religious life

Sisterhood among Catholic sisters and nuns is a powerful, Spirit-filled experience. I’ve been thinking a lot about sisterhood after having been home at the IHM Motherhouse for a couple of days. I was with a group of sisters doing some planning for our community’s retreat/celebration days this summer.

There’s been a lot of media around the topic of declining numbers of Catholic sisters and nuns. "Beyond the veil: Debate continues on why number of nuns is declining," a recent article from Catholic News Service, highlights a couple of arguments about why the decline in number.

The calling to be a nun is a pretty amazing thing. It’s a real adventure because it is always full of twists and turns and the unexpected. You never know where the Spirit will lead you. Being a nun is also pretty countercultural — we live in community, we hold all things in common, and we are celibate — all these things are meant to help us be free, free to serve God and God’s people. It’s a radical way of life.

Slate.com, the online news magazine, has an interesting but highly questionable assessment of consecrated and monastic life in the article "A Monastic Kind of Life: How Catholic religious communities are trying to attract young people again".

How blessed we are that a hermit is blogging because we don’t often get to see what this vocation and lifestyle is like. The eremitical life (the vocation of being a hermit as recognized by the Catholic Church) is another way to live out God’s call to live fully and to proclaim the Good News of Jesus. Here are my final questions and Sister Laurel’s responses …