![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There's a nurse, a would-be archivist, but like Sister Paula Marie Koffi, they all felt torn by their ambitions. I'm sitting with a half-dozen novices, who range in age from 23 to 27. "We really do become sisters we're each others' best friends, and we just have a blast." "You can't even imagine how much fun we have," says Sister Victoria Marie Liederbach, who is 23. "Sadly, the Martyrs always have a rough go of things," observes Sister Joan of Arc, as the Martyrs shout, "Our victory is in heaven!" Lady of Victory wins, followed by Cecilia. And when they break into the three teams - Our Lady of Victory, Cecilia and the Martyrs - they scream and chant with a fierce competitiveness that is not all that, well, sisterly. ![]() They dribble and shoot in their long habits - the first-year postulates in black, the second-year novices in white. Now in her second year, she regularly drills her sisters on the court behind the convent. Sister Joan of Arc forsook law - but not basketball, entirely. "I remember my mother sent me Notre Dame Law School bumper stickers when I was deciding, because she did not want me to pass up that opportunity," she says with a laugh. "It really made me give my life to the church, so I was more open to the advances of God when he asked, 'Lay down your life!' " "When I came back to the U.S., I saw our true poverty of the heart and of the mind. Sister Joan of Arc says the minute she met the Nashville Dominicans, she felt as if she had come home. She joined the Nashville Dominicans on her 22nd birthday. And I said, 'I think I'm supposed to enter soon.' And my father said, 'This is the time of life to take leaps.' " "My parents just sat there and looked at me," she says. Over Thanksgiving vacation in 2004, she broke the news to her family. In her junior year, she began feeling that God was drawing her to enter a convent. "I didn't know they still existed."Ĭlark, who is 27, says she became aware of the religious life when she was a student at Catholic University in Washington. "No," says Sister Beatrice Clark, laughing. Watching them, you wonder what would coax these young women to a strict life of prayer, teaching, study and silence. It is 5:30 in the morning, pitch black outside - but inside, the chapel is candescent as more than 150 women kneel and pray and fill the soaring sanctuary with their ghostly songs of praise.Ī few elderly sisters sit in wheelchairs, but most of these sisters have unlined faces and are bursting with energy. They enter the chapel without saying a word, the swish of their long white habits the only sound. Unlike many older sisters in previous generations, who wear street clothes and live alone, the Nashville Dominicans wear traditional habits and adhere to a strict life of prayer, teaching and silence. And overall, the average age of the Nashville Dominicans is 36 - four decades younger than the average nun nationwide. Cecilia are seeing a boom in new young sisters: Twenty-seven joined this year and 90 entered over the past five years. But something startling is happening in Nashville, Tenn. Convents are closing, nuns are aging and there are relatively few new recruits. From left: Sister Cecelia Rose Pham, Sister Joan of Arc, Sister Victoria Marie Liederbach, Sister Mara Rose McDonnell and Sister Paula Marie Koffi.įor the most part, these are grim days for Catholic nuns. Now in her second year at the convent, she regularly plays ball with the sisters. Sister Joan of Arc (second from left) forsook law school but not basketball. ![]()
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