The community with whom you are discerning is also with you -- their goal is to help you discern and to show you what their life is like -- community, ministry, and spirituality.
It is also helpful to have a network of support through friends, family, and a spiritual director. For more information, see our full guide, How to Become a Catholic Nun. Although this guide is for women attracted to religious life, it can also be applied to women or men considering other vocations.
If you're from India, Africa, the Philippines, or just looking to join an international congregation, there are several ways you can find information on becoming a Catholic sister or nun. First, check your local diocesan website for information on sisters in your area. If your diocese does not have the information you are looking for, do an Internet search for congregations near you. By searching online, you will find many links to various communities including, the Sisters of Mercy in South Africa, and the Sisters of Notre Dame in the Philippines.
Some communities were founded in the particular countries and some were founded elsewhere but have a presence in that country. For daily news on Catholic sisters and nuns throughout the world. The terms "nun" and "sister" are often used interchangeably. However within Roman Catholicism, there is a difference between the two. It might not be what you think! Check out our handy guide What is the difference between a sister and a nun?
Just as there is no such thing as one kind of nun, there's no such thing as one kind of day in the life of a nun! Customs vary across congregations, and in addition, each individual sister will have a routine particular to her day. But there will always be 3 common elements to a sister's day: prayer, community, and ministry. Find out more by clicking on one of the links below or ask a nun you know what she does all day!
You just might be surprised! Aren't all nuns the same? So why are there hundreds of religious communities instead of just one? Which one then is right for me? Religious life is a great gift to the Church and world. Just as there are many different kinds of people, families, and communities, there are different kinds of religious communities, each with a unique gift from the Spirit.
Central to all religious communities is the commitment to be faithful to Jesus the Christ and to live and proclaim the Gospel -- indeed this is central to all Christians!
How each community does this is a little bit different depending on how God has called them. Finding a religious community that is right for you means finding the one that feels most at home to you, where you feel like their particular "flavor" of being a Catholic sister or nun delights and sets you on fire for serving God and the world!
The best way to figure this out is to go and hang out with sisters -- in one community and in multiple communities. This will help you get a feel for some of the differences as well as how you feel in the midst of them in terms of how God is drawing you!
Maybe it was that special sister who taught you in second grade, or that nun who knew the exact thing to say when you were in the hospital, or an ancestor in your family tree that was a nun. Many times, if they watch television, they will watch public broadcasting. However, many times nuns are simply too busy to watch television, usually immersed in prayer or doing chores around the monastery.
Nuns are not supposed to have or use smartphones, at least according to Pope Francis who issued a papal decree to that effect in He says that while mobile phone and tablet usage may be good for outreach, they are full of social media, something which may tempt many people out of monasteries and away from the religion itself.
The Pope also says that social media and smartphones take away from prayer and reverence of God. It is indeed permissible for nuns to get married, but not in the way that you are thinking.
When joining a cloister, they do vow themselves to God. They actually make this vow in a ceremony which is very similar, but just not quite an actual wedding. So while they are not marrying another person, they are actually marrying Jesus. However, there have been cases whereby former nuns go on to get married, but only once they have left the monastic lifestyle. This is totally fine. However, before they can begin the process of becoming a nun or sister and get accepted into the monastery or abbey, they must legally annul their marriage to their human spouse so that they can take similar vows in order to be in the service of Christ.
Women who have lived completely regular lives before, and for example have been married, can indeed become nuns. There is a long history of this occurring, with for example former models and actresses giving up their worldly lives for the closeness of the convent.
Everyone deserves a chance to become closer to God, no matter their age and previous lifestyle. When nuns get overwhelmed by strong feelings or temptations, they have many strategies on how to handle them.
Many times, they will go and splash cold water on their faces. Other times, they will talk about these feelings with other nuns who have undoubtedly felt these same, human urges. Depending on the order they belong to, what type of food the nun will be able to eat differs.
While they may eat a whole range of different types of foods, there are more austere groups which will only eat bread, rice and beans. Sometimes if there is a garden in the monastery, the nuns will eat whatever fresh fruits and vegetables they grow.
In the late s, a doctor named Dr. Bob Smith was recovering from a substance abuse problem on his own and with no help. One day as he was working at the St. She believed in treating substance abuse as if it were an illness, and helped cure the doctor of his disease. He would later to go on to found AA, which helps millions of people every year. The history of women cloistering themselves off is something which is common across many denominations of Christianity. However, only four denominations have nuns.
Being a nun for instance means that you are cloistered, separated from society, and live your whole life on the grounds of an abbey except for when you need to go to the hospital of course! If you want to become a nun, you must go through a long, four step process to do so. When you begin, you are in the Aspirancy stage, living at the convent for weeks and taking classes while deciding if you want to be a nun or not to join.
You then begin the Postulancy and Novitiate stages. You live in the postulancy for a year, learning the day to day living of a nun. By novitiate you finally get your habit and new name! After living as a novice for two years, the nun in training has a choice — return to the outside world or keep going with the process.
Should she choose to continue, the novice makes her first profession of vows for three years and receives a black hood. After her third year she starts to become more intertwined with the rest of the sisters, before finally taking her final profession, literally marrying God and becoming a full fledged nun!
There are a whole plethora of nun types and orders. Nuns can be found in religions as diverse as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many others. Within Christianity itself there are nuns in the Coptic sect, the Catholic sect, as well as all of the sects of Orthodox Christianity. In the United States, the most popular nun in the collective consciousness is the Catholic nun of which there are two types; Benedictine and Augustinian.
In order to be a nun, you must have the holy vocation. Christianity believes that everyone is given a vocation, or a range of different talents and abilities which will help that person have a meaningful life.
If they are given the skills of an orator, perhaps they are meant to be a community leader. But if they are given the vocation of service to God, then they are destined to work as a nun. While women in the s were fighting for their right to be heard and be treated as equals by men in the realms of business, politics, and finance, nuns were already leaders in and of themselves in all of these things. Because of their self-reliance, they were already in the habit of making business decisions for themselves not only in trade and construction, but in education as well!
In fact, there were hundreds of hospitals and schools founded and run by nuns by This list includes their history, and images of their habits. In the Roman Catholic tradition, there are many religious institutes of nuns and sisters the female equivalent of male monks or friars , each with its own charism or special character. Traditionally, nuns are members of enclosed religious orders and take solemn religious vows, while sisters do not live in the papal enclosure and formerly took vows called "simple vows".
A religious habit is a distinctive set of religious clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anchoritic life, although in their case without conformity to a particular uniform style.
The religious habits of Roman Catholic nuns typically consist of the following elements:. Different orders adhere to different styles of dress; these styles have changed over time. The religious habit of Roman Catholic sisters sometimes consists of a plain dress and a veil. All the following images and descriptions come from oripter. Please use the contact form if you would like your copyrighted image removed.
Dubuis at Galveston, Texas, in The first sisters received their religious training at the Monastery at Lyons, France. The foundation made at San Antonio in became an independent Community in It conducts hospitals, orphanages, elementary and secondary schools, and colleges. Francis still inspires respect in so many visitors to his basilica in Assisi, where it is reverently preserved in a glass case today.
During one especially brutal Roman summer, I ran into a sister who had removed the distinctive upper layer of her habit, and was thus working while wearing only her veil and under-dress. She shrugged indifferently. Asking permission is a simple matter, and a hallmark of religious life. Now Rick has an answer to his question. What really matters is that members of religious institutes are wearing whatever their rule requires them to wear.
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All rights reserved. None of the content of this website may be reproduced, either in whole or in part, without the advance written permission of the author. Canon Law Made Easy. Skip to content. Google Search Suppression. Posted on August 30, by Cathy Caridi. The rationale for the religious habit was beautifully articulated by Pope John Paul II in , after a Synod held on the topic of religious life: The Church must always seek to make her presence visible in everyday life, especially in contemporary culture, which is often very secularized and yet sensitive to the language of signs.
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