Sisters Swelling the Ranks

A story on the Nashville Dominicans from NPR.  Some choice excerpts:

...The sisters eat breakfast in silence, sitting side by side at long tables, served by the novices in white habits and veils. Sister Joan of Arc, who's 27, stoops to pour coffee. At 6 feet, 2 inches, the former basketball player for the University of Notre Dame is hard to miss. Sister Joan of Arc, who was born Kelsey Wicks, like the others here adopted a new name when she entered.

She says she worked on refugee issues after college, then received a scholarship to Notre Dame Law School. But her plans shifted when she went on a medical mission trip: In Africa she saw abject physical poverty, but it was nothing compared with the impoverishment she saw when she came home.

"When I came back to the U.S., I saw our true poverty of the heart and of the mind. And I saw the loneliness," she says. "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!' "

...Catholic bishops beg the Nashville Dominicans to send their young sisters to their parochial schools, and more than 100 of them now teach in 34 schools in 13 states. The sisters are a big hit with the students as well because they don't fit the stereotype.

"You hear stories from your parents about getting spanked with rulers and stuff, and that's not true at all," says Breanne Lampert, one of Clark's sophomores. "But seeing the sisters here compared to other schools — they're so much younger. I don't know, they understand you really well..."

"The young sisters are really inspiring," says Brady Diaz-Barriga, "because you're like, 'Oh, I could never do that. I just love Facebook and my cell phone and my computer too much to give that up!' But you see how much joy your life can be with less and not having all of that."

Isabelle Aparicio says the young sisters' lives have a surprising appeal. "Seeing these young women make these really hard decisions and then seeing so many of them make it, it's kind of inspiring," she says. "And it's actually made me think about it, possibly."

But what about doubt? I ask Clark, "Do you think you'll have any regrets?" She pauses, then shakes her head slowly.

"I met the person for me," she says. "I've been known by him forever. And I've known him more or less throughout my life. And now I know that this is where I'm called to."

Clark, like the nearly 300 other Nashville Dominicans, is called to the unbending rhythms of prayer and silence and worship. With their long habits and disciplined regime, these conservative sisters are, it seems, the new radical.