Ask Sister podcast recorded live on October 27, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: do family duties trump religious life, schnauzer in the convent, Mrs. Sister, so many choices–how to decide which religious order to enter

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Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Family duties vs. the call to religious life — which takes priority?
• Can pets come too when a person enters religious life? Dilemma of the mini-schnauzer.
• Have you heard of any movement that advocates sisters being allowed to marry?
• I would like to become a sister. Now the problem is, which congregation? The more I search, the more I get confused.

Do you have a question for us? Using your computer, record your question on voice mail. It’s easy to do! Just click this Record link to get started! Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

There’s a flurry of activity in our kitchen this morning. Sadly, it’s not Sister Julie whipping up some of her Grandma’s top-secret Italian pasta sauce. Happily, the convent is getting new kitchen counters.

When we moved into the convent a couple of years ago, the owner of the apartment said he’d gradually rehab the place. He’s a great guy and has made good on his word. After much pounding and sawing, the old counter was hoisted out in sections and carried down the stairs. The new counters will be installed shortly.

The workers are a terrific team. Seeing them work together is like watching a loud, dusty ballet with dancers in steel-toed boots and power tools. But it’s a hard and grimy dance, especially on a day when the temps are already in the 80s. Sawdust sticks to their sweat-covered faces and arms.

They’re very exacting about their work, and it’s evident that they take great pride in it. It reminds me of Catholic social teaching about the dignity of work, and the respect that every worker deserves. So today, I will keep these workers especially in my prayers.

I invite you to join me in prayer for workers who are part of your life today.

AS052 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on December 10, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Guest: Sister Donna Hart, IHM. Topics include: military sisters, convents defined, Franciscan knotted cord, down and unmotivated, why be Catholic?, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Can Catholic sisters be in the military or national guard?
• What makes a particular abode a “convent”?
• How does one find the knotted cord that Franciscans wear?
• I’m feeling down and have no motivation unless I become a nun. What do I do?
• Why be Catholic if there other ways to get to heaven?
• Do you find your lives particularly stressful? When you are stressed, what do you do? How do you cope with the unknown?

Today we’ll be joined by special guest Sister Donna Hart, IHM. We’ll ask Sister Donna about her life as a Catholic sister, and in particular what it was like to experience life as a sister before the Second Vatican Council, during the Council and now 40+ years later.

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS051 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on December 3, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: cool stuff v. vow of poverty, understanding changes to Roman Missal, tattoos, converting and becoming a nun, prayer, transfer nuns, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What makes a particular abode a convent?
• Can you bring your awesome cool stuff to the convent when you enter? What about the vow of poverty?
• Why are there changes to the Roman Missal?
• How long do you have to wait after you’ve converted to Catholicism to enter a religious community?
• How do each of you pray?
• Can nuns have tattoos?
• Can sisters transfer from one order to another?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

At the Conference of the History of Women Religious today I attended a presentation by Dr. Carmen Mangion of the University of London. She presented the project of her colleage Dr. Caroline Bowden. The project is called Who Were the Nuns? and it is a prosopographical study of the English convents in exile in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Scene from the Painted Life of Mary Ward. Mary Ward and some of the first seven Companions setting sail for Flanders.

Who Were the Nuns? project is “a comprehensive study of the membership of the English convents in exile. That is, the period between the opening of the first English convent in Brussels to the nuns’ return to England as a result of the French Revolution and associated violence. Most were enclosed convents, in theory cut off from the outside world. However in practice the nuns were not isolated and their contacts and networks spread widely.

Why did the nuns have to go into exile? Well, Catholic nuns, monks, and clergy were not exactly welcome in England at the time. In fact monasteries and convents were forcibly disbanded, and it was illegal to establish any new ones. (See Wikipedia on Dissolution of the Monasteries for more information).

As a result, “vast numbers of Catholics left their home country for the continent including many men and women religious and men and women with a religious vocation. Some of them found a new haven in Spain, Portugal, Italy or Bavaria, but northern France and the Southern Netherlands were particularly appealing to these Catholics in exile. The English Carthusians were the first to settle themselves on the continent in 1559, later followed by many other religious communities of men and women. Forty years later the first ‘English convent’ for English nuns was founded in Brussels. About a dozen others were to follow in the next fifty years, most of them enclosed and contemplative, but often hosting prestigious boarding schools for children of the English Catholic elite.” (source)

Dr. Bowden found that “twenty two convents were founded on the continent and around 4000 women were professed. The convents became significant cultural centres, fostering the education of Catholic girls, making collections of books, commissioning works of art and maintaining substantial buildings.” The sisters, and their legacy, survived despite exile, wars, and natural disasters.

It is a fascinating study and project and I hope to learn more about it. I encourage you to check out Who Were the Nuns? project website.

* * *

Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

AS023 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on April 30, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: monastery live-ins, women deacons, becoming a nun, teaching in universities, modesty in dress, sisterhood, poverty, discernment, and more!
Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Is it possible to live for a little while at a convent or monastery?
• How can I learn more about becoming a nun? I’m not the most religious person but am curious about becoming a nun.
• Are there options for women to be deacons in the Catholic church or can they only remain celibate as a nun or sister?
• How do I know what God is calling me to? How can I tell if I am called to be a nun?
• Do sisters teach at the university level?
• Do sisters connect with each other across different communities?
• How do sisters and nuns live the vow of poverty?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS020 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on April 9, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: wearing the habit, nun finances, vocational terror, animal ministry, feeling regret after becoming a sister, shaved heads, bubble baths and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Are there any Catholic sisters or nuns that work with animals?
• What was the hardest part in the beginning when you entered the convent?
• Do you ever regret your choice to became a nun?
• Are nuns required to shave their heads?
• Is it normal to feel both terrified and excited about a possible calling to become a sister?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS019 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on March 26, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: celibacy, discerning the will of God, choosing a religious name, convent decor, family responsibilities, and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• How can I know if wanting to become a nun is God’s will or my own will?
• What is the historical reasons sisters received a religious name? What is the practice today?
• How do I deal with family responsibilities if I become a sister?
• Are nuns allowed to do fun things or to chose a profession?
• What is the difference between chastity and celibacy? How does one prepare for a vow of celibacy?
• What do convents look like on the inside?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

Catholic sisters and nuns live in community in a wide variety of ways. Often we only think of community as living under the same roof, that is in “the convent” or “the monastery” but community actually takes many forms. Simply living under the same roof does not make a community. Likewise, living singly does not mean you are living alone or without community.

Since I’ve been an IHM Sister, I’ve lived various configurations of physical proximity but in all of them have striven to live deeply our IHM community life. I’ve lived singly with few IHMs around me because of the demands of my ministry; I’ve lived with 5 other sisters; I’ve lived with one other sister; and I’ve lived on our Motherhouse campus with nuns everywhere! Each way of living calls forth different aspects of living community.

Because our community like many others is ministerial based, our choices for community life are necessarily diverse so that we can respond to people’s needs. I’ve been told stories about how our sisters years ago heard the news that babies in Korea were dying because there was no one to hold them in the orphanages. The infants needed human cuddling to live and to grow. Our mother superior immediately sent nuns to Korea to minister by “simply” holding the babies. Didn’t think about the fact that we had no convent there or that there were only a handful of nuns she could send. She saw the need and knew that we could help.

I’ve also been thinking about a friend of mine who is in the national guard. She is stationed hours away from her home and family. She lives singly on base and gets together with her family whenever possible. Though certainly a struggle, her marriage and family life is not any less real or authentic. It is now expressed in new and different ways.

Today’s world is full of so many ways to live community and family life. While some of us live this community through physical proximity, many of us also experience community and family in ways that go beyond this proximity. In what ways do you experience this kind of community or family life?

American fashion model and actress Heather Graham recently revealed that her parents threatened to send her to a convent when she was young.

The Hangover star has admitted that she almost became a nun and is relieved she became an actress instead.

Graham told the Daily Star: “When I was a child my parents threatened to send me to a convent. I’d have made a terrible nun.

“I’m a good Catholic girl in the way Madonna is in the sense that I’m not that good at all… I want to be vamping it up in short skirts and low-cut tops to the end.” (source: Digital Spy)

I always find these news items to be curious (e.g., Natalie Portman’s celibacy issues). It seems the contrast between the stereotypical docile/dour/suppressed Catholic nun and the rebellious/vivacious/sensual bad girl makes for great entertainment news.

Yeah, yeah, so readers get a few laughs at imagining a “bad girl” as a Catholic nun and the fantastic havoc and scandal she may have created within the holy confines of a convent. But please, must we play on bad stereotypes of Catholic sisters and nuns for a cheap laugh? Is it worth fueling a stereotype of nuns as docile/dour/suppressed in order to fuel an equally disturbing stereotype of women as “the bad girl”?

When I first read this news piece, I thought little of it. But it’s been weighing on my mind and heart because it seems so trivial but yet reinforces a negative message about Catholic sisters and nuns.

I want to tell Ms. Graham that if she only knew how many hell-raisers and “bad girls” have come to the convent — and stayed — that she would probably have seemed like a wall flower in comparison.

It’s been a week since we opened the new convent. “New” merely refers to the fact that it’s new as a convent, but in actually it’s an old house with the normal and not-so-normal problems associated with old houses. Take the pipes for example. All corroded. Had to be replaced which delayed our ability to move in. Monday and Tuesday night we ended up with stuff in the truck and ourselves at a local hotel courtesy of the realtor. Moved in on Wednesday. Started cleaning on Thursday only to discover that the base of the lower kitchen cabinets was like a science experiment gone wrong with mold creeping up from the edges. Needless to say, it’s a mess and our move in experience is less than desirable. Still, it’s fixable and we love the house and neighborhood. As soon as the rehabbers get through replacing the offending cabinets, the convent will be in good shape.

As we work with the rehabbers, I am reminded of our IHM Sisters who in the 1930s oversaw the building of our 380,000 square foot building. I wonder how they did it all. We just have a small old house in need of rehab, but they had to start from scratch, put their vision into concrete — literally, and know enough about building, construction, electrical, plumbing, finances, environment, health care, residential living, etc. to build a home for our sisters and create a physical symbol of our IHM life. In just the last few days, I’ve learned a lot about this stuff, and I’ve also learned a bit about the guys working here like their family and why they like/dislike this kind of work, and for the young guys who cut our lawn, what their hopes and dreams are for their own futures.

True, our priority is fixing this place and getting rid the petri dish that is our kitchen, we also are about being present to people no matter where or how we meet them, even if we are the ones who are in need at the time. This is something I have taken always seen in my sisters, especially my nun Joyce who has such a beautiful way of working with people. She doesn’t see “a maintenance person” or “a secretary”, she sees a person full of dignity and light who is using her or his gifts, earning a living, supporting a family, ministering to others. Though shy by nature, I think always of Joyce when I encounter workers of any kind — and I remember to cherish them as she does and as Jesus shows us time and again in the Gospels.

How have you cherished a worker lately?

I have often heard Catholic sisters and nuns say, “Join the convent, see the world” because many of us do travel quite a bit for ministry and mission. Along with that comes the always pleasant task of actually moving. You know what I mean — boxes, tape, clutter, dust, lifting, moving, renting, changing, bubble wrap, exhaustion!

Moving also gives one the opportunity for self-reflection, to think about what one is attached to, how simply one lives, what facilitates community and mission, etc.

As you might suspect, I am in the process of moving — like right at this moment. My computer is the last to go. In an hour I will be picking up our 17′ rental truck (the experience of driving that thing in Chicago will probably make for an interesting blog post!) in order to move out of my current abode and to a new house with another IHM sister where we can live and offer hospitality to our IHM sisters and others.

Chloe the Convent Cat is coming along with us, and as you can see, she’s a bit self-reflective too.

We’ve done a great job at sorting and donating stuff. It’s so easy to accumulate “stuff” so I’m hoping to keep things simple. I feel better when I have less clutter, less stuff to be distracted by. After traveling so much, I realize that most of what I need I can toss in a backpack.

What have been your experiences of “move”? What does living simply mean for you?