IF BAD-ASS NUNS RULED THE WORLD

From Religion Dispatches-

Around 2009 I started spending a lot of time around nuns. I was finishing a thesis for my masters over at NYU and the topic was how Catholic nuns used social media. I started traveling around the country to meet with nuns who blogged and tweeted.

Despite having gone to an all-girls Catholic high school I had just as many stereotypes of Catholic sisters as anyone does. But the nuns I met on the road began to shatter those stereotypes. They weren’t these stuffy, ruler-wielding automatons. They were independent bad-asses. And each of these bad-ass nuns led to another bad-ass nun. I would come back home from some of these trips and share their stories at dinner parties and people were just so surprised. They’d never heard of nuns doing so many amazing things. In fact, they hadn’t heard that much about nuns at all. That’s when I knew there were stories here that needed to be told.

More here-

http://religiondispatches.org/if-bad-ass-nuns-ruled-the-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-bad-ass-nuns-ruled-the-world

After fatal crash, nuns focus on forgiveness, not punishment

From The Washington Post-

Sister Charlotte Lange spent months in the hospital after a drunk driver slammed into her car. Her brain was damaged. Her memory and hearing have faded. Her once-curly hair turned straight.

But the 71-year-old nun, who spends about 32 hours a week soothing patients at St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond, speaks of what she gained that August day in 2010. Now, she said, she brings encouragement learned during her recovery to her work.

“I think I even might be a nicer person,” said Lange, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia, whose home base is in Bristow. “Not that I want to go through it again . . . but it happened. I think I’m all the better for it.”

On Friday, Carlos A. Martinelly-Montano, 24, was sentenced in Prince William County court to 20 years in prison for causing the crash that also killed Sister Denise Mosier, 66, and badly injured Sister Connie Ruth Lupton, 77.

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/drunk-driver-gets-20-years-for-va-crash-that-led-to-2-nuns-deaths/2012/01/31/gIQAEtf9nQ_story.html

Religious life: The path is less chosen, but young women still hear the call

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

Angela Russell was a teenager visiting relatives in France when she prayed in a chapel where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1830. That was where she first felt a call to be a Catholic sister.

"It was an overwhelming sense that I was going to dedicate my life totally to Christ," said Sister Angela, 21, a Beaver native who recently entered the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tenn.

Far fewer women than in the past take that path, and those who do are often attracted to traditions that many communities no longer practice. Since 1965, the number of sisters in the U.S. has fallen from 180,000 to 61,000. A Vatican-ordered study is under way of conditions that may have contributed to the decline.

Yet women still answer the call. Sister Angela is among three local women seeking vows in the Nashville Dominicans. Two just made temporary vows in the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, formerly the Millvale Franciscans. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a community in Brighton Heights known for traditional habits and ministry to the elderly, count a medical doctor among two novices. This weekend a half-dozen women were expected at a discernment retreat for the Sisters of the Holy Spirit in Ross.

A recent study from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found that two-thirds of communities have at least one person working toward final vows, which typically takes at least seven years. Their average age is 32. But in less traditional communities, 56 percent of newer members are 40 or older. In more conservative ones, 85 percent of sisters make final vows by age 39.

More here-

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09251/996290-51.stm?cmpid=newspanel1

Answer Man: Got nuns? Anglicans can say yes

Q and A from Southern Illinois-

Q. Could you please tell me if there are any Anglican nuns in our area? Perhaps there would be convents in some of our larger neighboring cities. I remember many years ago seeing a picture of Queen Elizabeth's mother-in-law in the habit of an Anglican nun, walking with her son, Prince Philip. I'm certain there are sisters in England belonging to these Church of England religious orders.
-- R.C., of Trenton

A. Guess I had never really thought about it before, but it may surprise some to learn that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't have a lock on convents and monasteries. Monasticism always has been a fixture of the Eastern Orthodox and Buddhism. The Lutherans have a monastery and retreat house in Oxford, Mich.

And, almost since the time that the Episcopal Church planted its Anglican roots in the United States, the church's monastic communities started springing up around the country.
"(The practice) was strongly restored in the 19th century, both in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church," said the Rev. Dale Coleman Jr., priest-in-charge at St. George's Episcopal Church in Belleville.

Some live in convents; some live in an area and come to the mother church periodically, he said. Some wear a traditional habit. All devote themselves to a life of prayer, service and community outreach as they help the poor and hungry.

More here-

http://www.bnd.com/yourlife/story/910504.html

Oldest known American in Canada, at age 105, is Anglican nun

From Episcopal Life Online- (Oh Canada!)

Nothing confirms an old-age expert's theories like a long life well lived. On February 2, Sister Constance, a noted gerontologist, celebrated 105 years of such life, surrounded by her fellow sisters at Saint John the Divine convent in Toronto.
Under the flashing cameras of local journalists, U.S. Consul General John Nay presented a birthday certificate to the tiny sister, who sat primly in a wheelchair, wearing her traditional full black habit. She is the oldest known American living in Canada.

A congratulatory letter from President Obama was also on the way. Sister Constance, whose grandfather was a slave, watched Obama's inauguration two weeks ago in quiet admiration.

In 1904, Constance Elizabeth Murphy was born into a prominent African-American family in Baltimore. One grandfather was a well-known caterer and the other the founder and editor of the Afro-American, a black newspaper. Constance studied education at the University of Pennsylvania, taught school in Baltimore, then answered a long-heard call to religious life. Though her family and most of her friends were lukewarm about the idea, she traveled to Toronto and joined the Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine in 1932.

http://www.episcopal-life.org/81831_104808_ENG_HTM.htm