Nuns and Habits

I have a lot of respect for nuns. Actually, I have a lot of respect for anyone who has s singular devotion in life and pursues it with dogged persistence and passion, whether it's nuns, artists, scholars or chocolate makers.

Four out of my eight grades in elementary school were taught by nuns from the Sisters of St. Joseph order: Sister James (1st), Sister Marie (5th), Sister Elizabeth (7th), and Sister McGonigal (8th). Although Sister McGonigal came the closest, in general these nuns weren't the stern knuckle rapping nuns of myth but were more of the Flying Nun type -- quite nice and very good teachers.

But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far away and over the years I had assumed that joining a convent was a relic from a bygone era characterized by fewer opportunities for women and a stronger emphasis on religion. That's largely true except for an order of nuns in Nashville, TN.

From NPR...

For the most part, these are grim days for Catholic nuns. Convents are closing, nuns are aging and there are relatively few new recruits. But something startling is happening in Nashville, Tenn. The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are seeing a boom in new young sisters: Twenty-seven joined this year and 90 entered over the past five years.

The average of new entrants here is 23. And overall, the average age of the Nashville Dominicans is 36 — four decades younger than the average nun nationwide...

...And did they always want to be nuns?

"No," says Sister Beatrice Clark, laughing. "I didn't know they still existed."

Clark, who is 27, says she became aware of the religious life when she was a student at Catholic University in Washington. In her junior year, she began feeling that God was drawing her to enter a convent. Over Thanksgiving vacation in 2004, she broke the news to her family.

"My parents just sat there and looked at me," she says. "And they cried. And I said, 'I think I'm supposed to enter soon.' And my father said, 'This is the time of life to take leaps.' "

She joined the Nashville Dominicans on her 22nd birthday.