October 1, 2019
After a few more conversations with the Visitation Sisters, we finally held the first Nuns and Nones gathering on a dark, below-zero evening in January. That night, like magic, a mix of millennials and monastics showed up at the Saint Jane House in North Minneapolis. We slipped off our shoes at the door and hung up our coats, ready for intergenerational conversation about faith and activism. Some of the young adults were religious, others weren’t, but all sought a place for spiritual conversation where prescribed beliefs aren’t an expectation.
Sister Katherine and I have been cofacilitating the group for nearly a year now, and other sister-millennial pairs are stepping up to shape the topics and discussions we share together. We talk about common stereotypes of nuns and millennials, about the ways we have been hurt or healed by institutional religion. Sister Brenda is also a regular, along with a handful of Catholic sisters from other religious orders in the Twin Cities.
Sister Brenda recently told me that the Visitation Monastery is like a medieval anchor-hold—a place for people to seek and find spiritual community and wisdom. What brings the millennial seekers to Nuns and Nones, I suspect, is the sisters’ solid footing in the Catholic tradition: those years upon years of formation, reading the daily Scriptures, taking Eucharist, greeting each stranger as Christ at their front doors. Our gatherings are a place for spiritual hitchhikers to find stability and hone inward, like a spiral, returning again and again to God.
At a recent Nuns and Nones gathering we watched a documentary called Radical Grace about the “Nuns on the Bus,” who were censured by the Vatican for being politically active in support of the Affordable Care Act. After the film we sat in a circle to debrief. Several of the millennials noted the nuns’ courage in standing up to Papal authority. Sister Mary Frances—the Visitation sister who helped the monastery in Mendota Heights die a good death—cleared her throat, a plate of tortilla chips and salsa balanced on her knees.
“You women are the future of the church,” she said, addressing the six millennial women who were present. “You may not become Catholic sisters, or even attend church, but you do have big shoes to fill. We need you to carry the charism, the spirit, of this work forward.”
I looked around at the other young women in the room. We were not well organized. We had not taken vows to one another. I thought about my experiment in the new monastic movement, and of the community houses of young, idealistic Christians who tried and failed to live prophetically together. How would we possibly carry forward the sisters’ charism to love in the face of adversity? How could we model a gentle yet steely, relational spirituality?
There is no filling the shoes of a Catholic sister—period. But if there is one thing I’ve learned these last two years, it’s that even monastic women do not live their faith on their own. The Visitation Sisters have taught me that God is known by honoring our enduring commitments to love the people around us, even when monasteries close. Even when your spouse changes religions. That faith is lived by choosing virtues, both small and large, each and every day.
Josh doesn’t come to Nuns and Nones meetings—he isn’t much interested in spiritual conversation with Catholic sisters. But we do still gather each month with our Interfaith Supper Club from Calvary. We sit elbow-to-elbow around picnic tables, asking other couples questions about values and celebrating holidays and raising kids in mixed-faith homes. (The jury is still out on Bible camp.)
I am not spiritually single. None of us is. But it is our continued struggle to love and bless one another, doubters and believers, nuns and nones, outsiders and insiders alike, that will carry the charism forward.