. Virginia was a wonderful woman, a loving wife and mother. I am a better person for having known her.

Though the circumstances were tough, it was so good to be with my IHM sisters, many of whom I see only once or twice a year. Though we don’t say these words in our vows, “for better or for worse” definitely describes how we are with one another. Life is real and we hang in there with one another no matter how tough it gets. And we IHMs weren’t the only nuns to come to support our sister and her family. Many sisters from a variety of religious communities came out to mourn and to remember and to celebrate her mom’s life. I am in awe at the sisterhood that exists not only among sisters of the same community but of all sisters. It’s like we are all cousins to one another and share a bond together that is as thick as blood.

On this feast day, please say a prayer for Virginia and her family. And my prayer for you and for me is that we–like Mary and Virginia–be vessels of the holy.

At the end of October I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Sister Marie Pappas, CR, host of the program “Pathways of Learning” on The Catholic Channel #159 on Sirius Radio.

We spent an hour together discussing how we became nuns, what it’s like being a nun today, and my blog, A Nun’s Life. Because of our difference in age (Sister Marie entered around Vatican II, and I entered around Y2K) we brought varying perspectives to what it was like to decide to become a nun, wear a habit, minister, live in community, and many other things.

Sirius Radio gave me permission to post an mp3 of the interview on my blog. Just click on the link below. It might take a few minutes to load. Enjoy! If you have any comments about it, I’d love to hear from you.

10-23-07 sirius radio interview.mp3
from Pathways of Learning, The Catholic Channel, Sirius Satellite Radio 159

People often wonder whether or not nuns are allowed to see or spend time with their families. Here are a couple questions I received recently on my AskSister page.

Hi Sister Julie,

I love your website. I was wondering, do you ever get to see or spend time with your family (parents, siblings)? I think this would be the hardest part about becoming a sister/nun. Do different groups have different rules about when/if you are allowed to see your family?

Thank you,
Melissa

I do get to spend time with my family (parents, two siblings+families). We don’t live in the same area so we are mostly in touch by email or phone or letters (my Mom is awesome at sending little notes of cheer, article clippings, and other cool stuff). Because of the distance I don’t get to see my family too often — like other people, nuns have only a certain amount of vacation time from our employers and we have to budget like everyone else to fly or drive home. My religious community does not impose any rules about seeing one’s family. But sometimes it is a bit of a juggling act because I am committed to my ministry, my “religious” family, and my natural family. Each commitment is something to which I give my time, love, and energy. I think it is true for all people that whatever we give our life to means that we sacrifice time and energy elsewhere, even if it is with those we love.

Yes, different religious communities do have different rules about seeing one’s family. I don’t know of any community that forbids seeing one’s family. Sometimes it’s just logistical — we don’t have the money for flights every holiday, family is too far away, we have community responsibilities or ministry responsibiliities. For some communities whose sisters live a more cloistered life there may be more of a desire to see visitors less frequently because of their particular calling.

In my religious community, I experience my IHM sisters as family. Just like my sister has her family and my brother has his. My IHMs are my family. I chose this lifestyle and this particular community because with them I am my best self and I love them dearly. I am able to grow in my relationship with God and be a person of mission and service. As a person grows into her or his vocation, I believe they are given the grace to be, well, graceful in their relationships and negotiating the struggles of various commitments to family, community, ministry, etc. Doesn’t mean it is easy, but it is with love and with purpose.

P.S. on the topic of being able to love others in religious life (including family) see my post “Do Nuns Know How to Love?“

Yesterday I listened to the broadcast of the conversation between Sister Marie Pappas, CR, and myself on the “Pathways to Learning” program on Sirius Radio’s The Catholic Channel #159. Strange to listen to oneself. Never quite sounds like yourself.

During the program we talked about what was happening in religious life around the time of the Second Vatican Council. This was a very important time of renewal for the whole Church including religious. In the document, Perfectae Caritatis, “The Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life” (1965), the Council called religious to adaptation and renewal “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Church.”

“The adaptation and renewal of the religious life includes both the constant return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of the institutes and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time.” (Perfectae Caritatis #2)

So much could be said about this one sentence. It is filled with this call to return to our foundation — both our foundation in Christ (which all are called to) and our foundation as a religious community. Every religous community was founded through a unique inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No two communities are exactly alike. We might do the same ministries, wear similar habits, and pray in similar ways … but each charism (that original gift of the Holy Spirit) is unmistakeably unique.

I think this is an amazing idea … to renew ourselves we must return — not just once — but again and again to our foundations. I do this first through the “sources of all Christian life” — prayer, the Eucharist and celebration of the sacraments, meditating on Scripture, participation in the faith community and so on. As a religious, I also do this by immersing myself in the story of our foundation, of our founders Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin and Father Louis Florent Gillet, and of our “godmother” Mother Mary Lange of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. I read the letters, visit the places they lived and worked, and pray on this wonderful gift of IHM that the Spirit has given my community for the good of the Church and world.

I want you to visit Sister Susan Rose’s blog “Musings of a Discerning Woman” where she writes about her own experience of literally returning to the foundations of her community. Sister Susan Rose is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Peace here in the United States but is currently ministering in London. She’s had the opportunity to visit the places of the foundation of her community. Take some time to go through her back posts and read about her ongoing pilgrimage and what it has meant to her. Sister Susan is very much incarnating the call from Perfectae Caritatis to return to our foundations.

What are the foundations that you return to again and again for renewal?

Last week I had the pleasure of talking with Sister Marie Pappas, CR (Sisters of the Resurrection), host of the program “Pathways of Learning” on The Catholic Channel #159 on Sirius Radio.

Sister Marie Pappas is the Superintendent of Schools of the Archdiocese of New York with responsibilities for the education of more than 107,000 students in the largest Catholic school system in the nation. She is a Sister of the Resurrection [New York Province], the only order of women religious that, as Sister Marie likes to say “was founded by a mother and her daughter.” Sister has an MA in Religious Education from the Angelicum in Rome, as well as a P.D. in Religious Education and has taught and lectured at the Notre Dame Pontifical Institute and at the Catechetical Conference of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. Sister thinks of Pathways of Learning as a “nationwide conversation about life’s larger lessons.” Conversations include finding God in today’s movies, girl bullies, if and what American teenagers think about God, whether kids are suffering from homework overkill, and the threats faced by Catholics living in the Middle East war zone. (source)

We spent an hour together discussing how we became nuns, what it’s like being a nun today, and my blog, A Nun’s Life. Because of our difference in age (Sister Marie entered around Vatican II, and I entered around Y2K) we brought varying perspectives to what it was like to decide to become a nun, wear a habit, minister, live in community, and many other things. What was remarkable was how much we had in common (though from different generations and different communities) and how it seemed as if I’ve known Sister Marie my whole life (this interview was our very first meeting). I admire Sister Marie, the work she is doing and the beautiful way that she lives her religious life. Sister Marie is definitely “A Nun You Should Know”.

The show airs tomorrow (Tues, Oct 23) from 1-2 p.m. (eastern standard time) on Sirius. If you don’t have Sirius you can start a free 3-day trial and listen via the Sirius Internet Radio (http://www.sirius.com/listenonline).

It’s been a while since I wrote about the stages of formation in my series, “Decoding Formation” (see the sidebar on my blog for the previous posts). But now it is time to look at novitiate. I’m going to write this in several parts because there are a number of things I’d like to address. As in the previous stages, there is some variance across communities in terms of what exactly happens during novitiate. And know that I come from a community of active women religious, not a community of contemplative nuns. So there may be things that are particular to contemplatives that I am totally missing — contemplative nuns: please feel free to comment with your experiences!

After Candidacy/Postulancy, a person is ready for the big step of entering the novitiate. ” Novitiate” is the stage at which a person is a novice (meaning “new”) in the community. The community and the person have discerned that the fit is a good one. The “dating” is over (so to speak) and now comes the official engagement period. Just as a couple is committed to one another during an engagement, so the woman and the community are committed to one another. She is now ready to become a member of the community — not a full member for she is not yet under vows, but a novice member. As a novice she is still learning about religious life and the ways of the community, and at the same time she participates in the day to day life and mission of the community. Whereas in the previous stage the Candidate/Postulant usually supports herself and continues with her “former” life, now she is part of the community – what was once “mine” is now “ours”. During novitiate (and for the rest of her religious life), the novice receives what she needs from the community. As mentioned above, she is not yet under vows, though she lives as if she is — the vows of povery, celibacy, and obedience become not just something she knows about but something she lives.

During novitiate, a novice has a novice director – a professed sister who is responsible for the formation of the novice. The novice typically lives with the novice director and any other novices in the same convent/house. Other professed sisters may live in this community.

When a woman is preparing for novitiate, she and the congregation must be attentive to both the congregation’s Rule of Life (or Constitutions) and to Canon Law which provides guidelines and safeguards for the novitiate. I’ll develop this a bit more in my next post on novitiate: Novitiate - Canon Law.

According to the footnotes in Saint Teresa of Avila’s The Life, Teresa entered the Monastery of the Incarnation November 2, 1533, and made her profession November 3, 1534. Though scholars disagree about these dates,  Teresa undoubtedly entered the monastery and professed vows as a Carmelite nun.

When I took the habit, our Lord at once made me understand how He helps those who do violence to themselves in order to serve Him.  [Teresa seems to be referring to the terrible pain at entering the convent without her father’s consent. See previous post.] No one observed this violence in me; they saw nothing but the greatest good will. At that moment, because I was entering on that state, I was filled with a joy so great, that it has never failed me to this day; and God converted the aridity of my soul into the greatest tenderness. Everything in religion was a delight unto me; and it is true that now and then I used to sweep the house during those hours of the day which I had formerly spent on my amusements and my dress; and, calling to mind that I was delivered from such follies, I was filled with a new joy that surprised me, nor could I understand whence it came.Whenever I remember this, there is nothing in the world, however hard it may be, that, if it were proposed to me, I would not undertake without any hesitation whatever; for I know now, by experience in many things, that if from the first I resolutely persevere in my purpose, even in this life His Majesty rewards it in a way which he only understands who has tried it. When the act is done for God only, it is His will before we begin it that the soul, in order to the increase of its merits, should be afraid; and the greater the fear, if we do but succeed, the greater the reward, and the sweetness thence afterwards resulting. I know this by experience, as I have just said, in many serious affairs; and so, if I were a person who had to advise anybody, I would never counsel any one, to whom good inspirations from time to time may come, to resist them through fear of the difficulty of carrying them into effect; for if a person lives detached for the love of God only, that is no reason for being afraid of failure, for He is omnipotent. May He be blessed for ever! Amen. (Life 4.2-3)

When I professed final vows, I did not expect to feel any different than I had because I’d been with the community for approximately 10 years already. I’d taken my first (”temporary”) vows 3 years earlier and figured that I’d already had the “vow experience”. I was looking forward to it and knew it’d be great, I just thought that it would be a confirmation of everything that had already happened.But surprisingly, the experience of professing final vows was different than anything else I had ever experienced. I felt ontologically (in my very being) changed, like my DNA was uncoded and re-coded with IHM. I felt like a new person, different, yet more myself than ever. The way I saw my sisters and my place in the community shifted too. This is one of those things that again is difficult to express but unmistakeable nonetheless.With Teresa I can say, “I was filled with a new joy that surprised me, nor could I understand whence it came. Whenever I remember this, there is nothing in the world, however hard it may be, that, if it were proposed to me, I would not undertake without any hesitation whatever.” Blessed be God forever!